The TV adaptation definitely glosses things over. For instance, in the show Henry has a big crash and is sent to England to be repaired. In the canon of the books, he was scrapped and swapped out for a better locomotive, who was then given the same name.
No, he’s sent to Crewe for a rebuild and returns with a new shape - mostly changes to his firebox iirc as he’s been struggling to build up enough steam with anything other than high-quality (expensive) Welsh coal.
Source: literally re-read the relevant book over the weekend.
The canonical history book The Island of Sodor expands on this:
Since 1922 there have been two Henrys…
We never saw Henry I, but we talked to men who had crewed him. Henry I had a superficial likeness to Gordon, they said, but that was as far as it went. They remembered hearing rumours of a scandal at Doncaster in 1919 or thereabouts, about the theft of some drawings. Nothing was proved, but it was alleged that a Locomotive Builder with a grudge against Gresley had engineered a “leak” so as to steal a march on him. His spy, however, blundered and took the wrong drawings. The mistake was discovered too late. The locomotive when built, showed so many faults that the builder was glad of chance to unload his “white elephant” on to a desperate customer.
No-one was better pleased than Topham Hatt when the Killdane accident occurred in 1935. At last he had an opportunity of having Henry completely rebuilt at Crewe.
It has been a mystery to many that Topham Hatt was able to send the deplorable Henry I to Crewe in 1935, and receive back a Stanier Class SMT in tip-top condition as Henry II.
So as Henry I was a bootleg Gresley and then a Stanier Black 5, they are two different engines.
They also punish a locomotive by sealing it behind a brick wall. Considering those things are sentient and basically immortal that’s some new levels of fucked up.
And here I thought George Carlin was the hardest Thomas ever went. Turns out he used to roll coal on hooligans 🤣
The TV adaptation definitely glosses things over. For instance, in the show Henry has a big crash and is sent to England to be repaired. In the canon of the books, he was scrapped and swapped out for a better locomotive, who was then given the same name.
No, he’s sent to Crewe for a rebuild and returns with a new shape - mostly changes to his firebox iirc as he’s been struggling to build up enough steam with anything other than high-quality (expensive) Welsh coal.
Source: literally re-read the relevant book over the weekend.
The canonical history book The Island of Sodor expands on this:
So as Henry I was a bootleg Gresley and then a Stanier Black 5, they are two different engines.
They also punish a locomotive by sealing it behind a brick wall. Considering those things are sentient and basically immortal that’s some new levels of fucked up.
That was also Henry I. The whipping boy of Sodor.
They really hate that one guy eh?