Daisy

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> Look at me! I am the latest diesel, highly sprung, and right up to date. You won't want Thomas' bumpy old Annie and Clarabel now. - Daisy
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**Daisy** is a green diesel railcar who came to work on the Ffarquhar Branch Line after Thomas crashed into the Stationmaster's house. In the television series, she now works on the Harwick Branch Line carrying out passenger duties, while Ryan runs the goods duties.

## History

### The Railway Series

Daisy was built especially for service on the Ffarquhar Branch Line. After Thomas was sent to the Works to have his bufferbeam repaired in 1960, Daisy arrived to do his work. Daisy was nasty to Henrietta, Annie and Clarabel, refused to sleep in the Ffarquhar engine sheds on the grounds that it was "smelly" and blatantly refused to pull freight because it was "bad for her swerves". Daisy later called Toby cowardly for having side plates and cowcatchers and claimed that one only needed to "toot and look them in the eye" to shoo animals away. This, of course, was proven false when Daisy tried to shoo an inquisitive bull named Champion and ended up being humiliated. The Fat Controller discovered that Daisy was lazing about and spoke to her sternly, saying that lazy engines were not welcome on his railway, but he gave her a second chance after Daisy helped clear up the mess made when Percy crashed into a train of stone. Daisy promised to change her ways.

In 1962, after Douglas claimed all diesels were "devils", Percy used Daisy as an example of a good diesel to try and change his opinions about them.

Once, Mavis sought Daisy's advice about how to show Toby that her method of doing things was correct. This was not exactly the best move, as Daisy knew next to nothing about trucks.

In the latter half of 1990 and the former half of 1991, Daisy was put in charge of Thomas' fast run to Knapford while Thomas was in York. Daisy later claimed that she was not afraid of snow, but changed her mind after getting stuck in a snowdrift for a week.

When Thomas finally returned from York, Daisy was given charge of a special train to bring guests to Knapford for the welcome-home party but was delayed after running over some cones left inside the crossing gates at Dryaw crossing. She only just made it in time.

In 1993, Daisy - along with Thomas, Percy and Toby - saw Wilbert off when he returned to Gloucestershire.

While the Railway was preparing for the Golden Jubilee of the Railway Series in 1995, Daisy became stranded on the Main Line when the stretch before Dryaw was declared unsafe as rabbits had burrowed beneath it and so she was given the task of ferrying passengers from the airfield to Knapford. She later tried to cheer Henry up when he started to worry about the Golden Jubilee.

In 2007, Daisy teased Percy for being afraid of grass snakes but was humiliated when she blew a fuse out of fright when a crate of eels dropped beneath her.

In 2011, Daisy attended the ceremony where the bust of the Thin Clergyman was unveiled at Tidmouth.

### Thomas & Friends

Daisy's introduction in the television series was directly adapted from *The Railway Series* and happened virtually the same way. Her model was also used as a generic diesel in the fourth series.

During the steam and diesel engines rivalry, Daisy was one of the diesels who joined the meeting at the Coaling Plant and later helped Toby take the workmen to build the Sodor Airport.

When building of the Harwick Branch Line was completed, Daisy was transferred there to manage its passenger trains, with Ryan managing the goods. She encouraged Ryan to help her out with some of her passenger duties, but her laziness backfired when Ryan took on even more of her responsibilities and ended up causing confusion and delay. Daisy apologised and agreed to do Ryan's extra duties for a while: taking trucks to and from the Quarry.

The Fat Controller asked Daisy to take some special passengers to the holiday town of Harwick, but she decided that they were so special that she did not want to allow children eating ice lollies on board and refused to pull a dusty baggage truck. However, these turned out to be the props and the audience. Without them, the puppeteers' Punch and Judy puppet show could not go ahead. With no time to go back to the station to get the props, the puppeteers put on their performance from one of Daisy's windows.

She was finally able to pull rolling stock without worrying about her swerves when The Fat Controller asked her to pull Annie and Clarabel on Thomas' Branch Line, as passenger services on the Harwick line dried up in the winter and Thomas was on quarry duty. The coaches paid her back for saying rude things to them by convincing her she was falling apart when there was actually nothing wrong with her. However, their plan backfired as Daisy panicked and abandoned them with their passengers at Maithwaite so she could speak to a professional. She returned to Harwick soon after.

