So How Many Engines Does the NWR Actually Have?

Eighty, according to the Reverend Wilbert Awdry - but this includes British Rail and Industrial engines. It also seems excessive for an island the size of Sodor which has, according to TheUnluckyTug, an 87.7 odd mile mainline and another 30 odd miles of branchline, especially when compared with several other railways of similar size. I am going to warn everyone here, this post is long.

The neighbouring Furness Railway built roughly 247 engines during its lifetime, of which a good fifty-five were 'Sharpies' - however that railway had 190 miles of railway and served some of the largest steelworks and dockyards in all of England. In contrast, the Northern Counties Committee Railway in Northern Island had a maximum route mileage of around 282 miles and only 73 engines. This same NCC ran nearly half of all trains in Northern Island at the time, sharing a duopoly with the GNRI. After amalgamating together into the Northern Ireland Railways and shrinking the full network of Northern Irish railway down to 225 miles, they today run 47 locomotives.

The railway network that serves the entirety of Northern Island is bigger than Sodor in length and requires less engines. It also calls at 54 stations, in comparison to Sodor's 27 stations that the NWR serves. So, let's do some maths and logic puzzles to try and figure out how many engines the NWR actually needs to serve the Island of Sodor.

Firstly, let's look at how many the books name: eleven NWR steam locomotives, six diesel engines, one track maintenance vehicle, as well as three industrial engines and an unknown number of electric engines. This means that the Peel Godred line could have any number of engines, however we can make a reasonable estimate at two multiple units for the four stops, and two or three goods engines to look after the aluminium traffic and other goods work. That makes five engines needed for the branchline.

The Ffarquhar branchline similarly does not require that many engines. Its primary industry is the Anopha Quarry, with a number of farms making up the rest of the freight traffic the line would have. In the books, the line is run by Thomas, Percy, Toby, Daisy and Mavis - the private industrial engine who manages the quarry. This means that there is one dedicated railcar, one autotank-fitted tank engine, a tram engine, a dedicated quarry diesel and Percy to run the line. The only addition possibly required would be an engine to run dedicated stone trains from Ffarquhar to the junction or the harbour, a task that seems to already be covered by Toby, Percy and Mavis. That adds another five engines to our list of standard-gauge engines on Sodor.

Another branchline that does not need any extra engines would be the Little Western, which was only refurbished by Sir Charles Hatt to access the ballast from the old MSR mines. With Duck and Oliver running passengers, Duck managing most of the limited freight traffic that isn't ballast and Donald and Douglas covering most ballast trains, there is no need for any extra engines, and adds another four engines to our list.

After that, Edward's branchline is where we may see some additions. The branchline may be quite short, having only three stations on its route, but it also has Brendam Harbour, which is a major port for the island, as well as the China Clay Pits, which are served by Bill and Ben - the other two industrial engines mentioned in the books. They are known to shunt Brendam Harbour on occasion, while Edward and BoCo run the branchline itself, with Donald and Douglas helping. This line would need more engines as freight traffic through Brendam Docks increased, as well as a dedicated shunting engine for the harbour. That adds up to seven engines to our list to run this section of the line - being Bill, Ben, Edward, BoCo and three new helpers.

Potential candidates from the TVS for filling these roles could be: Salty, Neville, Molly or perhaps Whiff - all of whom are either shunting engines or medium-sized engines who would be able to compliment Edward and BoCo well.

After Edward's branchline, we have to talk about the Kirk Ronan and Norramby branches. The Kirk Ronan branchline has three stations, and was once part of the Sodor and Mainland Railway. We know passenger traffic is poor, and the freight traffic was solely dedicated to mineral traffic from the Skarloey Railway heading to the port. It's highly likely that this line is either kept operational for a token service, or has one engine running it. Either way, we can add one engine to the list, of whom I would suggest Arthur.

