Jobey. Any pronouns. Adult, will be cursin' and cussin'. RWS/TTTE/Sodor blog. Home to The Best Henry Tunnel Headcanon Ever, Coppernob fic incubation, and transman!Topham Hatt I.
This is Merkland, built in 1912 by Hudswell Clarke (works no. 977) for the Llanelly and Mynydd Mawr Railway in Wales. She was taken into GWR stock at the grouping and numbered 937, but withdrawn and scrapped in 1923. As far as I can tell, this is the only photo of her that exists; it doesn’t even seem to be online anywhere (I bought this copy physically from a store selling old railway photos and books) although it is included in M. C. R. Price’s book on the Llanelly and Mynydd Mawr; which is a shame because she really does look to be a dead ringer for Thomas. She has the extended side tanks, the splashers, and the right proportions (at least for after Thomas Comes to Breakfast); I think she might actually be the closest IRL thing to how Thomas is drawn in the RWS.
ok so apparently i’m a machine that generates TTTE au’s but never actually writes them so i’m just gonna compile all the ones i can currently remember. is it for posterity? future reference? self-humiliation? we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.
1. 💙💧Blue Sodor💧💙
a.k.a “Oh, oh oh, you don’t want blue flavor? You don’t want blue flavor, huh? That’s crazy. Mr. Too Good for Blue, over here. Here, have a large cup of blue. On the house. Get out of my face. Bozo. I spit on people like you. P t o o.”
tl;dr: James isn’t given the choice to be red after his accident, thus the universalness of NWR Blue is never broken. The ramifications of this are… surprisingly huge. (The butterfly effect giveth and the butterfly effect taketh away.)
James for starters will be a completely different engine. A mild-mannered everyman whose rough-and-tumble LYR upbringing occasionally resurfaces in times of dire stress or conflict… but 99% of the time it doesn’t. He’s like if the archetypal Water Cooler Guy from an office was an engine, (a fate worse than death, if you’d ask the “irl” James.)
A Sodor without room for unique colors or James the Red Engine’s ✨panache✨ may find fame less easy to capture. It definitely won’t make it on the telly; “kids watching could confuse one engine for another! We’d better film elsewhere, crew.”
Fame is of course the NWR’s ace in the hole, its paprika at the cookout, if you will. If you remove it, it quickly becomes just another railway, (or an unseasoned chicken breast indistinguishable from a lump of rubber at the cookout mentioned prior,) and if the NWR’s just another railway… things are on shakier ground.
This’ll be a commonality in all of these AUs really: the fact that Sodor isn’t allowed to develop as it did “irl,” (a colorful, caring if overly snippy place,) usually leads to either unsatisfying success, hand-to-mouth existence, or all-out ruin.
2. 🤜Two Big Engines🤛
a.k.a. “Sodor has become a highschool hallway with rails and there’s two jocks in it shoving the tank engines into lockers.”
tl;dr: Henry was built as a well-performing Pacific from the outset. Once on Sodor, he and Gordon rule the roost pretty unhindered, becoming an insufferable pair of snots that are untouchable considering they do carry the place, much as they shouldn’t be told so. The railway is, compared to “irl,” pretty sour, charmless, and most of all less empathetic. And likely dieselizes down the road. Thanks fellas.
Also poor James is reduced to either (a) a simpering squib, (b) a bitter little wallflower, or (c) a blend of A and B.
Major kudos to @/mean-scarlet-deceiver for inspiring this one!
3. 2️⃣Edward the Twin Engine2️⃣
After chatting about their oc, good-ol’-sound-as-a-bell 36, MSD and I once headcanoned up a brother for Edward who was, more or less, the engine-sona of Chuck McGill from BCS: brutally competent under the right circumstances, waspish, celebrated a bit too much for his own good, emotionally stilted and unavailable. In this AU he’s with Edward on Sodor from the very beginning. (I call this engine Charles; MSD prefers Lewis. We’re in arbitration.)
tl;dr: This AU examines a Sodor and an Edward developing with this new personality in the mix.
Is there less room for nonsense? Or more? Is Thomas gonna be more of a loose cannon under Charles’ tutelage or will he be more under heel than we’re used to? Is Edward gonna be a less admirable and wise engine in his brother’s shadow, and go full Saul Goodman? (Ignoring the lack of legal drama, meth dealing, Chicago sun—okay I’ll stop.)
4. 1️⃣Thomas, Minus Friends🪦
a.k.a. “OHHHhhh mygodthey’realldead. They’re all DEAD! what the fuck dude. what the fuuuck.”
This one I’ll admit is a bit unsubtle and over the top but I kind of don’t care.
tl;dr: The Railway Series books were only fairly successful, the Hatts lost influence early on, and the NWR wasn’t as financially comfortable, ergo Thomas is preserved as a sort of show-pony trinket… but hardly anyone else we know from the railway joins him. They were all scrapped by the late ‘60s in line with the rest of BR steam.
Thomas, (who at least still has Annie and Clarabel otherwise he’d just be out of reasons to live,) ekes out a hollow, smile-for-the-cameras existence. He’s dispirited, lonely in a future that he doesn’t feel was worth living to see, guilty that he was chosen to endure while his friends weren’t, visibly 100 as opposed to physically 100, and actually finds tourists PRETTY DAMN ANNOYING for making this living death of his happen and continue in the first place!
