Edward

Edward is a mixed-traffic engine and #2 on the North Western Railway.

Bio
Edward is kind-hearted and always keen to help a friend in need. The small engines trust him to lend a listening ear and sympathetic advice. He is a hard worker too, and always does his best to finish a job.

However, the big engines often see him as old-fashioned and slow. While it is true he is the oldest engine in existence on the North Western Railway (it must be noted he helped build it), he has proved time and time again that he is more than capable of working as hard as any engine, as proved in "Old Iron", when he managed to chase down a runaway James, and "Edward's Exploit", where he brought a long passenger train home despite having lost his crank-pins.

Edward currently runs the Wellsworth-Brendam branch line with Boco. He doesn't mind pulling trucks or coaches and has been known to help with heavy loads, pull special trains and even act as a pilot engine for the Royal Train.

Crew
To date, Edward is the only engine whose crew has been named. In the foreword of "Edward the Blue Engine", their names were given as Charlie Sand (driver) and Sidney Hever (fireman). Their surnames came from their duties: one of the driver's jobs is to sand the rails when they are slippery to let the engine's wheels grip, while the fireman "heaves" coal from the tender or coalbunker to the firebox. Their first names came from a real engine crew named Charlie and Sidney on the Wisbech and Upwell Tramway, where Toby used to work.

Behind the Scenes
Edward was the first character created for the Railway Series, in 1943. The inspiration for Edward came from the Reverend W. Awdry's 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 were saying, "I will do it! I will do it! I will do it!" This was also the inspiration for "Edward and Gordon".

Unlike most characters in the Railway Series, Edward is not directly based upon any particular class of locomotive, but is instead a generic 4-4-0. The Reverend W. Awdry has claimed that Edward is based on a heavily modified Sharp, Stewart and Co. "Larger Seagull" supplied to the Furness Railway in 1896, but this was a piece of retcon created for "The Island of Sodor: Its People, History and Railways". Sodor "historian" Martin Clutterbuck notes that Edward bears a closer resemblance to a type of Scottish locomotive from the North British Railway, notably the D20]. It is likely that Awdry chose the Furness Railway locomotive because the Furness Railway was the closest mainland railway to Sodor.

Edward's days on the Furness Railway were brought up again in "Thomas and Victoria", as Edward and Victoria were both from that area.