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Background Information
Edward is a fictional standard gauge tender locomotive created by the Rev. W. Awdry. He was the first character created for The Railway Series. Edward lives and works on the North Western Railway as their No. 2 engine.
He first appeared in The Railway Series book, The Three Railway Engines, which was published in 1945. His last appearance was in Thomas and his Friends, published in 2011.
Front of Edward:
Rear of Edward:
Creation
The inspiration for Edward himself came from the Rev. W. Awdry watching trains on the Great Western Railway as a child. He said in an interview with Brian Sibley for The Thomas the Tank Engine Man that, to him, the noise of the locomotives' exhaust almost sounded like dialogue - for example, the larger engine having trouble climbing the hills would appear to be saying, "I can't do it, I can't do it" and the smaller engine helping them would sound like it was saying, "I will do it! I will do it! I will do it!" The smaller engine would become the inspiration for Edward and the larger engine would become the inspiration for Gordon.[1]
In 1942, the Reverend Awdry told his son Christopher a bedtime story about an engine who was sad because he was never taken out of the shed for being old. Upon being asked what the engine's name was by his son, the Reverend Awdry picked the name "Edward" out of thin air.
Behind the Scenes
Wooden model
Before Awdry made Christopher the wooden model of Thomas in 1942, previously that year, Awdry had made a wooden model of Edward for Christopher. However, Christopher apparently wanted a model of Gordon; but this could not be done.
It is unknown what happened to this model.
Awdry's model
The Rev. W. Awdry's original model of Edward for his OO model railway was created using an LMS Class 2P. The model was manufactured by K.M.R. and repainted blue by Awdry, with little to no other modifications.
As of 2023, Edward's model alongside Thomas, Annie and Clarabel's models, have been put on display at Drayton Manor Theme Park under loan from the Talyllyn Railway.
P.R. Wickham's model
Edmund Ward had commissioned P.R. Wickham to produce models based on Engines 1-6 (Thomas, Edward, Henry, Gordon, James and Percy) around the early 1950's and were featured in an article titled "The Locomotive Family", featured in the March 1953 issue of Model Maker Magazine. These models were made in 7mm scale and were unpowered due to the lack of motors, although they did prove to be guides for the illustrators to work with and the designs were based on C. Reginald Dalby's original illustrations.
1953 BBC Model
An OO scale model of Edward was created in 1953 for the BBC's television adaptation of The Sad Story of Henry.
Meccano Ltd. (who manufactured the Hornby locomotives) supplied three OO scale Duchess of Atholl models and a tank engine which were first sent to the publisher's offices in Leicester to be "lightly modified" by P.R. Wickham in order to create the engines for the broadcast. He painted two of the engines into different colours and rebuilt two from Balsa wood, much to Meccano's surprise (they had only approved of faces being added). Wilbert Awdry said that the models are "similar if not almost identical to the illustrations".