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Background Information[]
The Railway Series[]
Percy is a fictional standard gauge saddle tank locomotive created by the Rev. W. Awdry. He is the No. 6 engine on the North Western Railway.
He first appeared in The Railway Series book, Troublesome Engines, which was published in 1950. His last appearance was in Thomas and his Friends, published in 2011.
Front of Percy:
Rear of Percy:
Green Caterpillar[]
The Reverend W. Awdry and C. Reginald Dalby did not get along very well. Awdry considered Dalby's drawings "toy-like"; this relationship was worsened by the creation of Percy. When Percy the Small Engine was published, Awdry wrote to Dalby, criticising his illustrations and claiming Percy resembled "a green caterpillar with red stripes". This was too much for Dalby and he promptly resigned. However, the insult was not forgotten: Thomas called Percy "a green caterpillar with red stripes" in Tramway Engines as well as the televised second series episode, Woolly Bear.
Arrival[]
It is debated Percy arrived in 1926. The Island of Sodor: Its People, History and Railways states that Percy was made the station pilot at Tidmouth in 1949, somewhat implying that he arrived on Sodor in that year. However, Henry is said to have been rebuilt in 1935 and Percy makes several appearances before Henry's overhaul. This suggests that either Henry was rebuilt later on or that Percy arrived before 1935. A post on SiF states that Christopher Awdry affirmed the arrival date in The Island of Sodor: Its People, History and Railways to be incorrect and that Percy came to Sodor before 1935.
Behind the Scenes[]
Awdry's models[]
The Reverend originally only made one model of Percy for use on his Ffarquhar Branch and Knapford layouts. Due to this model's tendency to stall at model exhibitions, however, a second, 'Spare Percy' was eventually also made.
The original Percy was kit bashed from a Larko Dockland saddle tank body kit and the 'Spare Percy' from a Tri-ang 'Nellie'; in the 1980 annual the Reverend wrote:
"I built Percy in 1949 (the year I wrote Troublesome Engines - the book in which Percy first appears) and I soldered him together out of brass and other parts cut and filed to shape. I wanted another engine - Thomas was then the only one I had - and I also wanted a model of Percy to help our then artist draw his pictures; but the artist did not pay much attention, so my Percy - the proper one - looks different from the Percy in the books. Stewart Reidpath made a chassis for me and fitted it with one of his motors, so Percy is sometimes as temperamental as Thomas and for the same reason. He will run and shunt beautifully for weeks on end and then suddenly and for no apparent reason, decide to be 'awkward'. This can be exasperating, especially at exhibitions. He did this at Nottingham Exhibition 1978 and the only thing to do then was to use my 'Spare Percy' which I had made for just such an emergency.
To make 'Spare Percy' I cut out the boiler and side tanks from a Tri-ang 'Nellie' and filled the resulting space between the cab and smokebox with a section of saddle tank cut from an Airfix kit. The outside cylinders came from another Airfix kit and were cemented to 'Nellie's' metal frames with Evostick. I fitted scale size wheels in place of 'Neillie's' rather clumsy ones and filled up the body with plasticine. The good wheels and extra weight has made 'Spare Percy' into a smooth running engine almost as good as the real Percy in his best moments".
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.
