Molly

Molly is a powerful, bright yellow tender engine.

Personality
Molly is a powerful, bright yellow steam engine. She is proud of her strength, and is happy to put it to use as one of Sodor's bigger engines. She often works pulling empty trucks to the coaling plant. Being a sensitive engine, she often worries about fading into the background. Sometimes taking "empties" makes her feel less important and sad, but in the end, she will usually see that it is a vital part of operations and an important task after all. Molly has a peacekeeper attitude, tends to be rather sensible, and is looked upon as a "big sister" by some of the other engines. However, because of her sensitivity, she can be easily embarrassed or upset by conflict, and will steam away to avoid it, but will usually have the courage to do what she thinks is right. Molly likes to be as good as everyone else and wants the other engines to think the best of her.

Basis
Molly is based on a Great Eastern Railway D56 Class "Claud Hamilton", classified as D15 by the London and North Eastern Railway, with a Belpaire firebox and the smaller 'water-cart' tender. Claud Hamiltons under the classes S46/D14, D56/D15 and H88/D16 were built at Stratford Works from 1900 to 1923. Under the LNER, most members of the class were rebuilt into the Gresley designed D16/3 sub-class. Members of this class pulled the Royal Train from Wolverton to the Sardingham Estate for several decades. The last D15 was withdrawn in 1952, while the last rebuilt Claud was withdrawn in 1960. None are preserved, though there are plans to construct a replica of D16/2 No. 8783.

The original 8783 cameoed in The Railway Series book, Toby, Trucks and Trouble.

Trivia

 * Molly appeared with a larger face in promotional shots, the Official Website and in certain Thomas & Friends magazine stories. This is assumed to be a prototype face, as it was never used in the television series. The face was also used on her Take Along card and all merchandise lines except for the Wind-up line. The TOMY and TrackMaster range face covers the whole smoke box but is designed like her standard face.
 * Her original faces are now owned by ThomasTankMerch on Twitter, including two that were never shown in public until then.
 * One of Molly's models used to be on display at Nitrogen Studios.
 * Even though Molly's tender wheels are black, most merchandise ranges have them yellow, except for TOMY and TrackMaster.
 * Molly's whistle sound is a two-tone variation of Duck's.
 * Molly’s Take Along model depicts her with black buffers.