Vinnie

Vinnie is an American tender engine who competed in the Great Railway Show for the Strongest Engine competition.

Personality
Vinnie is very rude and competitive, with a reputation for being a bully, and will do anything to win a competition, including cheating. He views smaller engines such as Thomas and Philip as inferior to him, often calling them derogatory names such as "Shrimp" (Thomas) and "Shortie" (Philip), and often takes pleasure in bumping them around. Because of his vile behaviour, hardly any of the engines get along with him.

He is also shown to be reckless, as seen by bashing through a pile of rocks, and Gina's flatbeds.

Despite his intimidating size and demeanour, Vinnie has proven himself to be a coward in the face of greater adversity, as shown when he panicked after his accident at the Great Railway Show.

Basis
Vinnie is based off of the Canadian National Railway's U-4-a 6400 class. His number is taken from the Grand Trunk Western #6407 of the U-4-b class, which was scrapped in April 1960. The U-4-a's were primarily used on passenger services in southern Ontario and Quebec due to a lack of coal reserves on the railway. One member of this class, 6400, helped haul George VI and Queen Elizabeth during their royal tour of Canada in 1939. It later appeared at the New York World's Fair that year, where it was filmed posing with a New York Central J-3a Dreyfuss Hudson (Connor's basis). Today, this engine has been preserved and is on display at the Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa.

Trivia

 * Vinnie is the first engine in the series to have a Vanderbilt tender.
 * Vinnie is only partially modified to work on British rail; his tender is given buffers, yet he still retains his knuckle coupler (which has a small pin so that Vinnie could couple up to British rolling stock).
 * In Vinnie's promotional video for the Great Railway Show, the announcer states he is from North America. This is quite vague as North America is actually a continent that represents numerous countries, including the United States, Canada and Mexico, although the United States' flag is the one shown.
 * In the Golden Book adaption of the special, Vinnie participated in the Great Race event, rather than the strongest engine competition.
 * Even though Vinnie has guard rails over his face, his merchandising toys (except his Capsule Plarail toy) do not have them.
 * Vinnie's Take-n-Play toy has a few errors:
 * His nameplate and number are missing.
 * His wheels are black instead of blue.