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meanscarletdeceiver · 2 years

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Sodor Work History: James Edition

Ugh, it seems to have vanished?? But I had an anon request a James equivalent to my Edward work history post. Of course now that I'm done writing I can't find the ask… #ThanksTumblr… Anyway here goes:

I'd like to! But James is tricky...

The thing with James is, we seem to have a bunch of data points throughout the books on his doings. But there's so much we don't know about the main line working and how many "unseen" engines share the work with our main characters. Like, all the branch line characters are easier to at least assemble pieces into a rough border because there are more constraints there. The main line has too many unknowns. There is a similar problem to sketching out Henry's timetables, but at least with Henry—like with all the other MCs—we know of at least one thing that he is known to do regularly. We don't have a touchstone for James.

Broadly, though, here are a few things I notice (and/or just streeeeeetch to conclude in a fever dream) about James's Sodor career:

He spent a little while there as the closest damn thing Tidmouth had to a station pilot. I feel like this gets completely overlooked. After the bootlace incident he's benched from passenger work, of course, but in addition to goods work he is doing a lot of coach-fetching at the big station. Troublesome Engines says that he continued being the "odd jobs" fellow for a while until he started to rebel. He would never have been full-time—unlike, say, Thomas. Thomas, I'm sure, would have been transferred to Tidmouth when HQ moved and continued there if not for his branch line assignment. But, unlike Thomas, James is trusted to take trains out of the station. But in between those trains he was largely stuck with the shunting. (In "Troublesome Trucks" his tricky goods train appears to go as far as Maron or Cronk? Not traversing the whole line, not yet.) Troublesome Engines says of course that Gordon and Henry had to step up, and also that Edward helped when he was available, but I think it's pretty obvious who was a) actually a Tidmouth engine and b) the newest Tidmouth engine and c) the smallest Tidmouth engine. (To add to this brief period in James's life, I note that the train that pushes him down the hill at the end of TTTE might well be—da dum da dum!—the same train that Thomas lost control of in the previous story. How's that for literary repetition, eh? Anyway, point being, James might have been expected to fill in Thomas's old role on the NWR from the very start.)

During Thomas and Bertie's chase, James is seen in an illustration with a goods train on Thomas's line! Now you can explain away one random illustration if you want, but it does make a lot of sense that in 1948 Thomas might need help running goods on his line—this would have been after the useful working lives of the Coffee Pots, but before Toby (and way before Percy) join the line. So yeah, until Toby's arrival James might have pitched in on Thomas's line fairly often. It's a nice detail. It might have gone all the way back to the '20s or whatever. Certainly James would have been grateful to Thomas for rescuing him so he was probably happy to do it... at least for a while...

Let's talk main line stopping trains. I have a bit of a headcanon here, though it's built on the slenderest of canonical reeds which is why I'm not calling this bit an analysis. We see James with a lot of these stopping trains but in my personal canon I've decided that all such trains we see him on in this era ("Dirty Objects," "Old Iron," "A Close Shave," and maybe "Henry's Sneeze") are 'the Limited,' which I take it is a semi-fast that stops only at major stations (places like Knapford, Wellsworth, Cronk—maybe Crovan's Gate though that seems to leave CG, like, absurdly well-served). No all-stops for James, thank you! Well, occasionally he gets stuck with one but usually that's beneath him.

Sadly for him, throughout most of the '50s goods are clearly not beneath him. If I am right that in passenger work he specializes on the semi-fast, he has no such luck in goods work. "Dirty Objects" has that wonderful description making it clear how much James hates slow good trains but I suspect those are his bread and butter for years to come. Certainly he's in the midst of another such assignment a year later in "Old Iron"—and in that story it is also made clear that, not only does he have to stop at each station to pick up or drop off trucks, at most of these stops he has to do his own shunting. This sounds like it probably takes most of his damn day. The day described in "Dirty Objects" of one morning passenger service followed by one of these endless slogs is probably pretty typical for James in this era.

In the early '50s at least, this routine gets broken up—occasionally—only when there is a need to cover the Express. The '50s were a good decade for it, as, in addition to Gordon's regular need for "rest" or maintenance, James also gets to score big with Gordon's unplanned trip to London and Gordon's lengthy punishment following the Ditch Incident. Jackpot, baby!

[Time-Sensitive Alert: There Is A Tram Engine Blocking Your Line]

I assume all James's appearances at the junction with the narrow-gauge gang are when he's taking an Express. Or maybe some sort of Limited? But it's... fairly consistent that Tidmouth engines are not just randomly on the eastern end of the line unless they're taking some sort of major train—I presume that any of the humdrum 'Locals' on the eastern side are taken care of by Vicarstown engines.

The '50s are when we get the most complete picture of James's working days. I reckon it changed, however, towards the end of the decade. Along with the other 'eight,' our boy's fame is on the rise throughout the decade and I think James effectively parlayed this into doing more passenger work, taking advantage of what was surely a rise in tourism to the island. At some point James is merely picking up the slack when it comes to heavy goods—and then. Then! Donald arrives. Bringing a twin with him! I tend to think at this point James was pretty much relieved from the goods work he had hated for so long completely... for, like, a month or two. Then Donald had to be repaired after his totally-accidental signalbox adventure and TFC observes ruefully that "James will have to help with the goods work... he won't like that!" Surely not, but I think the thing was, when TFC got an unexpected 2-for-1, James was immediately released from that stuff. God, no wonder that by the final story he was so keen for both twins to stay on! For that matter, I also reckon that James was usually tapped for snow-removal duty during winters before the Caledonians came. Really they were a godsend to him in his effort to rise above his station. Ye're welcome, laddie.