After years of scarcely no accidents, Daisy derailed when a bull blocked her way back to the Arlesburgh Yard Sheds and Judy and Jerome had to help her get back on the tracks.

Diesel damaged Daisy's springs when he bumped into her and later - thinking that she was asleep - explained that it is his way to make friends. Diesel later told her that Harvey was boasting about being unique, which caused trouble between the two engines. At Christmas, Daisy was upset that Christmas was not going out as planned.

Sometime later, a storm damaged the Harwick school and Daisy had to take them to Knapford school. She complained about it so Duck later found Dexter so she did not have to take the children.

## Personality

Daisy is a diesel railcar, who has been known to consider herself "highly sprung and right up to date". She was brought to help run passenger services on Thomas' Branch Line, while Thomas was "indisposed" after running into the stationmaster's house. She can be hard to please, mostly indignant, and highly opinionated. She is extremely authoritative, trustworthy, and confident in herself and can sometimes boast of her abilities in particular situations, unconcerned, despite having never actually been in such a position before. She will sometimes presume she can show other engines a thing or two, despite knowing little on the matter, until she actually learns for herself.

After arriving on Sodor, Daisy insisted that she required delicate handling and considered pulling trucks and vans to be below her. She was very lazy and stubborn, but the Fat Controller spoke severely to her, telling her that his engines must work hard and that he sends lazy engines away. However, the Fat Controller felt she deserved another chance after she worked hard clearing up after an accident Percy had. Daisy is now good friends with the other engines on Thomas' Branch Line, tries to work much harder to be a Really Useful Engine and is better capable of handling things alone. She can be described as a self-obsessed diva and also vain about not wanting her interior be dirty one bit.

Despite changing for the better, Daisy is still snarky and irritable. During the steam engines’ feud with the diesels, she temporarily sided with the diesels in their hatred of all of the steam engines. Generally, though, Daisy is one of the more well-behaved diesels, as aside from minor squabbles she gets along with the Ffarquhar branch line residents rather well.

In newer episodes, Daisy was heard speaking French, such as when she said "Merci beaucoup" (Thank you very much) to Den and Dart after she was repaired, and when she used the terms to describe the entertainers she was to carry to Duck and Oliver, which indicates that she has knowledge in the French language as well. She also matured greatly in a number of recent episodes, as she rarely made brooding remarks or patronizing comments, and instead began trying to help others. Despite her increased maturity, Daisy's snobbish side is still very prevalent, as she still belittled Thomas, Annie, and Clarabel on more than one occasion.

## Livery

In *The Railway Series*, Daisy arrived on Sodor painted in the BR Brunswick green with yellow lining livery. The BR Cycling Lion crest is on her sides. This was the livery of BR DMUs in the 1960s.

In the television series she is painted in a much lighter shade of green. She wears makeup, including eyelashes, red lipstick, blush and blue eyeshadow.

In *The Railway Series*, Daisy's face is the same colour as her livery; in the television series, it is grey like all other engines.

Awdry's model of Daisy originally featured the standard BR DMU livery seen in Branch Line Engines, but yellow ends were later added to reflect the updated liveries that other DMUs had received later in the 1960s.

## Trivia

* The real life Class 101 DMU 101685 is named Daisy.
* In the television model series, Daisy and BoCo both share the same face casts and chassis.
* Daisy was the first female engine introduced in the series and likely the first diesel to permanently move to the Island of Sodor in the TV-Series, as Diesel was not purchased until much later. She is additionally, the first-diesel engine purchased by the NWR in the RWS.
* Some of the stories involving Daisy reflect events in real life that were faced by railway staff when it came to dealing with "highly sprung" diesel engines in the earlier phases of dieselisation.
* While Daisy has an embedded face in the Railway Series, she was given the traditional grey face masks in the television series. This was most likely to keep her similar to the rest of the engines.
* Daisy was originally going to have pink buffers before they were changed to white.
* Daisy's original horn sound from the second series was later reused for Mavis in the seventh series.
* According to HiT Toy Company Customer Service Representative Amy Ziniti, the reason why Daisy did not have a TrackMaster model was due to the company not deciding on as to whether she should have trucks or not, as she never pulled any in the TV series.
* According to concept art from *Sodor's* *Legend of the Lost Treasure*, Daisy was originally planned to have a gold nameplate underneath the windows near her front end in a matching style to Ryan. These were not carried over to her final CGI model for unknown reasons.