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Background Information[]
The Railway Series[]
Catherine is a fictional narrow gauge mountain coach created by the Rev. W. Awdry. She works with Culdee and belongs to the is the Culdee Fell Railway. She is the only known named mountain coach in The Railway Series.
In the main book series, Catherine only appears in Mountain Engines - published 1964. However, her last illustrated appearance was in the Famous Engines, and was last mentioned in Sodor: Reading Between the Lines published in 2005. According to Christopher Awdry, the reason there are no more books about the Culdee Fell Railway is due to the safety precautions and limited traffic - meaning no more story opportunities.
Front of Catherine:
Rear of Catherine:
Catherine is based on the Snowdon Mountain Railway's No. 4 coach. It is a 56-seater saloon coach. This coach appears in the 1979 annual. Like her basis, Catherine is painted in an orange livery with cream window surrounds and a grey rooftop. In addition, Gunvor and Peter Edwards based their illustrations from various Snowdon photographs and postcards of the 1990s to 1960s.
Television Series[]
Mountain Engines was the first book of the Railway Series not to have any of its stories televised. According to an interview with Robert Gauld-Galliers, this could be attributed to limited storylines, rack-and-pinion track, the engines' strange-angled body, and being not very merchandisable[1]. However, since 1998 to 2015, Catherine has appeared in various Thomas & Friends magazines, merchandise ranges and other media.
In 2012, the Culdee Fell Railway was mentioned in a Blue Mountain Mystery promotional video about the differences between the narrow and standard gauge. In a 2015 interview, Sam Wilkinson stated the "Culdee Fell Railway have always been on the list to be created, ever since I joined, but these would always require a lot of time, resources, and money to create. Also there is no live-action reference so everything would have to be done from scratch". Sadly, this never came to fruition[2].
In the Railway Series, Catherine is distinguishable from the other Culdee Fell Coaches with her flat-front window surround and ticket-box above her face. However, her Thomas & Friends promotional artwork and ERTL model depict her with a slanted-window surround, a white horizontal line on her middle window, and no ticket-box. This is because the illustrator incorrectly used Lord Harry's coach for reference. Catherine's Wooden Railway toy incorrectly depicts her with the "Truck"'s body. In the magazines, Catherine has buffers, eyelashes and lipstick.