The Norramby branchline is currently served by the Other Railway, according to Awdry - this would mean multiple units running passenger trains from Barrow and potentially a freight service, though that would have likely been discontinued in the 1960's during the Beeching cuts. Currently, 26 trains operate out of Barrow up the Cumbrian Coast Line per day, while the Furness line sees roughly 24 trains per day, according to the Northern Rail Timetable. Most likely, one of these two lines would have their services extend to Norramby, meaning up to 24 trains per day for the line. However, it is highly unlikely that each train to arrive on this service is a new engine, with it being more likely to be four or five engines. This adds five engines to our list, for a current total of twenty-seven.

To this figure, we can add the Works Diesel, Bloomer, and the austerity engine referenced in 'Wilbert the Forest Engine', making thirty.

This leaves the mainline as needing 50 whole engines to reach Awdry's figure of 80 - and of this potential number, we know Henry, Gordon, James, Bear, Pip and Emma. To understand how many engines are needed, we need to understand what jobs these engines would do - of which, there is passenger trains, the express, freight trains and shunting.

If the mainline has eleven stations, 87.7 miles of track and they wanted to have a train arrive every hour to meet their Northern partners... well, they'd need more engines. It takes one hour for a train between Lancaster and Barrow - a distance of 28.6 miles, so we can safely assume that tripling the distance would triple the time - for a trip time of around three hours. Now, this time would most likely be shortened by the chance for the engines to achieve higher speeds between stations, as the number of stations on both lines is roughly equal - 10 on the Furness line to 11 on the NWR mainline - but even still, it would require the railway running six separate stopping trains per day. Considering that only four of the six engines above could even run commuter trains, I would say that there is need for more engines.

There are currently two express trains that run on the Island of Sodor: The Limited and the WildNorWester, however it is not certain that the Limited is still running, as it only appeared for 'Enterprising Engines'. In any case, Pip and Emma are enough to handle fast trains on Sodor.

Freight is an interesting variable - we know that Sodor produces aluminium near Peel Godred, and that the alumina needs to be transported up there, and the finished product moved to the mainland, as well as general goods trains, farm produce trains, and freight trains bound for the harbours or from the quarry or China Clay pits. Based on these key requirements, it is safe to say Sodor needs a few more engines.

So, for the mainline we have Pip, Emma, Gordon, Henry, James, Bear and at least eight other engines of various sizes. Two of these engines would be built to run passenger trains alongside Henry, James, Gordon and Bear, while the other six would handle goods traffic, in particular bulk traffic or local goods. Fourteen engines, with potential help from Donald, Douglas and BoCo seems more reasonable as a number of engines on the mainline of a primarily agricultural island.

Suggestions for these engines include Murdoch, Derek, Emily and Rebecca - which is a shorter list than it should be due to the lack of large, mainline engines in the Thomas series who could feasibly run in the UK.

Finally, two shunting engines - one for Tidmouth and one for Barrow-in-Furness - can be added to the list, as since Duck gained his branchline, we have not been introduced to the new station pilot at Tidmouth and since the rise of the multiple-unit, Barrow station would require an engine to act as station pilot there too. Options for here include Diesel, Charlie, Dennis, Rosie and Paxton.

All of these numbers added together equals: 46. Twenty-three branchline engines, three industrial engines, two maintenance engines, one austerity engine, one preserved engine, fourteen mainline engines and two station pilots. Considering at the beginning I said that Northern Ireland Railways runs 47 engines currently and has a network of over double the size of Sodor but doesn't run freight, I would say that this is a pretty respectable estimate.

In direct contrast to this estimate, my ERS has 34 engines who cover the entire NWR and the neighbouring Furness Line. My reasoning: Donald and Douglas are magic, and scarily efficient. Having the two of them around means Edward and BoCo need no help on their branchline, and also Sodor would not need a commuter train every hour - it's a rural, agricultural island with three major population centres at Peel Godred, Vicarstown and Tidmouth. And also cause I have enough characters to balance already, Awdry had the right idea keeping the cast relatively small.