Percy

## Percy the Small Engine

### Aliases

Green Caterpillar with Red Stripes (by Thomas)Goody Goody Tell-Tale/Tattletale (by Diesel along with Duck)

Useless Little Bug(s) (by Cranky along with Thomas)

Mite(s) (by Cranky along with Thomas)

Steaming Lump of Scrap Iron (by Lorry 2)

Little Green Goblin on Wheels (by Lorry 1)

Partner (by The Tumbleweed along with Thomas)

Little Green Piggy In The Middle (by 'Arry and Bert)

Slow Coach/Pokey Percy (by James)

Dirty Percy (by Gordon, Thomas and the trucks)

Road Hog (by Bulgy)

Pouty Puffer (by James)

Pudding/Bon Bon Percy (by James)

Choc-ice on wheels (by Henry)

Scaredy Engine (by Thomas and James)

Worry Wheels (by Gordon)

Fussy Funnel (by James)

Silly Tank Engine (by Salty and Cranky along with Thomas)

Little Percy

## Appearances

### Portrayed by

Linda Ballantyne (Thomas and the Magic Railroad)Keith Wickham (UK: 2009-2015)

Nigel Pilkington (UK: 2015-2020)

Christopher Ragland (US: 2016; singing voice)

### Debut

Trouble in the Shed (T&F)

**Percy** is a little green saddle tank engine who was brought to Sodor to help run the railway during Gordon, Henry and James' strike. He is one of the youngest engines on Sodor and he is also Thomas' best friend 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 a small saddletank engine with four wheels. He's painted in NWR apple green with red and yellow lining like Henry. Percy has two piston cylinders, a high pitched whistle and his number 6 is painted on the sides of his cab in yellow with red lining and the lining around his cab windows is yellow.

## 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 naïve 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 the Fat Controller 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 the Fat Controller for it.

During the CGI series, Percy became slightly 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. Despite his increased maturity, Percy still falls victim to occasional bouts of naivety and misunderstandings.

## Trivia

* One of Percy's models is currently on display in Japan at the Hara Model Railway Museum and is wearing his smiling face mask (previously on display at Nitrogen Studios), along with his large-scale model used for the spin-off series, The Pack (previously on display at Thomas Town). Three of Percy's face masks are also in possession of Twitter user ThomasTankMerch.
* Percy is the only engine who is known to have been named by the Fat Controller.
* Percy is the first engine in the series to have only four wheels.
* Percy was the first character to have toys made of him, with Meccano releasing an O gauge clockwork Percy set in 1965.
* Percy has been shown to be quite popular among several people who worked on the series:
	+ According to Abi Grant on her website, Percy is her favourite character.
	+ Britt Allcroft also stated he was her favourite character (due to him being green and cheeky).
	+ Percy is also Mark Moraghan's favourite character, alongside Cranky.
* Percy is 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.
* His whistle in the US version of Thomas and Stepney was reused for Stanley in the twelfth series.
* He is one of the few characters created by Wilbert Awdry who is not precisely based on a real engine.
* Percy was featured on the 1986 single cover along with Rheneas of Oh L'amour, a song by English synthpop duo Erasure.
* In a 2020 Australian Red Nose Day advertisement, a child is seen playing with a 2014 My First Percy and an Ertl Gordon.
* Percy's third series whistle sound was reused for Toby in the fourth series episodes Bulls Eyes and Special Attraction and it was also used for Logan in Welcome to the Island of Sodor, Logan!
* Percy has the same whistle sound as Edward's, however it is an octave higher in pitch.
* The outline of Percy's Hornby Model, was featured in the introduction sequence of the first season of James May's Man Lab.
* Percy is the only current Steam Team member not to have lining on the back of his bunker or tender.
* Two voice actors were recorded for Percy In South Korea.
* Percy's Gauge 1 model had a total of nineteen facial expressions during the model series era, two of which (different smiling and alternative astonished) were not used on-screen:
* His Pack Scale model had a total of six facial expressions, two of which were not used on-screen.

## Quotes

* **Don't call me "Dirty Percy!"**
* **You should hear them in the workshop. You have to wheesh loudly to make yourself heard.**
* **A really useful engine should never be surprised by surprise.**