If Edward was intended to be a Furness Railway K2, he has a surprising number of differences. He is sort of a generalised depiction of a Victorian/Edwardian 4-4-0, with vague elements of North Eastern and Midland designs. Ultimately I prefer the idea of Edward being a K2 as it helped more people recognise the great locos of the Furness Railway, and helps suggest Sodor is located not far off the Isle of Man.
I believe Awdry mentioned that Edward had extensive rebuilds on Sodor in the Island of Sodor book, so that probably explains why he doesn’t look much like a K2.
Well not really. He was created to be an older, smaller engine than the boastful, newer, larger and stronger Gordon. He later claimed Edward was a K2 because it resembled his appearance in the first book’s original illustrations, and that the real-life engines worked nearby where the Island of Sodor is said to be located off the coast of Cumbria.
I wonder if they made him shorter in the CGI series to make him look more like a K2, which were built relatively low on their chassis compared to Edward’s original prop.
I think the Hornby model of Midland Railway / LMS Compound 4-4-0 No. 1000 looks a lot Edward. There's an illustration of this locomotive on the footbridge at Matlock railway station. I think this would be my Edward!
This is something I see funny now I’m well aware Edward is male, but when I was little watching the model series, I thought Edward and Henry were girls because the narrator when doing their voice, it sounded a bit high-pitched and their face to me. You look like a girl when they brought in Emily. I was like confused because it already had two girls in the time I started listening to audiobooks. The railway series when I heard the narrator, describe it Edward and Henry as him
Funny you mention that, because when Britt Allcroft was developing the original television series for the United States, there were plans to change Edward into a female character named Alice- there’s even scripts for the first episode of Shining Time Station that feature this name. They decided against it because Britt felt that would be straying too far from the Rev. W. Awdry’s vision for the character.
In his defense, that entire book was borked. Awdry said it was his least favorite book, as it had been written merely to meet a deadline. The illustrations suggest that these too were also rushed, judging by some of the strange proportions seen throughout in not just Edward, but practically everything in the book.
@Dat-Mudkip Simple terms, Dalby was a horrible artist for when it came down to drawing locos and made a terribly bold cliam how the Railway Series was gonna die out. How wrong the foolish old man was.
