James

James is Part of Thomas's Adventure Chronicles

## Bio in the **Television Series**

James arrived on the North Western Railway sometime before Thomas' arrival, and was originally painted black and wore wooden brake blocks, which were prone to burning up and emitting smoke when stopping. He originally owned Annie and Clarabel and believed that he would be given his own branch line, although the other engines doubted this.

When Thomas came to Sodor, James teased him on several occasions for making mistakes, often joining in with Gordon to make fun of him. However, one day, James ran out of control with a goods train and was unable to stop due to his brake blocks being on fire. Thomas chased after the train and tried to slow it down, but James flew off a bend and crashed in a field, the crash badly damaging him. Thomas rushed back to Knapford and retrieved Jerome and Judy, who helped to clear away the wreckage and placed James back on the rails. James was sent to the Steamworks to be mended, where he received his new red livery. Upon returning from the Steamworks, James found out that Annie and Clarabel now belonged to Thomas, who had been given the responsibility of running the Ffarquhar Branch Line.[10]

## Personality

James is very proud of his splendid red paintwork. He hates pulling trucks, and believes that he should only pull coaches. He thinks himself superior to the others, and can be shallow, boastful, naughty, and vain, particularly to those who appear old-fashioned, weak, slow, or dirty. This has caused him to have somewhat of a rivalry with Toby. However, on a number of occasions, he has found himself in need of help from those whom he has insulted and is, in the end, apologetic.

James was the last engine to retain a prejudice against diesels. However, after stalling on a cold day, he was rescued by the Works Diesel, and James had to admit that nothing was wrong with diesels. This appears to be one of the few lessons that has stuck.

Since Season 17, James has also been portrayed as a prankster, often tricking or scaring his colleagues for fun, or to get out of something he dislikes. Following a particularly mean-spirited prank he played on Percy in Tale of the Brave, this gimmick seems to have died down.

Despite everything else, James has shown a caring side, is normally hard-working, and like everybody else, wants to be a responsible, reliable and really useful engine on Sir Topham Hatt's railway

## Trivia

* A large scale working replica of James was built by BBC Visual Effects for a tour in 2003, along with Thomas, Percy, Harold and Jack. The battery powered locomotive is listed in the 2004 Guinness Book of Records as the largest model railway engine ever built, at 2.64 x 1.5 x 6.52 metres.
* James is named after James Furze, a friend of the son of the man who published the second book in the *Railway Series*.
* James was illustrated into *The Three Railway Engines* as the red engine who tried to push Henry out of the tunnel. However, children began sending letters to Awdry asking why James was painted red prior to the events of *Thomas the Tank Engine*. Awdry then decided to make the Red Engine a new character altogether.
* In the first season, James was formally introduced in *Thomas and the Breakdown Train*, which was said to have been his first day on the railway. However, he had appeared in every prior episode as a background character. This may have been done to populate the sets, similar to how the Märklin Engine was used in later episodes.
* James has been painted in more liveries than any other engine in the television series, with a total of four.
* Andrew Brenner has said in an interview that James is one of his favourite characters, along with Toby, Bill and Ben.
* In *Toby's New Whistle*, James revealed that he once had a three-chime steam whistle.
* Although he is now has the same voice actor in both dubs, James speaks with a different accent in each; he speaks with an American accent in the US dub, but speaks with an English accent in the UK dub. He is the second character in the show to be in this situation, the first being Belle.