Barry

Barry, named after Barry Island, the home of the scrapyard in South Wales where he was rescued, was a potential character for the Railway Series. He was to first appear in the book, Barry the Rescue Engine - which was initially thought to be the thirty-ninth volume of the Railway Series, however, it ended up becoming cancelled due to young fans not wanting anymore new characters, so Barry was left scrapped from the Railway Series.

It has since been revealed by Christopher Awdry that the book had been created in the 1980's and the engine similar to Wilbert were completely different engines altogether.

Basis
According to the newly updated The Railway Series: A Brief History page on the Sodor Island Fansite, Barry is a BR Standard Class 2. Barry is logically a 2MT 2-6-0 instead of a 2MT 2-6-2T as none of the tank engines were sent to the Barry Island Scrapyards. The engine Barry is directly based off of was built in 1953 and entered traffic on March 3, 1954.

Trivia

 * According to Chapter 15 of The Thomas the Tank Engine Man entitled "Really Useful Engines", Christopher Awdry explains that he submitted the outline for Barry, but the response from the young fans was that they wanted Thomas and his friends, not anymore new engines. So he quoted: "But, I haven't altogether given up; you could say Barry is dead but not yet buried!"