Seriously. For the rest of the Wilbert Awdry books, I can't find another instance of James doing goods work. *shrugs casually* Now, Awdry was also giving James far less screen time at this point so you can say definitely say there's not enough data to draw meaningful conclusions. I however prefer to think it was no coincidence but rather a logical effect of recruiting Duck, the Caledonians, and the diesels of the '60s. It makes sense. Heavy goods would have only been getting heavier. Not that it was impossible for James to keep up, but if you have some modern diesels and two Scottish goods engines who love to work together as much as possible then, you know. Why keep forcing James into that role?

I admit that Christopher Awdry fucks up this trajectory. Sigh. Sometimes he is soooo thoughtful about his timetable choices but other times I think he just defaults to some of the most obvious franchise tropes the same way a TVS writer would. It's maddening.

Anyway yeah, I concede that as soon as we see James again in '84 he's taking goods. He's also complaining about having to shunt his train, saying that this should be Donald or Douglas's kind of work, but the twins were both called away to help on Edward's branch line on that particular day so the field is open for James to have his karmic story ("Crossed Lines"). Now you could make a plausible case that what James says when he's grumbling is not to be trusted as gospel truth and that he's exaggerating the degree to which this is now true but I'm inclined to take it at face value.

At any rate, for all the rest of the series, James is seen (when he is seen) taking passenger trains, including at least one turn on the Express in '92/'93, except on a few occasions:

1. Filling in while Henry is in overhaul on the Flying Kipper

2. Working some sort of special job repairing rails along with Donald and Douglas in the final book. Notably he expresses on the last day (well, the "last" day, or so they all thought) that he's looking forward to it being done so he can hopefully go back to passenger trains, but he is remarkably chill throughout the whole story and causes zero (0) drama at all. And you thought Gordon was supposed to be the only RWS character to show growth. Mwahaha!

In short, I suppose when you add in the Christopher Awdry era (you know. if we want to) then it's no longer clear whether James is really doing goods work and odd jobs significantly less or whether he's just bitching about it less. I'm inclined to think Both, however: He's called upon for it less often than in the pre-Caledonian invasion days and therefore he doesn't chafe and bitch nearly about it as much when he is.

Much like we let TVS confirm/fill in the gist of Edward's latter-day career, I feel like we can take similar cues for James. I'm thinking here mostly of the Brenner era, especially *drumroll please* "SOMEBODY HAS TO BE THE FAAAAVOURITE!" vibes. Well, I'm not so sure James is really going around singing his smokebox off (... though it's cute ngl...) but I do think it's true that he is, in general, picking up a steady enough supply of "good" jobs that his ego is pretty well fed. Which is honestly a much better way to manage James than to try desperately to teach him humility, if you ask me.

I'm not sure how useful a proposed timeline will be but it seemed to be some people's favorite part of the last such post I did so I'll give it a try.

1925 — goods trial, first day cow-field crash

1925 — overhaul

1925 — passenger trial, bootlace incident

1925 — station pilot and local goods (western end of line only)

1925 — allowed back on passenger trains, also western end of line only

1928 (or whatever year you allow for the strike and Percy's arrival, which is somewhere between '25-'35) — shifts to a longstanding pattern of morning stopping passenger train (I proposed the Limited, to Cronk and back to Tidmouth) and then has a slow heavy goods out of Tidmouth (this requires stopping and shunting at many stations and takes the better part of the day), probably tacks on an evening passenger service too

1939-1946 — I do think wartime disrupted James's schedule. Ironically I tend to think he got a lot of passenger services, including regular charge of the Express to free Gordon on heavy coal and war materiel trains, but the work was all non-stop hell and Vicarstown certainly and probably Tidmouth also got blitzed so it's not like he got to enjoy it. Troop trains were also probably a James specialty.

1960 — James transitions out of heavy goods work and his longstanding timetable of Limited + slow goods + evening commuter service is changed, probably to something featuring more passenger trains than previously. Fitted goods are definitely an option to replace his hated slow goods assignment.

2010-11 — James picks up a months-long assignment helping with some sort of line repair. Notably it seems to be during the late winter/early spring "off season," so my guess is that he took his usual commuter services but that during the summer and holidays James is also taking frequent specials. It's during that chunk of his "busy season" timetables that he is pulled for stuff like this in the off-season—no need to find coverage for him.

You'll notice the 1920s were suuuuuuper eventful but also only a blip in James's life.

Which is the exact sort of thing that I think we so often forget. They've all lived so much more life than their little highlight stories that we're privy to.

#grrrr formatting this was also very tricky #tumblr why are you like this #ttte #the railway series #ttte james #ttte analysis #ttte headcanon #engine resumes ig #chatter #thank you nonny

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