Thomas

The flagship of the Ffarquhar Branch line (possibly even the whole North Western Railway System), No. 1, more commonly known as Thomas, serves as an aid to Armand several times throughout the series.

2009-2010

 * Lela and the Fairies  - Thomas sides with Armand during the argument about whether fairies exist or not making him the secondary antagonist. He supports Armand throughout the story though there are times when he feels Armand might be acting a bit extreme.
 * Vita and the Mermaids  - As this story is being developed for a movie adaptation not much will be revealed.

2010-2011

 *  Willa' s Rainbow Connection  - Thomas once again sides with Armand though is starting to have his doubts about the boy's attitude towards his friends. Thomas's wheels are stolen by Julian and Lukas at one point, forcing him to take form as an ethereal human being to search for his wheels.
 * Magical Adventures:
 * 1)  Danielle' s Mermaid Tail  - Thomas is threatened by Spencer that he'll be turned in for the past association with fairies. Thomas later discovers the silver engine teaming with Diesel 10 to capture the mermaids. Thomas warns Armand but both are encountered by the Merminator later on. Thomas later leads his friends away from the villains in a chase.
 * 2)  Olenka' s Fairy Tale  - Armand turns to Thomas as a last resort when all his other friends are captured by Puck the Sprite. Thomas later accidentally singes Jack Frost, causing the winter sprite to get in a fury and unleash a magnificent blizzard which hits all of Europe.
 * Aqua Adventures:
 * 1)  Alisa' s Stories of the Water  - Thomas and Armand spy on Olenka and Rose Tui when they discover their powers to turn into selkies. Later Thomas, along with Lady and Hiro accompanies the kids back to the USA while the lines are still blocked from the blizzard. However the Merminator convinces the F.B.I. to capture the steam engines and take them to Area 51. The steam engines escape with the aid of Armand.
 * 2) Katherine and the Great Mermaid Escape  - Thomas and the other steam engines transport the merkids across the globe from America to Japan to Germany to France and finally to Great Britain. All the while the Merminator, Diesel 10, Spencer and the F.B.I are hunting them down.
 * Thea and the Leopardgirls  - Thomas is witness to some very fast objects shooting past them but doesn't know what they are. He later finds out the girls have become leopardalithropes
 * Alana and the Centaurettes  - Thomas sees Alana as a centaur from a distance. Not realizing who it is or what a centaur is, he reports his sightings back to Armand. Thomas asists Armand throughout most of this story. Towards the end Thomas is driven off a bridge and falls onto a dragon that had been chasing the girls.

2011-2012

 * Rachael and the Charge of the Mermaids  - Thomas is approached by the Little Engine That Could and the kids, who ask him to help them rescue Armand and Willa from the school which the Merminator dominated. Thomas later helps them escape from the Merminator and the Nightmare Train.
 * Amelia and the Western Mermaids  - Thomas is low on coal and doesn't have enough to get back to Sodor. So he and Lady are pushed by another engine.
 * Yaniv and the Railway Trains  -Thomas is delighted by the fact that the kids gained powers to turn into trains though his suspicions of Danielle as a diesel engine are very high. Later he and Little Engine save Armand, Willa and Tui from a nasty accident.
 * Dakota and the Vampire Trains  - Thomas journeys back in time with Little Engine, Willa and Armand but are horrified when they return to discover their fellow friends vampirised. Thomas and Little Engine help Armand travel back to fix everything.
 * Gabriel and the Railway Races  - Thomas is transferred to the railway featured in Starlight Express as Rusty's exchange. He then participates in the annual railway races with Buffy the Buffet Car as his partner.
 * The Wrath of Electra  - Thomas suffers from damage to his firebox and is forced to rest in the yard. Later he helps rescue Armand from the scrapyards and fights Electra's minions.