…
So those were all fun. Are they getting written? It’s dubious. Will I ever make an AU where things are jusr genuinely nice and copasedic? Fuuuuuuuck no, what’s the entertainment in that?😇
SIR the 'edward the twin engine' au is s'posed to be genuinely nice and copacetic goddammit! 😉
36 becoming north western led to so many good compounded ripple effects that we literally refer to sodor in that timeline as 'Vast World' pfffttt. no one bullied edward. he and lewis/charles were the world's best carrot-and-stick team. henry was never locked in the tunnel. gordon felt more understood. we redeemed a Big Blue Bastard. james considered offering charles/lewis to be repainted in his red (and then he rejected the idea but, yknow. it speaks volumes that he entertained it for more than .002 seconds.) bill and ben had so much fun. hell by 2000 this timeline probably achieves lasting world peace.
i just can't stop you from leaning into the McGill-brothers-angst of it all lmao
but i will state the alternate interpretation for the record 😌 my original fic with 36 was the dark-and-grim one. the au where he stays on sodor? that's the good ending. that's fluff*.
ok so apparently i’m a machine that generates TTTE au’s but never actually writes them so i’m just gonna compile all the ones i can currently remember. is it for posterity? future reference? self-humiliation? we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.
1. 💙💧Blue Sodor💧💙
a.k.a “Oh, oh oh, you don’t want blue flavor? You don’t want blue flavor, huh? That’s crazy. Mr. Too Good for Blue, over here. Here, have a large cup of blue. On the house. Get out of my face. Bozo. I spit on people like you. P t o o.”
tl;dr: James isn’t given the choice to be red after his accident, thus the universalness of NWR Blue is never broken. The ramifications of this are… surprisingly huge. (The butterfly effect giveth and the butterfly effect taketh away.)
James for starters will be a completely different engine. A mild-mannered everyman whose rough-and-tumble LYR upbringing occasionally resurfaces in times of dire stress or conflict… but 99% of the time it doesn’t. He’s like if the archetypal Water Cooler Guy from an office was an engine, (a fate worse than death, if you’d ask the “irl” James.)
A Sodor without room for unique colors or James the Red Engine’s ✨panache✨ may find fame less easy to capture. It definitely won’t make it on the telly; “kids watching could confuse one engine for another! We’d better film elsewhere, crew.”
Fame is of course the NWR’s ace in the hole, its paprika at the cookout, if you will. If you remove it, it quickly becomes just another railway, (or an unseasoned chicken breast indistinguishable from a lump of rubber at the cookout mentioned prior,) and if the NWR’s just another railway… things are on shakier ground.
This’ll be a commonality in all of these AUs really: the fact that Sodor isn’t allowed to develop as it did “irl,” (a colorful, caring if overly snippy place,) usually leads to either unsatisfying success, hand-to-mouth existence, or all-out ruin.
2. 🤜Two Big Engines🤛
a.k.a. “Sodor has become a highschool hallway with rails and there’s two jocks in it shoving the tank engines into lockers.”
tl;dr: Henry was built as a well-performing Pacific from the outset. Once on Sodor, he and Gordon rule the roost pretty unhindered, becoming an insufferable pair of snots that are untouchable considering they do carry the place, much as they shouldn’t be told so. The railway is, compared to “irl,” pretty sour, charmless, and most of all less empathetic. And likely dieselizes down the road. Thanks fellas.
Also poor James is reduced to either (a) a simpering squib, (b) a bitter little wallflower, or (c) a blend of A and B.
Major kudos to @/mean-scarlet-deceiver for inspiring this one!
3. 2️⃣Edward the Twin Engine2️⃣
After chatting about their oc, good-ol’-sound-as-a-bell 36, MSD and I once headcanoned up a brother for Edward who was, more or less, the engine-sona of Chuck McGill from BCS: brutally competent under the right circumstances, waspish, celebrated a bit too much for his own good, emotionally stilted and unavailable. In this AU he’s with Edward on Sodor from the very beginning. (I call this engine Charles; MSD prefers Lewis. We’re in arbitration.)
tl;dr: This AU examines a Sodor and an Edward developing with this new personality in the mix.
Is there less room for nonsense? Or more? Is Thomas gonna be more of a loose cannon under Charles’ tutelage or will he be more under heel than we’re used to? Is Edward gonna be a less admirable and wise engine in his brother’s shadow, and go full Saul Goodman? (Ignoring the lack of legal drama, meth dealing, Chicago sun—okay I’ll stop.)
4. 1️⃣Thomas, Minus Friends🪦
a.k.a. “OHHHhhh mygodthey’realldead. They’re all DEAD! what the fuck dude. what the fuuuck.”
This one I’ll admit is a bit unsubtle and over the top but I kind of don’t care.
tl;dr: The Railway Series books were only fairly successful, the Hatts lost influence early on, and the NWR wasn’t as financially comfortable, ergo Thomas is preserved as a sort of show-pony trinket… but hardly anyone else we know from the railway joins him. They were all scrapped by the late ‘60s in line with the rest of BR steam.
Thomas, (who at least still has Annie and Clarabel otherwise he’d just be out of reasons to live,) ekes out a hollow, smile-for-the-cameras existence. He’s dispirited, lonely in a future that he doesn’t feel was worth living to see, guilty that he was chosen to endure while his friends weren’t, visibly 100 as opposed to physically 100, and actually finds tourists PRETTY DAMN ANNOYING for making this living death of his happen and continue in the first place!
