James is a fictional anthropomorphic red tender locomotive from The Railway Series children's books by the Reverend Awdry and the TV series adaptation Thomas & Friends. He is a mixed-traffic engine, which means he is just as capable of hauling coaches and trucks. He has a 2-6-0 ("Mogul") wheel arrangement and is engine number 5 on the North Western Railway, The Fat Controller's railway on the Island of Sodor. James first appeared in The Railway Series in 1946, in the book Thomas the Tank Engine. Two books in the series, no. 3 James the Red Engine and no. 28 James and the Diesel Engines, are dedicated to James. Prototype and Behind the scenes James first appeared in The Railway Series in the 1946 book Thomas the Tank Engine. He was named after James Furze, a friend of the publisher's son. He was originally painted black. At the request of the publishers, Awdry dedicated James the Red Engine to the character. James was painted red in this and subsequent books. James is based on the L&YR Class 28, an mixed-traffic tender engine designed by George Hughes and based on the earlier L&YR Class 27 designed by John Aspinall. According to Awdry, the Class 28s were powerful engines but had a tendency to be nose-heavy, especially when used as relief engines on excursion trains and driven at speed. In the book The Island of Sodor: Its People, History and Railways, Awdry gave a fictional history of the engine. James was built by Hughes as an experiment to see if the nose-heaviness could be counteracted. The locomotive was fitted with larger driving wheels and a pony truck, making it into a . (The real Class 28 has wheels.) James is also missing the prominent front sandboxes fitted to the Class 28s. The improvement was not as great as hoped for and after the grouping, the LMS sold James to the Fat Controller's North Western Railway. James as a model Awdry had two models of James on his OO gauge model railway. The first, from the 1950s, was based on a 2-6-0 Glasgow and South Western Railway locomotive, the Austrian Goods, designed by Peter Drummond, which is the very same engine that Awdry had originally envisioned James as but changed it due to unknown reasons. Awdry's model was painted red with yellow lining. Despite being professionally made and "a beautiful model", the motor was