2012-2013

 * Battle of the Trains  - Thomas returns to Sodor bringing Rusty, Pearl and Buffy with him on their exchange transfer. Thomas later convinces Armand to tell Danielle and Taylor false stories to convince them to convert from electricity but also tells fibs to the said two resulting them to get in a fight and nearly attacking Electra. After Electra fries most of his branch line, Thomas and his fellow railway friends have to find work elsewhere while the line is being repaired.
 * The Hunt for Raven  - Still looking for a job, Thomas reluctantly agrees to help Armand hunt down Raven to avenge Willa.

Persona
Thomas is rather cheeky, but is good at heart and generally behaves well, except when he is getting into mishap. He loves teasing the other engines (and his Greem Meadow friends sometimes) and on occasion brags about his superiority, but is always brought down to earth in due course.

If Thomas has one character flaw, it's that he's forgetful, and slightly impatient. However, he is also optimistic and idealistic.

Friends
Thomas is friends with Armand. There is not a single time on Sodor when the pair are not seen together. Thomas also enjoys the company of the other kids though is not very keen on the more annoying ones. Thomas's best friend is Percy.

Relationships

 * Annie and Clarabel - Annie and Clarabel are Thomas's coaches and he loves them very much. Annie and Clarabel are respectful of all the engines, but most of all Thomas. They are his best friends and are quick to rebuke him when he gets troublesome.
 * Little Engine - When Thomas first meets the Little Engine That Could, he immediately gains a crush on her and befriends her quickly. In recent times the crush has subsided but they are still good friends.
 * Buffy is shown to have a crush on Thomas though at first it was suspected that it's only because of her flirtatious nature. She continually played with him and he got incredibly shy around her. However the more time she spent with him the more she realized that her feelings for him had matured. Once Thomas discovers this he realizes that deep down he too has feelings for her.

Enemies

 * The Merminator - Though not a goal for the Merminator to destroy Thomas often finds himself protecting his human friends from the psychopathic egomaniac.
 * Raven - Thomas despises this vampire after what she did to his friends.
 * Spencer - Thomas has a rivalry with Spencer, often trying to outshine the snobbish silver engine - largely without success.
 * Diesel 10 - Due to difficulties in the past, Thomas has a distrust towards Diesel 10.
 * The Nightmare Train - Thomas is terrified of this demonic engine, just seeing the monster will just put him into shock.
 * Evil Diesel - Thomas has a distrust and a dislike towards this oily engine, mainly because the latter is a liar and a trickster.
 * Electra - Thomas doesn't usually have a rivalry with electric engines but Electra just disgusts him.

Appearance
Thomas, for most of the series is seen as himself: a life-sized tank engine with blue paint, red stripes and yellow number 1 on his tank sides. He has builder's plates on the sides of his smokebox, NRM plates on his splashers and the North Western Heritage Railway crest on his bunker sides.

In Lela and the Fairies, Thomas was briefly turned into a fairy train; decorated with silk streamers, tiny fairy wings and flowers. He disliked the look and was soon restored to his original appearance.

In Willa's Rainbow Connection, Gabriel and the Railway Races, and The Wrath of Electra, Thomas takes on a human form and wears a steam-punk-esque costume similar to that of Rusty. In Willa's Rainbow Connection however he is in a ethereal form which in the others he is in solid form.

Historical Background
Thomas was designed by L. B. Billinton in 1913 and built by Brighton Locomotive Works in 1914 for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. The 0-6-0T was part of the railway’s order of 11 E2 class shunting engine, Thomas being an experimental engine for the later batch of five engines built with improvements such as extended side tanks.

Thomas’s service on the LB&SC was short-lived as in 1915; the then newly formed North Western Railway company loaned the little tank engine to help merge the old railway systems on Sodor into one major corporation, requiring either improving or rebuilding the track.

Thomas was a valuable asset in the construction of the Walney Channel Bridge, linking Sodor to the Mainland via Barrow-in-Furness and Vicarstown. Thomas worked alongside the NWR’s second locomotive, Edward, who was purchased from the relatively closer Furness Railway. When the bridge was completed the two engines went to work restoring the line. Both proving to be reliable engines, Edward and Thomas were purchased for ownership by the North Western Railway; Edward going to passenger service and Thomas shunting coaches for the mainline trains.

