A/N I read The Little Engine That Could as a kid and when talking about my idea to have The Little Blue Engine visit Sodor, I was told her name's Tillie. This was inspired by Thomas and Tillie, the title character in The Little Engine That Could, meeting in a video.
Thomas and the other Sodor engine were welcoming a visitor. They'd been told her name and that she was filling in for an engine undergoing prolonged, planned maintenance, Rosie. After telling Tillie, the visitor, about her job Rosie would head to the Steamworks. Tillie, too would need to go there for an inspection, to make sure nothing had damaged her during her travels to the island.
"Hello", the engines all said when Tillie arrived, Sodor engines and her.
Thomas, due to being the leader among the engines, introduced himself and his friends to her. And they call me little, he thought. But I'm bigger than Tillie. I don't think she's even as big as Percy. "I'm Thomas", he told her and then told her who all his friends were. "Talk to Rosie", he said. "She shall tell you about her job."
Tillie thought, So that's who I replace. She said to Rosie, "Thomas told me to talk to you since I'm filling in for you."
Rosie said, "I'm a switching engine or shunter, depending on country. I'm from the same country as you, but I was built for the railway, as they call what our birth country refers to as a railroad Thomas's class was built by. When I was on the Mainland, I worked with Thomas's siblings. He worked on the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway his first summer. They told me how cheeky he could be, always up to mischief."
Tillie and Rosie went to the Steamworks, with Rosie telling Tillie all the differences between terminology. Sir Topham Hatt told Tillie what station Rosie worked at and how to get there from the Steamworks. He also told her Rosie's crew would be her crew. Then he left and the tank engines went back to their talk as Tillie was inspected. Rosie was telling Tillie all about her life on Sodor.
Rosie's crew climbed aboard Tillie and they left for the station Rosie normally worked at. She told them what kind of engine she was, including her personality. "Do Sodor engines cry, like I do when someone yells at me or tells me I can't do something?", she asked. "That's what makes me sad."
Rosie's driver said, "I've had to comfort Rosie, so I know the engines here feel emotions and sometimes cry. I can comfort you, if I'm with you when someone makes you cry and feel sad."
They rolled down the tracks and reached Vicarstown. Tillie's time on Sodor was now under way fully. Her work had begun.
A/N Tillie's basis is said to be C.P. Huntington, a US switch engine with a bunker, which is a tank engine word as I learned from TTTE. I looked up Tillie's basis and its weight's listed as 18 tons and Percy's maybe 22 tons, according to someone in a TTTE Discord I joined a few months back. I imagine Rosie knowing the US terms because she heard them used when she was built. In my Thomasverse, they named her Rosie at the place USA engines like her were built. While visiting the island, Tillie's just like the other engines in terms of needing a crew because how Sodor is. IDk if they have crew in TLETC, so I'm going by that, pretending she, in her original home, could use special mechanisms to get her own fuel that Sodor doesn't have. Except for the face, Tillie's just like her basis on Sodor to be more like the others, so she can do only what they can, like whistle and let off steam.