…
So those were all fun. Are they getting written? It’s dubious. Will I ever make an AU where things are jusr genuinely nice and copasedic? Fuuuuuuuck no, what’s the entertainment in that?😇
SIR the 'edward the twin engine' au is s'posed to be genuinely nice and copacetic goddammit! 😉
36 becoming north western led to so many good compounded ripple effects that we literally refer to sodor in that timeline as 'Vast World' pfffttt. no one bullied edward. he and lewis/charles were the world's best carrot-and-stick team. henry was never locked in the tunnel. gordon felt more understood. we redeemed a Big Blue Bastard. james considered offering charles/lewis to be repainted in his red (and then he rejected the idea but, yknow. it speaks volumes that he entertained it for more than .002 seconds.) bill and ben had so much fun. hell by 2000 this timeline probably achieves lasting world peace.
i just can't stop you from leaning into the McGill-brothers-angst of it all lmao
but i will state the alternate interpretation for the record 😌 my original fic with 36 was the dark-and-grim one. the au where he stays on sodor? that's the good ending. that's fluff*.
What if Topham had gotten the Atlantic he wanted?
I know what I'm basically pitching here is essentially "It's A Splendid Life/A Small World" but with Henry, but it's an interesting thought process because this change likely means that Gordon doesn't wind up coming to Sodor.
Okay, I got really into the weeds thinking about this one.
My first instinct was to say "I already had a post speculating about how the timeline changes if you Splendid Life each of the other original six characters." And I do think my thoughts here are very similar so far as the Henry portion of that post goes: Without Henry, the railway in general and definitely Topham Hatt I in particular do not have what I think was their most important catalyst for growth. The railway survives financially just fine without Henry. But it's not our N.W.R. It doesn't develop its soul.
That post also covered Gordonless N.W.R. but it's not so applicable because my answer there was: lol, what N.W.R.? It went bankrupt by or during or not long after WWII. However, if N.W.R. is Gordonless because it got its secondhand Robinson Atlantic, I think that's a very different prospect. Because I believe Topham Hatt knew what he was about. I think "secondhand Robinson Atlantic" best suited the railway's needs in 1922. Unless the Atlantic's personality completely and utterly and just really spectacularly sucked, then I think the railway would have been BETTER off… in the short term. It wouldn't have had its (up until 1935) financially disastrous Henry I experiment. And I maintain that Gordon (although as it happened the financial savior of the place)—overpowered, and with his finicky third cylinder that Crovan's Gate would not have had the least experience in maintaining—was not at all ideal for the role he was tapped for… in 1922.
The most obvious change, however, is that (without Henry I and Gordon), we also do not get Percy. Even if the Atlantic was the most entitled and demanding engine of all time, I do not think they would have had the necessary support to strike and twist the Fat Controller's arm in the direction of Percy's dodgy workshop. Even if this Unknown Entity could have got James onside, that makes only 2 and not 3 of them, with no Gordon as forceful speaker.
Put a pin in that – more notes on James in this timeline to follow – for now, though, yeah. Although of course one never wishes to Thanos-snap three of our six friends out of the timeline, I do think that in the 20s and 30s the railway would have chugged along smoothly enough (or, at least, no-smoother-and-probably-more-so-than-they-did-in-canon) and that our other friends would hardly have been aware they were missing out on anything. Like, in the canon timeline I'm sure 1930 N.W.R. was making more money than Henryless 1930 N.W.R. But the former's expenses were higher, and at any rate even if it is coming out ahead, I don't think it's enough yet to make a huge difference. Those gain of income and opportunity would need to compound over the next 20 years before we can really see the effects by just looking around.
In the meantime, a functioning Robinson Atlantic would have kept the operation afloat… albeit the Fat Controller would have certainly snapped up James when the opportunity arose.
I think Thomas is still likely to get his branch line. Even without Gordon and Henry being involved, Thomas would have been getting quite bored on station pilot duty in 1925. Perhaps he did not get a chance to take Henry's train, but I don't know that it would have mattered. There were other big rude engines still around for a while. Even if there weren't (hell, maybe the N.W.R. got those other Big Blue Engines after Gordon, like maybe Gresley started a bit of a vogue), sheer boredom would still have Thomas complaining and it's likely that Edward would have taken pity on him at around the same time he does in canon. There's even some wiggle room of a few weeks in either direction for Thomas to still be at Wellsworth when James crashes.
Basically, I think Thomas is unaffected. He and Percy don't even interact in the RWS until the advent of Charles Hatt's controllership so it's not like he has a gaping hole where a best friendship ought to have been. He's doing fine in the Topham Hatt I era. Has fewer big engines to tease but I trust he pulls through.
I have a bit of a headcanon with Edward where—to a lesser degree than Topham Hatt, but not dissimilarly—Henry was the making of him as far as maturing his character. If one accepts this headcanon then maybe Edward is a little less understanding than he is in canon… but he's still basically himself enough that you'd have to squint to notice.
I also interpret (interpret, not headcanon—I fight on this hill) Edward not becoming a branch line engine until we're in the Charles Hatt era. In this timeline that might not be true, because supporting Henry I and even Gordon was I think a major pull factor keeping him in on the action—"Wellsworth pilot" is just such a useful post for that sort of thing because it gives him the flexibility to be called on when needed, and he's needed often enough that there's no need to find additional work for him down the branch. So in this timeline I suppose he could do Brendam line work a lot sooner. Still, maybe not. Depends a good deal on the capabilities and needs of The Robinson Atlantic (TRA?).
Then we get to James, and this is the part of the thought experiment I'm loving. So James crashes onto a Sodor without a Henry and Gordon. Isn't that fascinating?
And there are two competing effects of this:
In canon when James arrives he initially drifts into an Edward-coded sphere; they get along, and, for at least the first three sentences (🙃) of Troublesome Engines, he's as content as Edward to do some shunting at Tidmouth. By like sentence four of the book, it's Henry and Gordon's influence that gets James grumbling and starting to resent "odd jobs." And it's apparent in the books to come that James is continually big tripping over his Big Engine status… but none of that influence exists here.