 1923 saw alternating periods of new privileges for Thomas, from pulling trains to yard duties in Wellsworth Junction yard where Edward mentored him about methods about pulling trains. Thomas later rescued NWR’s No. 5 from an accident, rewarding him with his own branchline; that being the Ffarquhar Branch. He has worked the line since then.

 In 1964 Thomas was involved in an accident which resulted with his front being badly distorted. Sir Charles Topham Hatt, then the controller of the North Western Railway sent him to the works at Crovan’s Gate to have him repaired. It was more of an overhaul rather than a repair job. Thomas gained an entirely new look from his old days, including a taller blastpipe, a straight running-board as opposed to the previous one which sloped at the ends, enlargement of his water tanks and coal bunker, and the replacement of his smokebox door and other parts. The tank engine felt different after the overhaul. For him, the rebuild seemed more like a rebirth; a new engine built on the skeleton of the old. He has since been reclassified as an E2x class locomotive.

 Whilst Thomas still retains a youthful cheek in his personality, many people don’t realize that he is the oldest engine on the branch. In 2014, coinciding with the celebrations of the NWR’s 100 th anniversary, Thomas and No. 7 Toby, who too was built in 1914, celebrates their 100 th Anniversaries and we hope that they’ll continue to run for a good hundred years more.

Class
Thomas is a 1914 Billinton LB&SC Class E2x 0-6-0T steam tank engine from East Sussex, England.

Alternate Metamorphosis

 * Fairy Train [Lela and the Fairies]
 * LB&SC Class E2 (Human form) [Willa's Rainbow Connection, Gabriel and the Railway Races, & The Wrath of Electra]

Powers
Being an engine, Thomas is limited to just wheeshing hot steam and blowing sparks on diesels and humans in defense. He was built for heavy duty shunting so he has a strong haulage capacity.

Weaknesses
Being built for shunting Thomas has limited coal and water capacity and is only able to use a full load of coal on one round trip. He easily runs out of coal and water fast during chases which results with him being moved by another engine to the closest coal bunker and water column.

Stories

 * Lela and the Fairies
 * Vita and the Mermaids
 *  Willa' s Rainbow Connection
 * Magical Adventures:
 * 1)  Danielle' s Mermaid Tail
 * 2)  Olenka' s Fairy Tale
 * Aqua Adventures:
 * 1)  Alisa' s Stories of the Water
 * 2) Katherine and the Great Mermaid Escape
 * Thea and the Leopardgirls
 * Alana and the Centaurettes
 * Rachael and the Charge of the Mermaids
 * Amelia and the Western Mermaids
 * Yaniv and the Railway Trains
 * Dakota and the Vampire Trains
 * Gabriel and the Railway Races
 * The Wrath of Electra
 * Battle of the Trains
 * The Hunt for Raven
 * Isabelle and the Elves

Voice Actors

 * Armand P. (Vita and the Mermaids)

Trivia

 * Thomas speaks in a soft, lifting voice (a nod to Pierce Brosnan), but with a Scouse, or Liverpudlian accent (a nod to Ringo Starr).
 * Thomas's disbelief in mythical creatures reflects his doubts in ghost train legends in the Railway Series story Ghost Train (Percy's Ghostly Trick in American adaptations). This characteristic is largely ignored in the television series.
 * Thomas has two whistle valves, one in the tone note of F and the other in the tone note of A Flat. However this is not common on Southern railway engines. The use of two whistle valves is instead practiced on Great Western Engines and late British Railways Standard design locomotives.
 * Originally in Thea and the Leopardgirls and Alana and the Centaurettes Thomas was replaced with an American counterpart called Yankee-Thomas and the stories took place on an Americanized version of Sodor as an experiment of making the books publishable. The Americanized settings proved to be unpopular and were replaced with the original elements in Rachael and the Charge of the Mermaids. In the rewrites of Thea and the Leopardgirls and Alana and the Centaurettes, the American settings were eliminated and the original Thomas made a few more appearances in the 9th Grade stories.