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Background Information[]
Toby is a fictional steam tram locomotive created by the Rev. W. Awdry. Toby lives and works on the North Western Railway as their No. 7 engine.
He first appeared in The Railway Series book, Toby the Tram Engine, which was published in 1952. His last appearance was in Thomas and his Friends, published in 2011.
Front of Toby:
Rear of Toby:
In Thomas Comes Home, the illustrations of "Toby's Megatrain" show Toby with a face at the rear cab as well as the front cab. This is the only time in The Railway Series that Toby has been illustrated with two faces.
Toby is based on the GER C53/ LNER J70 Class 0-6-0T Wisbech steam tram.
Creation[]
The inspiration for Toby came to the Rev. W. Awdry in 1951, during his family's annual summer holiday in Gorleston, Norfolk. Wilbert and Christopher Awdry were wandering around nearby Great Yarmouth when they came upon a dilapidated tram engine, became friends with its crew and took some photographs of it. Both father and son were intrigued by what Wilbert would later describe as a "funny little engine with a queer shape". When the holiday was over, Wilbert began looking for ways to incorporate a tram engine into The Railway Series.
Further inspiration came shortly afterwards from another tram engine. The Rev. Teddy Boston arranged for Wilbert to ride the footplate of one of the last surviving Wisbech and Upwell Tramway LNER J70 class tram engines. Wilbert was fascinated by the stories he heard about the tram engines, some of which he later incorporated into a series of articles about remarkable railways.
Wilbert considered authenticity vitally important and had his brother, George Awdry, research into a realistic way to incorporate Toby on Sodor. George researched into details of tramway regulations and came up with the solution of Thomas falling foul of the law on the Quarry Tramroad. Needing an engine that complies with the regulations, he sent for Toby. Wilbert incorporated his and Christopher's first encounter with a tram engine into the story by having the Fat Controller and his family discover Toby while on holiday. [1]
It is of note that Wilbert wanted to go on holiday to Tywyn in 1951, but Margaret Awdry had already booked the holiday to Gorleston. Had Wilbert visited Tywyn that year, it is possible Toby would never have been created in The Railway Series. [2]
Behind the Scenes[]
Awdry's models[]
In total, the Reverend completed three models of Toby, all of which were used on his Ffarquhar Branch Layout. A fourth Toby was considered at one point, but was never finished.
Awdry's first model of Toby was scratch-built in 1953. The body was built from 1mm-thick plywood and card, the cowcatchers from household pins, and the frame from brass pieces measured out, cut to shape and soldered together. It was mounted a Romford motor bogie. The body was painted GER chocolate brown and the sideplates blue.
While Toby is based upon the 0-6-0 LNER J70 class, Awdry based his model on the earlier, but very similar, 0-4-0 GER G15/LNER Y6 class, which was better suited for the four-wheeled motor-bogie he used to power the model. Since the last Y6 tram had been scrapped in 1952 and Wilbert had never seen one, Wilbert created his Toby using the official drawings, supplied by the Eastern Region's Stratford Works.
The Toby model was very popular at the 1956 Wisbech Trades Fair, where Wilbert first displayed his Ffarquhar layout, due to being based on a local engine. In July 1961, the magazine Railway Modeller published detailed instructions by Wilbert for building a model of Toby in a "Railway Modeller Shows You How!" section. At some point the lower two-thirds of the sideplates were repainted a darker blue, creating a two-tone blue livery.
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By 1965, a spare Toby was required and this was built from a Keyser kit of the J70. It was powered by a Keyser motor bogie which, after ten years, was not performing as well as it should, so a third Toby was made from a Keyser kit for the body, mounted on a cut down Tri-ang Nellie chassis.[3] A fourth Toby was considered at one point, but was never finished. The partially-painted K's kit components are preserved at the Narrow Gauge Railway Museum.
.jpg "Awdry'sTobyMk3(2019).jpg (128 KB)")