So maybe he'd stay in that Edwardian orbit… but again, it depends on the X factor of The Robinson Atlantic. Because here's the thing. The Atlantic would not have been so unambiguously a "bigger" big engine the way Henry I and Gordon are. Our Pacific Friends are gargantuan, especially on the context of 1920s Sodor. TRA is heavier than James but less powerful and older—built no later than 1906, a whole era and locomotive revolution before Henry's and Gordon's original designs.
In this timeline James is truly the Herculean young gun of the Sodor main line.
And boy is this fun to think about?!!
I know a lot of you read that sentence about Alternate-'Verse James and cringed and immediately began composing jokes about how the island is doomed, doomed.
But, I think you're wrong. I mean yes, a puffed-peacock James with relatively few colleagues who can keep him in his place would be loud and prone to overexuberance. But I don't see him being any worse in the role of top dog than Gordon tbh. I actually do think this James in many ways is less troublesome than canon James. Because a James who doesn't get the recognition he needs is an angry and sulky and snippy and desperate and reckless James… and it's this insecurity that causes at least 50% of his problems (RWS and TVS). A James in his full well-admired glory is mostly just charming and thoughtless and superficial. He'd lack Gordon's gravitas, but I think he'd actually get fewer bees in his bonnet re: shit mainland engines and/or little engines do/say. See, James likes having fun. He might be a bad influence on "lesser" engines but he'd spend far less time condescending to them or being offended by them.
A Gordon with a well-fed ego is touchy and prideful. A James with a well-fed ego just has a more amiable temper.
And (albeit I agree with @greatwesternway that James is one of the smartest members of the cast) I don't think James has that… insubordinate cunning that Gordon sometimes displays, indeed in "Trust Thomas" Gordon has to coach James in simple deceit. And James will jump for any new paint job offered (unlike Henry and Gordon, who do not soften their stance when new paint is used to try to appease them in TE). So frankly I think James'd be less of a challenge for Topham Hatt… Indeed, you might chalk this up as a bad thing. Much like Henry I's unsatisfactory design and his troubles challenged Hatt to become more flexible and compassionate, maybe Gordon's flirtations with revolt made Hatt steelier. Flint sharpens flint and all that.
Furthermore Topham Hatt's experiments with Big Engines (two of which, at least, were successful) made the railway as a whole far more ambitious than it had any right to be. (One example that we know of, which I think stands in for others we must imagine: when Henry is made reliable on Welsh coal, Sodor seems to finally have a mainstay for what has to be one of their most important trains. Who was even taking that thing before Henry? Could be one of the failed loaners, who Hatt was able to get rid of once Henry was made well, or could be they had to contract that lucrative job out to the L.M.S., which would frankly kinda suck.) The presence of a Gresley Pacific and one of the venerable class of Engines Who Won the War must have lent a certain… seriousness to the N.W.R. operation that it wouldn't have otherwise had, made the prospect of letting it be "its own region" somewhat less ludicrous because Gordon's and Henry's presence made Sodor seem like a small but weight-carrying piece of the overall rail network. Indeed it was probably Sodor's war performance that allowed it its postwar autonomy, which surely they couldn't have been granted if they had needed bailing out from outsiders. Could Sodor have kept up with its war duties with one aging Robinson Atlantic in the place of Gordon and Henry? I mean who knows, maybe it was the Superman of locomotives. But it's safe to guess probably not. So the railway needs outside assistance during the war, and can't position itself as semi-independent afterwards. This spells the beginning of the Bad part of the timeline for Our Friends (💀💀💀). The Modernisation Plan will come for their home. The Hatts don't already have a Major Miraculous Engine Restoration under their belt; who knows, without Henry I, if they ever developed that stomach or that sense of responsibility? Maybe James, once he starts feeling the existential pressure, goes full-on Small World!Gordon. Once things finally start getting bad on this much more fragile railway (and they will), they could get very, very bad indeed.
But again, until WWII, I think the dynamic on Sodor with James in his full glory, with 'most all his dreams of superiority fulfilled, would have likely been rather… pleasant, on the whole. Pleasant small backwater railway vibes, nothing more—but also nothing less.
What if Topham had gotten the Atlantic he wanted?
I know what I'm basically pitching here is essentially "It's A Splendid Life/A Small World" but with Henry, but it's an interesting thought process because this change likely means that Gordon doesn't wind up coming to Sodor.
Okay, I got really into the weeds thinking about this one.
My first instinct was to say "I already had a post speculating about how the timeline changes if you Splendid Life each of the other original six characters." And I do think my thoughts here are very similar so far as the Henry portion of that post goes: Without Henry, the railway in general and definitely Topham Hatt I in particular do not have what I think was their most important catalyst for growth. The railway survives financially just fine without Henry. But it's not our N.W.R. It doesn't develop its soul.
That post also covered Gordonless N.W.R. but it's not so applicable because my answer there was: lol, what N.W.R.? It went bankrupt by or during or not long after WWII. However, if N.W.R. is Gordonless because it got its secondhand Robinson Atlantic, I think that's a very different prospect. Because I believe Topham Hatt knew what he was about. I think "secondhand Robinson Atlantic" best suited the railway's needs in 1922. Unless the Atlantic's personality completely and utterly and just really spectacularly sucked, then I think the railway would have been BETTER off… in the short term. It wouldn't have had its (up until 1935) financially disastrous Henry I experiment. And I maintain that Gordon (although as it happened the financial savior of the place)—overpowered, and with his finicky third cylinder that Crovan's Gate would not have had the least experience in maintaining—was not at all ideal for the role he was tapped for… in 1922.
