Godred

Godred is a purple mountain engine. He was based on the Snowdon Mountain Railway No. 1, L.A.D.A.S.. Godred suffered a similar fate to L.A.D.A.S which derailed on the Snowdon Mountain Railway's opening day. The fate of Godred is debatable – although the tale as recounted by Culdee (in the story 'Bad Look-Out') claims that he was dismantled for spare parts, at the end of the story it is stated that Culdee had made the whole thing up. However, all other canon sources support Culdee's version of events, leaving the reality uncertain. The most likely real world explanation is that the Rev. W. Awdry wished for his fictional railway to mirror its real life counterpart as closely as possible. However, as this would involve the "death" of a character, he chose to end it as he did in order to avoid causing distress to his readers.

Nb: L.A.D.A.S' accident in 1896 was caused by subsidence of the track leading to the pinion wheel disengaging - this was corrected by fitting guard-bars to the rack-rail. Since the Culdee Fell Railway opened four years later it seems likely that guard-bars would have been required by the Board of Trade from the outset, implying a different sequence of events caused the derailment, somehow disengaging both the pinion wheels and the gripper fitted to the engine which connects with the guard-bars to prevent such an event.