Henry

Henry is #3 on the North Western Railway. He is a hard worker, but can be vain and arrogant, particularly with engines he sees as less important than himself. But he works hard, and pulls the train known as the Flying Kipper. He has two Railway Series books devoted to him, "Henry the Green Engine" and "Henry and the Express".

Origins
Henry was bought by Sir Topham Hatt during the Railways construction. He was an experemental one off built with stolen plans from Sir Nigel Gresley, and put up for a cheap price. Needless to say, Sir Topham Hatt wasn't happy. More furious when Henry stopped in a tunnel due to him not wanting to spoil his image. He was bricked up in the tunnel for months.

However, when Gordon burst a safety valve, Henry was let out, and painted Blue like Edward and Gordon.

Henry's Rebuild
The Reverend W. Awdry had a great deal of trouble with the illustrators' depiction of Henry. He was unhappy with the way C. Reginald Dalby had drawn him in the illustrations as he looked almost identical to Gordon, especially when he was painted blue at the end of "The 3 Railway Engines"; in one illustration in "Tank Engine Thomas Again", he looks completely identical to Gordon (this was explained as him having to use Gordon's buffers while his were repaired). To make matters worse, he was illustrated inconsistently, often having several different shapes within the space of a single story - in most of Dalby's illustrations Henry was portrayed as a 4-6-0, but occasionally he became a 4-6-2 instead.

Awdry's original idea had been to write Henry out of the series (hence the character's illness). But by "Henry the Green Engine", he had decided not to, and instead had Henry involved in a serious accident, allowing him to be rebuilt into a Class 5MT which, being a real locomotive, would force Dalby to be consistent.

Accounts differ as to when the accident actually took place: in "The Island of Sodor: Its People, History and Railways" the Reverend W. Awdry states that it occurred in 1931; however, "Sodor: Reading Between the Lines" (by Christopher Awdry) says it took place in 1951. The best explanation seems to be that the latter was an oversight, seeing the other dates listed in "The Island of Sodor" were all consistent, and possibly, certainly for the earlier books, that the events on the railway happened many years before the books were published.

Technical Controversy
There is a certain amount of debate as to the nature of Henry's rebuild, caused by "The Island of Sodor: Its People, History and Railways". It was written to provide historical background to the universe of the Railway Series and to correct pictorial inconsistencies that had occurred in the earlier volumes. In this book, the Reverend W. Awdry claimed that the pre-rebuild and post-rebuild Henry are actually two completely separate engines. However, the stories didn't indicate this, as he seems familiar with events that happened before the crash, but the other engines don't know this. For example, in "Percy Takes the Plunge (set after his rebuild) Henry recalls the events of "The sad Story of Henry". His memory may possibly have survived the rebuild, but as both sources can be considered equally canonical, the question of whether there have been two Henrys or one will likely remain unanswered.

The same book featured a certain amount of retcon to explain Henry's old shape. The explanation devised was that he was an experimental locomotive built according to plans stolen from Sir Nigel Gresley (the thief's name was never revealed), but the wrong plans were taken and the locomotive built was so riddled with faults that the only person who could be persuaded to buy it was the Fat Controller, who (at the time) was desperate for any locomotive he could get. The Fat Controller claims he wanted an "Atlantic", an engine with a 4-4-2 wheel arrangement. The last point is worth noting, as William Middleton, the first Railway Series artist, portrayed Henry as this type of engine, as wel as Awdry's first sketches.

"The Island of Sodor" also featured a biography of the Fat Controller, which mentioned that he was apprenticed with Stanier at Swindon Works. It is possible that this is another piece of retcon to explain how he was able to have Henry rebuilt so easily - something that even the Reverend W. Awdry admitted was "a mystery".

In the book "Sodor: Reading Between the Lines", it is said that Henry looks very much like a Stanier 5MT, which suggests that he is not totally identical to one of these engines. It is not clear why Christopher Awdry should have felt the need to contradict his father, the original author. It could simply be a combonation of copy-editing errors and publication deadlines - after all, Mavis was correctly described as a Drewry Class 04 but is claimed to be an 0-4-0.

Controversy
Henry was the central character of what might be the most controversial story in the history of the Railway Series. In "Henry's Sneeze" he sprays some troublesome boys with soot. The story was attacked in 1972 because the boys in question were said to have been "as black as n******".

So controversial was the issue that it was reported in the national press. Awdry claimed that it was a case of oversensitivity on the part of the race relations board - a complaint that was misinterpreted by some members of the public as meaning that he was a racist. To solve the problem, he changed the offending sentence to "as black as soot", which has been used in every subsequent edition of the book.

Trivia

 * The Reverend W. Awdry's own model of Henry was as troublesome as his fictional counterpart used to be, never really working properly. The model was eventually scrapped and was never replaced.
 * In the Railway Series, Henry's tender is unusually small for a Stanier 5MT. In the book "Sodor: Reading Between The Lines", it is explained that this is because it is a smaller tender of a type designed by Henry Fowler, which the Fat Controller prefers. In the television series he kept the tender from his old shape after his rebuild.
 * Although he is always known as "the Green Engine", from the end of "The 3 Railway Engines" to the start of "Troublesome Engines" he was painted blue. In the story "Henry Sees Red", he temporarily ran in an orange-red undercoat.
 * In the 1997 annual story, We Wish You a Merry Christmas!, Henry's fireman was revealed to be named Ted.
 * Awdry's own model of Henry was as troublesome as its fictional counterpart; it never really worked properly. In November 2020, Awdry's Henry model was found at the Narrow Gauge Museum in Tywyn. Prior to this, the model was long thought to have been scrapped, which was reinforced by Awdry not making a replacement model: according to the museum, Awdry had been working on fixing the model at the time of his death in 1997. The model is currently in a glass display case, in a notably decrepit condition; The model is missing its siderods, middle driving wheels and bogie wheels, while the remaining driving wheels are missing paint. The paintwork is overall very worn as well. The model's missing parts are currently stored in a box alongside it.
 * Henry is the second engine to gain a number in The Railway Series.