The most obvious change, however, is that (without Henry I and Gordon), we also do not get Percy. Even if the Atlantic was the most entitled and demanding engine of all time, I do not think they would have had the necessary support to strike and twist the Fat Controller's arm in the direction of Percy's dodgy workshop. Even if this Unknown Entity could have got James onside, that makes only 2 and not 3 of them, with no Gordon as forceful speaker.
Put a pin in that – more notes on James in this timeline to follow – for now, though, yeah. Although of course one never wishes to Thanos-snap three of our six friends out of the timeline, I do think that in the 20s and 30s the railway would have chugged along smoothly enough (or, at least, no-smoother-and-probably-more-so-than-they-did-in-canon) and that our other friends would hardly have been aware they were missing out on anything. Like, in the canon timeline I'm sure 1930 N.W.R. was making more money than Henryless 1930 N.W.R. But the former's expenses were higher, and at any rate even if it is coming out ahead, I don't think it's enough yet to make a huge difference. Those gain of income and opportunity would need to compound over the next 20 years before we can really see the effects by just looking around.
In the meantime, a functioning Robinson Atlantic would have kept the operation afloat… albeit the Fat Controller would have certainly snapped up James when the opportunity arose.
I think Thomas is still likely to get his branch line. Even without Gordon and Henry being involved, Thomas would have been getting quite bored on station pilot duty in 1925. Perhaps he did not get a chance to take Henry's train, but I don't know that it would have mattered. There were other big rude engines still around for a while. Even if there weren't (hell, maybe the N.W.R. got those other Big Blue Engines after Gordon, like maybe Gresley started a bit of a vogue), sheer boredom would still have Thomas complaining and it's likely that Edward would have taken pity on him at around the same time he does in canon. There's even some wiggle room of a few weeks in either direction for Thomas to still be at Wellsworth when James crashes.
Basically, I think Thomas is unaffected. He and Percy don't even interact in the RWS until the advent of Charles Hatt's controllership so it's not like he has a gaping hole where a best friendship ought to have been. He's doing fine in the Topham Hatt I era. Has fewer big engines to tease but I trust he pulls through.
I have a bit of a headcanon with Edward where—to a lesser degree than Topham Hatt, but not dissimilarly—Henry was the making of him as far as maturing his character. If one accepts this headcanon then maybe Edward is a little less understanding than he is in canon… but he's still basically himself enough that you'd have to squint to notice.
I also interpret (interpret, not headcanon—I fight on this hill) Edward not becoming a branch line engine until we're in the Charles Hatt era. In this timeline that might not be true, because supporting Henry I and even Gordon was I think a major pull factor keeping him in on the action—"Wellsworth pilot" is just such a useful post for that sort of thing because it gives him the flexibility to be called on when needed, and he's needed often enough that there's no need to find additional work for him down the branch. So in this timeline I suppose he could do Brendam line work a lot sooner. Still, maybe not. Depends a good deal on the capabilities and needs of The Robinson Atlantic (TRA?).
Then we get to James, and this is the part of the thought experiment I'm loving. So James crashes onto a Sodor without a Henry and Gordon. Isn't that fascinating?
And there are two competing effects of this:
In canon when James arrives he initially drifts into an Edward-coded sphere; they get along, and, for at least the first three sentences (🙃) of Troublesome Engines, he's as content as Edward to do some shunting at Tidmouth. By like sentence four of the book, it's Henry and Gordon's influence that gets James grumbling and starting to resent "odd jobs." And it's apparent in the books to come that James is continually big tripping over his Big Engine status… but none of that influence exists here.
So maybe he'd stay in that Edwardian orbit… but again, it depends on the X factor of The Robinson Atlantic. Because here's the thing. The Atlantic would not have been so unambiguously a "bigger" big engine the way Henry I and Gordon are. Our Pacific Friends are gargantuan, especially on the context of 1920s Sodor. TRA is heavier than James but less powerful and older—built no later than 1906, a whole era and locomotive revolution before Henry's and Gordon's original designs.
In this timeline James is truly the Herculean young gun of the Sodor main line.
And boy is this fun to think about?!!
I know a lot of you read that sentence about Alternate-'Verse James and cringed and immediately began composing jokes about how the island is doomed, doomed.
But, I think you're wrong. I mean yes, a puffed-peacock James with relatively few colleagues who can keep him in his place would be loud and prone to overexuberance. But I don't see him being any worse in the role of top dog than Gordon tbh. I actually do think this James in many ways is less troublesome than canon James. Because a James who doesn't get the recognition he needs is an angry and sulky and snippy and desperate and reckless James… and it's this insecurity that causes at least 50% of his problems (RWS and TVS). A James in his full well-admired glory is mostly just charming and thoughtless and superficial. He'd lack Gordon's gravitas, but I think he'd actually get fewer bees in his bonnet re: shit mainland engines and/or little engines do/say. See, James likes having fun. He might be a bad influence on "lesser" engines but he'd spend far less time condescending to them or being offended by them.
A Gordon with a well-fed ego is touchy and prideful. A James with a well-fed ego just has a more amiable temper.
And (albeit I agree with @greatwesternway that James is one of the smartest members of the cast) I don't think James has that… insubordinate cunning that Gordon sometimes displays, indeed in "Trust Thomas" Gordon has to coach James in simple deceit. And James will jump for any new paint job offered (unlike Henry and Gordon, who do not soften their stance when new paint is used to try to appease them in TE). So frankly I think James'd be less of a challenge for Topham Hatt… Indeed, you might chalk this up as a bad thing. Much like Henry I's unsatisfactory design and his troubles challenged Hatt to become more flexible and compassionate, maybe Gordon's flirtations with revolt made Hatt steelier. Flint sharpens flint and all that.
