James

James is a protagonist and a member of The New Action Squad.

## **BIOGRAPHY**

James was designed by George Hughes and built by Horwich Works at some point in 1912. He was designed as an experimental variation of the Class 28 locomotives, with a front pony truck installed at the front and 5'6" sized driving wheels instead of the class' usual 5'1". These were added in an attempt to cure the "nose-diving" the class experienced when travelling at high speed. The experiment did not entirely produce the results hoped for and after the Grouping, James was sold to the North Western Railway. Shortly after he arrived on the Island of Sodor, James was damaged in a crash when his trucks pushed him down the line and his wooden brake blocks caught on fire. After being recovered from the wreck, James was sent to Crovan's Gate Works, where he was repaired, repainted into a new red livery and gained functional brakes. He presumably gained his Fowler tender around this time.

When James returned from the Works, he became vain and troublesome. While double-heading a passenger train with Edward, he accidentally showered water on the Fat Controller's new top hat, almost forgot to stop at the station and disturbed an elderly lady with his hiccups. After being threatened by the Fat Controller with a coat of blue paint, James became grumpy and started bumping the coaches around aggressively, though this backfired on him when one of the brake pipes began leaking and needed to be mended with a bootlace and some newspapers. Following this incident, James was shut up in the shed until he could learn his lesson. When he was finally let out by the Fat Controller, James was assigned to pulling a goods train to Killdane. Although he had some trouble when some of the trucks broke away, James managed to keep the train under control and deliver it to the station and was allowed to keep his red paint after the Fat Controller had seen everything.

Outside of Sodor, he is also a member of The New Action Squad.

## **APPEARANCE**

James is based on the L&YR Class 28, a class of 0-6-0 mixed-traffic tender locomotive designed by George Hughes for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway and built by Horwich Works between 1909 and 1912. It was a rebuild of Aspinall's Class 27, with the addition of a Belpaire firebox, a Schmidt/"twin-plug" superheater and the extension of the footplate and front sandboxes.

According to *The Island of Sodor: Its People, History and Railways*, James is an experimental member of the Class 28s; he is fitted with a front pony truck (thus making him a 2-6-0 instead of an 0-6-0), 5'6" driving wheels instead of the class' original 5'1" ones and a Fowler tender. His front sandboxes also appear to be mounted underneath his footplate rather than joined to his leading splashers.

The Rev. W. Awdry's original model of James was modified from that of a G&SWR 403 Class 2-6-0 and materials related to Awdry's model layout indicate this was originally considered to be James' prototype.

One of the red tender engines is also based on this design.

James is painted in NWR red with black lining and gold boiler bands. His dome is brass and his number is painted on the sides of his tender in yellow with black lining. In the *Railway Series*, James' black lining became blue after *Main Line Engines*. Between *James the Red Engine and Oliver the Western Engine* his roof colour was inconsistently illustrated as either black or red; however, since Clive Spong became illustrator, James has been consistently illustrated with a red cab roof.

## **PERSONALITY**

James is very proud of his splendid red paintwork. He dislikes pulling trucks and believes that he should only pull coaches. He is so self-centred that he thinks himself superior to the others and can be shallow, boastful, overconfident, arrogant, prideful, 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 Edward, Percy, Toby and Duck, as well as Thomas, Gordon, Henry and even Philip lately on occasion. In most cases, it takes scolding from others to make his penny drop, and even then it is too late to prevent trouble. He has acted like this even before he was repainted red. 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 of the steam engines to retain a prejudice against diesels, insulting them the same way other visiting diesels would insult the steam engines on Sodor, with BoCo and Bear barely being spared from his opinionated view. However, after stalling on a cold day, he was rescued by the Works Diesel and had to admit that nothing was wrong with diesels. This appears to be one of the few lessons that have stuck. Despite this, James can remain highly opinionated on someone's character, refusing to believe Sonny had given up life as a criminal, only to find out the hard way that when Sonny bumped him at the docks, it was to save him from being splattered and dented by watermelons. In similar situations, James often feels remorse and guilt for his actions, often leading to his apologies coming out meekly.

James has also been portrayed as a prankster, often tricking or scaring the other engines for fun or to get out of jobs he dislikes doing. However, following a particularly mean-spirited prank he played on Percy in the time he scared with a monster made of scrap, this gimmick seems to have died down. As of the meeting videos, he has been labelled as the "Joker" of the Steam Team by Thomas.

Despite all of that, James has shown a caring side to him. He has a heart of gold and wants to help anyone in a time of need. He is normally hard-working and, like everyone else, wants to be responsible, reliable and really useful on Sir Topham Hatt's railway. Although his vanity usually hides it, James actually is capable of realizing when he crosses the line.

## **TRIVIA**

* James is named after James Furze, a friend of Edmund Ward's son.
* James's catchphrase "Here's James!" seems to be a reference to Jack Torrance's catchphrase "Here's Johnny!" which is heard in the famous 1980 horror film *The Shining*.
* James was originally illustrated in *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*. In response, Awdry decided to make the Red Engine a completely different character altogether.
* In *Sodor: Reading Between the Lines*, James is said to have been sold to the NWR in 1923; this creates anachronisms with events laid out in *The Island of Sodor: Its People, History and Railways*.
* In the first series, 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.
* 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 has been shown to be quite popular among several people who worked on the series:
	+ Andrew Brenner has said in an interview that James is one of his favourite characters, along with Toby, Bill and Ben.
	+ Mara Wilson stated on Twitter that James was her favourite character.
	+ Sam Barlow has said in an interview that James is one of his favourite characters, along with Gordon, Victor and Kevin.