Stanley

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* I

> He was bigger, stronger and shinier than Thomas. - The narrrator describing Stanley during his introduction scene.
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**Stanley** is a silver tank engine. He works as both a shunting engine and a mixed-traffic engine.

## History

### Thomas & Friends

Stanley was brought to Sodor to take care of Thomas' workload during the restoration of Great Waterton, which had to be ready by Sodor Day. Upon his arrival, Stanley became very popular and enjoyed the company of the engines.

Stanley's popularity caused Thomas to feel jealous and later neglected. Thomas felt that Stanley was newer, bigger and stronger than him and that he would take over his place on the railway. Thomas ended up planning to make Stanley look weak - the trick backfired and caused Thomas' friends to consider him mean and incompetent.

When Thomas later went missing, Stanley was the first to realise Thomas' feelings. He searched for Thomas until he finally managed to find him in a ditch and rescue him. Then, both became friends and with a combined effort made it back to Great Waterton in time to prepare for the opening celebrations.

Stanley later worked in the yards with Thomas and James during the winter and helped with the rebuilding of the Sodor River Bridge. Also, he went to Great Waterton with Gordon to pick up passengers and when Gordon bumped into a flatbed being pushed by Ben, he warned Stanley about the fallen logs just in time.

Stanley was amongst the engines at Knapford who were worried about Percy's whereabouts when Percy was spending all his time with the Diesels at the Dieselworks. Later on in the winter, he suffered from a faulty firebox and Thomas came to his aid once again.

More recently, Stanley can be seen working at the Shunting Yards, the China Clay Works and Ffarquhar Quarry. Salty also mentioned that Stanley (in one of his spooky stories) was an old engine who lost his flatbeds while climbing a hill and ever since then his flatbeds have been stated to haunt the rails. When Samson backed onto Gordon's express coaches by accident when he was told to take the stone to the Blue Mountain Quarry, Stanley tried to inform Samson that he had made a mistake. The cabless tank engine, however, refused to listen to Stanley while proving not to make another mistake.

Stanley was also one of the engines told about the rumour of Toby being scrapped.

He later helped with the construction of the Harwick Branch Line and was also the first engine to cross the unstable track that the Pirate Ship was under.

Stanley also shunted a train of shiny branch line coaches for James one day, who was being his usual self; vain and overconfident. When James was asked to take waste trucks to Whiff's Waste Dump, he questioned Stanley why he could not pull nice shiny coaches, to which Stanley told him that Edward took them instead.

Stanley was also one of the many engines who wanted to go to the Great Railway Show. Like most engines, however, he was not chosen and was left on Sodor to do the other engines' jobs.

When the Diesels at the Dieselworks were put out of action, Stanley and Rosie worked hard to shunt the trucks.

### Lukeillie's Series

Stanley was one of the engines who went to ask Cranky questions on "Ask Cranky Day". He was later one of the engines captured by the Philip Army but was later rescued once the Philips were defeated. He suggested to Duck that he could use Hector to make the Troublesome Trucks behave. Stanley was one of the engines impressed with Whiff's new glasses.

## Personality

Stanley is the "boy-next-door" of Sir Topham Hatt's Railway. Cool, courteous and cheery, he is a little bit bigger, a little bit newer and a little bit stronger than Thomas. This, at first, made Thomas jealous when all focus seemed to be on this shiny, new arrival, especially when he began helping with the restoration of Great Waterton. However, even Thomas was soon won over by Stanley's positive attitude, charm and friendliness and came to see why he was so popular and well-liked among the other engines. As such, Thomas and Stanley are now firm friends.

Stanley is incredibly compassionate and empathic: there is nothing he would not do for another engine. And if he cannot do it, he will find someone who could. He is sleek, smart and stylish and his silver and light grey appearance, striking red wheels and shining smokebox certainly makes him look the part as he eagerly goes about his work.

## Livery

Stanley is painted in a silver-grey livery with a metallic silver smokebox, red wheels and lining. He has a red running plate with a dark grey base coat and has red nameplates with his name in silver on each side of his saddle tank.

## Appearances

* Season 1 - Gordon the Tanker (*cameo*), Ask Cranky Day (*cameo*) and Hector Takes Charge
* Season 2 - New Glasses for Whiff (*cameo*) and Ryan's New Friend (*cameo*)
* Specials - Attack of the Philips

## Trivia

* Stanley's popularity with the public has grown following a YouTube video called "A Toy Train in Space", in which a 2008 Wooden Railway toy of him was sent into the stratosphere, and multiple Wooden Railway Stanley's were sold. As a result, Take-n-Play, Collectible Railway and Adventures "Stanley in Space" toys have been released.
* Stanley is one of the few characters to never have been the main character of a *Thomas & Friends* episode.
* His normal whistle is Thomas', but five steps lower-pitched.
* He is the only character to be introduced in *The Great Discovery*.
* Stanley is the last character to be introduced in the full Model Series, as he was introduced before the show's transition to partial CGI.
* Stanley has had a different voice actor in the US dub for almost every single one of his speaking roles. This makes him the first character to not have a consistent voice actor in one of the English dubs, until Rob Rackstraw took over for him from Series 20-23, with the exception of yet another voice actor, John Schwab, in *Pouty James*.
	+ Even when his voice actor is consistent, his voice never sounds the same in each appearance.
* Stanley's theme is heard in two scenes of the twelfth series episode, *Heave Ho Thomas!*, despite not appearing in that episode.
* According to Michael White, Stanley was going to be fully removed from the series after Series 22 until he told Ian McCue about Stanley's fan following online.

## Quotes

> WELCOME STANLEY! - The engines praising Stanley in The Great Discovery.
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