Furthermore Topham Hatt's experiments with Big Engines (two of which, at least, were successful) made the railway as a whole far more ambitious than it had any right to be. (One example that we know of, which I think stands in for others we must imagine: when Henry is made reliable on Welsh coal, Sodor seems to finally have a mainstay for what has to be one of their most important trains. Who was even taking that thing before Henry? Could be one of the failed loaners, who Hatt was able to get rid of once Henry was made well, or could be they had to contract that lucrative job out to the L.M.S., which would frankly kinda suck.) The presence of a Gresley Pacific and one of the venerable class of Engines Who Won the War must have lent a certain… seriousness to the N.W.R. operation that it wouldn't have otherwise had, made the prospect of letting it be "its own region" somewhat less ludicrous because Gordon's and Henry's presence made Sodor seem like a small but weight-carrying piece of the overall rail network. Indeed it was probably Sodor's war performance that allowed it its postwar autonomy, which surely they couldn't have been granted if they had needed bailing out from outsiders. Could Sodor have kept up with its war duties with one aging Robinson Atlantic in the place of Gordon and Henry? I mean who knows, maybe it was the Superman of locomotives. But it's safe to guess probably not. So the railway needs outside assistance during the war, and can't position itself as semi-independent afterwards. This spells the beginning of the Bad part of the timeline for Our Friends (💀💀💀). The Modernisation Plan will come for their home. The Hatts don't already have a Major Miraculous Engine Restoration under their belt; who knows, without Henry I, if they ever developed that stomach or that sense of responsibility? Maybe James, once he starts feeling the existential pressure, goes full-on Small World!Gordon. Once things finally start getting bad on this much more fragile railway (and they will), they could get very, very bad indeed.
But again, until WWII, I think the dynamic on Sodor with James in his full glory, with 'most all his dreams of superiority fulfilled, would have likely been rather… pleasant, on the whole. Pleasant small backwater railway vibes, nothing more—but also nothing less.
okay, i know i said in my last ask that "nothing will ever be enough" for James, but i was interpreting some dumb #canon episode, okay. i don't really believe that
okay, i know i said in my last ask that "nothing will ever be enough" for James, but i was interpreting some dumb #canon episode, okay. i don't really believe that
I was randomly thinking about the episode James the second best and how it could be a meta commentary on James being an attention hog, like atp he’s one of the 3 big faces of the show and when someone else (in this case Edward) gets the spotlight he freaks about and tries to “prove” he’s better
That episode is for sure a pretty interesting window into James.
I'm not committed to the non-classic TVS episodes being reflective of the year prior to publication, though; in fact, I think most HIT era episodes are best considered throwbacks, thinly disguised versions of old Sodor rail events. Imagine James the Second Best in the 20s, or 40s, or 60s. I think each of those options bring out some interesting detail or another from the text. I also think the whole story dovetails nicely with Duck accusing the big three of being jealous of Edward—before the Exploit. Edward's a management/director's favorite.
At least, he was. I just don't see him having that same status in the solidly TVS/21st century era (when, as you say, there are so many clearly bigger draws on the fleet) so I find it hard to comprehend this plot even happening at this point. If it did, however, then coming back to James, uhhh, yeah. James is fundamentally insecure, nothing will ever be enough. But that's actually kind of depressing so again, I'd rather just backdate this to where James's jealousy is a bit more reasonable/well-grounded.
… y'know, did I mention the '30s? That's an option too, maybe my favorite option. There's just so much we don't know about James during the 1930s… yet there was soo much going on. He helped clean up the wreckage of the Flying Kipper, he lost Silver Medal on the big three podium to Henry II, he watched Henry and Gordon be sent to the mainland for big rebuilds while he was notably overlooked, the U.K. was bracing and preparing for (another) war… God, can we take a moment and reflect on what James was going through that decade? Gee, little wonder when he really next comes into focus it's 1951 and he's being an enormous dick to Toby. I've commented before on this shift in James's character but when you sketch out what's going on with him between the Strike and Postwar Era, you can see how it might'a happened…
Anyway, yeah. I think the Billboard of Jealousy plotline works very well slotted right into this period of James's life.
(BTW, slight digression but while we're on the subject, I think the part early in the episode where James is carping "Why him?? Why not me????" is so funny, like maybe the funniest exchange this whole season. Because he's just being dramatic and rhetorical. And Thomas and Percy et. al. just immediately rapid-fire reason after reason at him. No hesitation. No chill. No mercy.)
Honestly, given your thoughts on Emily having changed, I'm curious how you'd fit Emily into your take on Sodor? Given how you've taken a shine to her being a former Great Northerner instead of a newbuild
This is a hard one to say because part of the beauty of taking "Emily the legit for-real Stirling Single who spent 50+ years out of service before coming to Sodor" is that it just fits so beautifully into TVS canon As Is.
Maybe I'm missing something, I admit I'm not well-versed in the non-classic TVS, but everything I've seen or heard about her seems to harmonize with this. Hell, maybe the writers did give careful consideration to her (unspoken) backstory. (It occurs to me that I do not remember Emily's entry in the Writers' Bible leak.)
For people who have no idea what we're talking about
For people who don't click links:
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Emily as a 1894 series Stirling Single is interesting because of her work history. If one does not transfer her early to Sodor (and I prefer not to), then you can draw on her real-life history.
