The Eight Famous Engines

A list of The Railway Series books by both the Rev. W. Awdry and his son Christopher.

The first 26 books in the series were written by Rev. W. Awdry, who is sometimes mistaken as the sole writer.

This is the first book in the Series, and introduces Edward, 3 Shed Engines, the coaches, Gordon, the troublesome trucks, Henry (Who later in the book is repainted blue) and The Fat Director.

Thomas is a small tank engine who works at a big station fetching coaches for the big engines, but who longs for greater things. Unfortunately, his efforts go wrong. However, after showing that he can be a useful engine following James's accident with some trucks, he is rewarded with his own branch line and his two coaches named Annie and Clarabel.

James has recently been repainted bright red and given the proper brakes for his wheels, and is eager to show off. Unfortunately, however, he is rather careless, and gets into a lot of trouble (in James and the Bootlace, James is grumpy after being threatened with Edward's blue paint and having to fetch his own coaches). But by making some troublesome trucks behave and by pulling the Express very well, he proves himself later.

This book concerns the further adventures of Thomas on his branch line, with the bigger engines relegated to cameo appearances. Thomas leaves his guard (or railway conductor) behind by mistake; accidentally goes fishing because of a broken water column and some river water from a bucket; gets stuck in the snow and is freed by Terence; and has a race with Bertie.

The big engines are cross. Since Thomas left to run his branch line, they feel overworked, and some embarrassing incidents for all three of them lead them to go on strike. The Fat Controller addresses the problem by bringing in a new engine to do the shunting.

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