The above is an image of a GWR 47xx class, with a face, surrounded by Pannier Tanks with similar faces, which C. Hamilton Ellis penned in 1939 for The Railway Gazette, five years before the first publication by The Reverend W. Awdry in 1944, The Three Railway Engines. The Pannier Tank engines with faces predate the character "Duck" by nearly twenty years!

This image is not as significant as it may first appear. Trains with faces have appeared in English literature and satire since 1829.

One of the earliest applications of trains with faces, in serious works, was to be found in one of the earliest editions of Dombey & Son by Charles Dickens, where the train which runs over the hapless Carker is illustrated with a reptilian face, an evil and monstrous machine whose very movement shakes the ground like a great serpentine leviathan.

In political satire, the "Railway King" Hudson was consistently depicted with locomotives and rolling stock embodying the faces of its passengers and workers, to make political points. This sort of political satire became more and prevalent over the next century with every change to the railways in place!

Contemporary to Awdry and at the time, more popular, Eileen Gibb's Sammy The Shunter portrayed locomotives with faces in all sorts of styles, including faces relating more to the image above and the initial style of Awdry's The Railway Series.

So my question is thus - why is there this strange, much held belief, that Awdry - and/or Britt Allcroft, Gullane, or the current rights holders, HiT Entertainment, have a patent or specific Intellectual Copyright covering the placement of faces on trains?

They certainly do hold the patents for specific character designs, but no such patent for the overall Anthropomorphism of trains (or anything else for that matter) exists, or would be allowed to be held by a single individual or company.

I've spent six years of my life examining English Literature and its changes under a fast developing railway system, and what is perhaps most significant is the way in which human attributes are given to inanimate objects such as railway locomotives, ranging from the serious novels of Charles Dickens, to the artwork of esteemed Railway researcher and historian, C. Hamilton Ellis, to children's literature with Eileen Gibbs, and dozens more examples besides.

This seems to be a part of English Literature and Railway history completely forgot, in the wake of a little blue tank engine. Harking back to a time where putting a face on a train was a much more natural reaction to the changes in the world around us, be it making a point about the darker side of railways by Dickens, or the politics involved with George Hudson, or trying to entertain and educate children with Sammy the Shunter.

I'd like to offer up the view, that I wish the commonly held belief of "Trains with Faces" - the stereotype that is "infringing on Thomas' patents", was not so prevalent as it seems to be...!

Does anyone on RMweb remember other examples of trains with faces that predated Awdry's work, in serious literature or children's? I'd love to hear about them.