First, she's a Doncaster product. A Doncaster express engine! (Doesn't this put As Good As Gordon into spectacular perspective?) No wonder she arrives on Sodor and immediately become one of the Main Characters on the island. She was a queen in her day!
Much like I think Gordon experienced — perhaps even more so — Emily experienced pressures during her G.N.R. career. First, she (or at least No. 1 — tbh this might have changed by Emily's day, since we assume she was built 1894) originally did not have a front coupling link because Stirling expected his masterpiece design would never require assistance from another engine at the front. No pilots for Queen Emily, if you please! (in the same cadence as "tender engines don't shunt™":) Stirling Singles Do Not Fail. They Do Not Need Help. They, And They Alone, Pull The Train.
Further pressure: The G.N.R. did not tolerate its express trains being a minute late, even if you're going from Edinburgh to London in pounding rain (see first link). It was not acceptable.
Further pressure: The G.N.R. appeared to overload the 1894 locos (see second link). One of them wrecked (there was a dead passenger) in 1895 (food for thought for Emily backstory?) and the Inspectorate noted that the axles were overloaded. The railway also had to rebuild the 1894 series because experience proved it had given them a little too much adhesion for safety.
(Is Emily's safety consciousness making sense to everyone by now? And her self-importance? Good, good…)
Now, unlike Gordon, Emily would have had to learn some hard-won humility long before Sodor. Four years after Emily was presumably built, the Atlantics arrived to claim the express services and older Singles began to be withdrawn accordingly. Emily would have been shifted to secondary passenger duties (slower trains, piloting) until no later than 1916.
After this point, Emily must have been hidden or put into storage. My preferred headcanon is now that she was stored as a source of spare parts for her sister, G.N.R. No. 1 (the one now in the National Collection). I headcanon No. 1 as a Doncaster express engine in the worst way, and as Designer's Favorite Daughter she never learned humility. She thought it quite natural that she had a "spare," and did not care to find rescue or relief for her younger sister.
(In Bird at Barrow Central, Coppernob will be one of the engines on hand to hear No. 1 carelessly refer to the existence of a surviving sibling in storage in passing. No. 1 was quite enjoying boasting about her pending return to steam, and she really could not understand why the other preserved engines one after another were gaping and asking stupid questions. Nor why, after these simpletons finally put together the whole story of Emily's abandonment to nearly 70 years of storage, the entire Great Hall wound up shouting at her!)
I have Emily arriving on Sodor in the 80s, since I headcanon No. 1's return to steam being the inciting event that brought Emily to the attention of people (the Fat Controller) who gave an appropriate damn about this. Indeed Crovan's Gate probably refused to do the work they'd been contracted to do on No. 1 until they were first given Emily, whom they restored and found coaches for.
Sooo… skipping over all of that… (honestly, Emily managed to sleep through a lot of it. She wasn't aware 70 years had passed, and the Fat Controller et. al. are delighted to find she's fit as a fiddle, physically and mentally. But, of course, she has a lot of Issues due to her former status as spare…)
Let's try that sentence again, shall we?
So, Emily comes to Sodor with three formative experiences Gordon didn't have the benefit of (I mean, I think he knew pressure during his trials — but he was never in regular timetabled service on the mainland). Given that they do have some fundamental similarities (and are both Doncaster products), contrasting Emily and Gordon sheds a lot of light on them both.
The most obvious contrast is that Emily arrives much more humbled than Gordon, which I think is reflected well in her rather muted Series 7 entry. She's not going to come in on a high horse. But you can see her high spirit in being as active and forward in integrating onto the main line as she is, despite everything she's been through.
And what an adjustment that must have been! For all Emily did some "secondary duties" before, it wasn't the variety of jobs we saw her do in Series 7. And I doubt she mingled with such a diversity of fleetmates before. Perhaps, if she was stored in Doncaster 'plant' for some of the interim, there was a period where she met lots of different engines and got a bit more well-rounded. Either way, she comes in and makes an impressive effort to put herself forward and make friends, even on a railway that (antiquated though Sodor is, in some ways) is still quite a leap in modernity from her last stint of WWI-era service.
Then, in the HIT era… we see that she's over her Humility Arc, lmao. She's more than found her wheels, and we're starting to see some of that Queen of the Victorian Rails energy. I almost don't know what to say here, the episodes in the context I've given speak very eloquently for themselves.
But this context also explains why Emily would suffer more and more instances of insecurity as the series goes on. She's really been transported into a new age and new society. Her high spirits have carried her very far, but given her baggage I'm not at all surprised that she'd be alternately resistant to advice, pleading for help, playing make-believe royalty, overestimating her own prowess, bossing around tank engines, doting over sick engines, and having a series of star-struck crushes on powerful and beautiful female engines.
(God I think I love this bitch. Emily's really cool as TVS characters go. Some people are just haters.
Look at her. She makes goofy faces. She makes goofy sounds with her whistle too (remember The Great Discovery? oh, you don't? no one remembers TGD? Yeah, I mean, fair enough). She has a goofy side. I'm betting that's Character Development. She had to learn how to have fun. That is not a Stirling Single anymore. Look at her. Look at this goofball. She's gone déclassée.)
Question for the press: what do you think about a possible moral dilemma between Edward and Duck in terms of the scrapping of their siblings, especially early on, considering Edward was one of eight while Duck was one of over 800, not counting all the other Great Western panniers that look like Duck but are a different class.
We got one in a million and one of a million over here.
Thanks!
