Sharpe

Sharpe is a misbehaving engine

Bio
Sharpe was built as one of eight Class A5’s in 1863. While young and capable, they weren’t strong enough to manage the Furness’ gradually heavier trains. In a slightly vague and confusing procedure, it’s believed Sharp Stewart took six of the eight back, including Sharpe, and converted them into saddle tanks. They were then sold and renumbered by a steelworks in 1870, and put to work.

The now-tank engines worked well around the Steelworks, but none were especially impressed with their new line of work. Sharpe soon received a reprieve when he was requested to join the Sodor & Mainland Railway towards the end of its operational life, in a plan to continue services on the lien with Furness and Midland Railway input. Sharpe agreed, and was put to work on the line.

Sharpe loved the branch line, but while he was bought on permanent loan after the S&M’s closure and a decade in storage, he was eventually withdrawn in the 1930’s, in his age and poor state. He was left in storage at Kirk Ronan, until news came that the resident plinth engine, later to be found as the S&M box tank Neil, had been stolen! So, to keep the townsfolk satisfied, Sharpe volunteered to be tarred, cosmetically altered, and become the new plinth engine.

The years passed, and Sharpe surprisingly didn’t mind being a black bust of another engine! In 2009, however, he was found out by Parker, attending a railway celebration of the Sodor & Mainland. Unable to defend himself, his true identity was revealed, and he was donated to the Vicarstown Railway Museum for restoration to his original shape as a static exhibit.

After a time as a static exhibit, it was decided Sharpe would be restored for work on the demonstration line. He returned from a year in the workshops, his return celebrated with a special run down the Norramby branch, which he suggested to Mr Leigh. It didn’t go well however, when his ego got him stalled on the hill. Since then he’s simmered down, working on the demonstration route and carrying the visitors around the museum.

Personality
If any engine were to simply be summed up as a grouchy old man, it would be Sharpe. Living up to his name in his blunt attitude and the oldest working engine on Sodor, as well as one of the oldest working in Britain, Sharpe will always find something to complain about – the other exhibits at Vicarstown, the visitors, or the state of the world in general! He does have a good side, though he so rarely has a chance to show it in his quiet preserved life.

Trivia

 * Sharpe uses a combination of Arthur and Murdoch's faces for his own faces.