Percy

**Percy** is a little green saddle tank engine who was brought to Sodor to help run the railway during the big engines' strike. He is Thomas' best friend and one of the youngest engines on the North Western Railway and is quite cheeky, often getting himself into trouble with his attempts to play tricks on the other engines. Percy's favourite job is to deliver the mail and he works on Thomas' Branch Line as a goods engine.

## Appearance

Percy is painted green like Henry and Duck. He has four small wheels, green piston cylinders, a tall black funnel, a short dome and a brass whistle. He also has two round windows on his cab. And he has the number six painted on his coal bunker.

## Personality

Percy is a rather cheeky, but kind engine. He normally behaves well, yet he also gets himself in trouble by jumping into situations without adequately thinking them through first. He loves teasing other engines, especially bigger ones such as Gordon and James, but is always brought down to earth in due course by anyone who gives him the moral to learn, especially the Fat Controller. He can also be somewhat timid.

Percy can also be questionable and naive to certain difficult words: he would say "dingy-fried" whereas anyone else would say "dignified", "dimmer-station" instead of "demonstration", "inspectacles" instead of "inspector", etc.

Percy is incredibly accident-prone and has many accidents, sometimes due to his own silliness or his tricks backfiring. He holds the dubious record of the most accidents in one series - five; all of which happened in the second series - crashing into some buffers, falling into the sea, being pushed onto a brake van, colliding with a cart of lime and being hit by a falling crate of treacle. His silliest accident to date, however, was in the sixth series, when he slipped on oily rails and crashed through the chocolate factory and emerged covered in chocolate. Despite this, he always tries to do his best, learns from his mistakes and get his jobs done, a loyalty which Sir Topham Hatt has praised him for on many occasions.

Although their friendship has been turbulent at times, Thomas is Percy's best friend. He is also good friends with Toby. While he has a small rivalry with Harold stemming from their race, they are always willing to help each other when in trouble.

Percy can also be seen as an easy target for teasing by the big engines, especially whenever he has an accident or when he is afraid of something. He also has held a grudge from them about their tricking him into misinterpreting a signal but silenced this with some help from Duck. This shows that, when nonsense goes too far, Percy will not stand for it and seek help to settle the matter for good, even if he faces a reprimanding from Sir Topham Hatt for it.

During the CGI series, Percy became wiser, and a little less cheekier. This could be because he learnt his lesson for being cheeky or because he didn't want get in trouble again. In the CGI series, Percy and Thomas' friendship expanded and they hardly ever argued.

## Technical Details

Percy is an 0-4-0 saddle tank believed to have been built by the Avonside Engine Company of Bristol, but prior to being purchased second or third hand by Sir Topham Hatt he acquired components from Hunslet of Leeds and other builders.

## Trivia

* Percy is the only engine who is known to have been named by Sir Topham Hatt.
* Percy is the first engine in the series to have only four wheels.
* He is also the first character other than Thomas to be the protagonist in a special, with that special being Day of the Diesels, which he would later do again in Tale of the Brave.
* In Thomas and the Rumours, Percy is stated to have a branch line, though it may have been mistaken for Thomas' Branch Line.
* Percy was featured on the 1986 single cover along with Rheneas of Oh L'amour, a song by English synthpop duo Erasure.
* Percy's special friends is Dora, Boots McGee, Gretchen & Squirt.