I don't understand how there would be a moral dilemma between them. They have too much mutual respect. I think both are well aware that they have different backgrounds and therefore will have different experiences/PoVs on this topic. They can/have each been able to do Jack Squat about their respective situations, so I can't see what they would have a conflict over?
That said, yes of course it's interesting how they are near two extremes of a spectrum. Two very different perspectives on engine family-hood. I don't think "sibling" or "classmate" from the mouth of an engine like Duck or Diesel means the same thing as it does from the mouth of an engine like Edward or Skarloey.
I don't tend to think that the former feel about their hundreds of "siblings" the way a human feels about theirs. There is a connection, to be sure, but I don't think engines can bond with a limitless amount of entities. And the nature of engines I think is really to form their most familial bonds with those they work with and for on a regular basis, not with scores of engines they've never met or seen for more than a passing moment. (The ones they've been on the same routes/depots as, sure, that's a different story. And Duck surely has a LOT going on in the background of the middle of the RWS… that's he's far too professional for us to know anything about :/…)
They brought Furness No. 20 back to steam! I’m dying to know how a visit between him and Nobby would go down.
What I remember about Twenty from your stories was that in the steelworks as a saddletank he was resourceful and humble. That would still hold up right? He’s too mature to get big for his boots at being a functional tender engine again, isn’t he?
That would be a very good interpretation! Not quite angsty enough for Bird at Barrow Central though 😈
So, a year ago I might'a declined to comment on grounds I didn't want to spoil said series, but now that my responsibilities have only multiplied since then… sigh. I know I have to reduce my plans for BaBC (even if I fully intend to write a good bit more), and I'm not sure if Twenty's rebuild will make it or not.
I'll put it below the cut in case someone has the patience of a saint, just full of rock-solid commitment to avoiding spoilers. But ultimately I think it would be pretty safe to go ahead and read this summary:
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Against all odds (Coppernob — who was consulted and kept in the loop — was notably pessimistic about the whole project), in 1998 the Furness Railway Trust succeeds in rebuilding and steaming No. 20.
What no one saw coming:
No. 20's memories of being rebuilt into a tank engine — even his memories of being informed of the project — and everything since — all 100+ intermittent years and then some — they're all lost.
No. 20 comes to thinking it's 1868.
He doesn't know he was sent back to Atlas Works.
He doesn't know that he and five of his brothers were rebuilt into saddletanks.
He doesn't know that he spent 80+ years in the steelworks.
He doesn't know that the Furness Railway no longer exists, that hardly any trace of exists… certainly none that's there when he comes to at Carnforth.
He doesn't know that he was abandoned.
He doesn't know that he was saved.
He doesn't know his new owners.
He doesn't know his new fleetmates, like Austerity saddletank Cumbria (who only ran her wheels off for years to raise money for his big rebuild, ta love!)
He doesn't know about the preservation duties he's now committed to, without his consent.
He finds he has one brother left, in disrepair and disuse, still waiting his own restoration… which will keep him in that same strange saddletank form.
He finds No. 3 is still extant. Not 3 the former mentor, to whom 20 grew into a role where they became peers and collaborators. No, still to him 3 the grand and dreadful lord of the Copper-Nobs… the F.R. was at its harshest during No. 20's short working stint there. He and his brothers' rebuilds were part of a series of crises that somewhat softened No. 3 and 4 and, accordingly, all the engines they had ruled over with an iron fist for years. No. 20 has no memory of that great sea change.
Nor does 20 remember the process of aging to such a degree that the people he worked with took any special note of him. He was used to being one cog in a busy, bustling, semi-martial environment, full of strict discipline. Now it's all soft informal modernity and rose-covered nostalgia and a baffling degree of personal honor and even… affection. For him.
So yeah, his brain broke a little.
That's mostly a figure of speech though… he woke up young, rather cowed No. 20, accustomed to expecting nothing but Regulations and Orders, speaking freely only among his own small crowd of intimates, knowing there was a rigid fleet hierarchy and he was solidly in the middle-low tier of it. And, of course, the downpour of a hundred different griefs, cascading on him all at once, don't help…
So he listens, learns, adapts.
Eventually, he'll come to love his new friends and owners and caretakers.
Asking because you are the only person I know who is in the relevant fandoms, please ignore if this is too random:
I've just discovered that one of my OCs is only one year younger than Yoko Ono and would have been living in Tokyo at the same times she was as a kid... do I say they knew each other lol? IDK how much it would actually come up but it might be really funny IMO
Is the OC an engine, human, or other? ;)
I mean, assuming human, as I'm sure you know Tokyo was a very big place, and Yoko's family was very rich/fancy. So... tell us more about this OC.
She's human (well, technically other at this point - dw will explain). Obviously there's no reason they have to have known each other, I just had the realisation and couldn't stop laughing at the thought. Basically this is for an OC project of mine called Dondoko Express:
Art by @rouxipanda - commissioned by me :))
The express in question is a train for spirits, operated by a mismatched group of kids who all ended up crossing over to the spirit world at different times and for different reasons. One of these, in fact kinda the main one, is a girl named Fumiko, who alternates the conductor & engineer roles (if you look reaaaally closely the driver in this art has pigtails - that's her) and who founded the express in the first place.
One of the things I wanna do with the story is that like, it's initially not revealed how long each of the kids have been spirits or why they ended up here. With Fumiko, it eventually comes out that she made a plea for help to a kami to find her little sister during the bombing of Tokyo in WW2 - they aren't dead, but they both crossed the veil in that moment and can never fully go back. Which is all a long way of saying that I think it could be a fun way of hinting just how long she's been a spirit and what she went through, if that makes sense?
