Salty is a major character in the Thomas and Friends franchise.
He is a dockside diesel shunter who occasionally works at Brendam Docks. He enjoys telling stories about the sea and sailing ships and has the accent of a pirate.
In the CGI series, he was voiced by Keith Wickham. In Japanese, he was voiced by Naoki Tatsuma and Ryuzo Ishino.
Biography[]
Salty was built in 1962 and spent many years working on an unnamed coastal railway of England before coming to Sodor in 1973. He was excited about working his first day on the island and loved telling stories revolving around the sea. When Salty arrived to the quarry, he greets Bill and Ben the Tank Engine Twins and tells them that he would be helping them with their work. The twins thought they didn't need any help as Mavis pulled in. She introduces him to the quarry which makes Salty upset; he liked working near the sea but he knew that work needed to be done so he started straight away. Mavis and the twins expected Salty to have problems with the Troublesome Trucks but what they seen was the opposite of what they expected; Salty handled the trucks really well and it nearly completes Sir Topham Hatt's work on the quarry. That night, the three engines talked about Salty (the twins were jealous while Mavis was impressed). They see Salty rolling back to the quarry with a rather misrable face which makes Mavis worried for him. Mavis asked him why was he out on his own and Salty says that he wanted to feel the breeze of the sea again and was starting to miss working alongside it. The next morning, Salty came back to the quarry knowing that the work there was important. He taught the twins the way of handling the trucks was to sing with a musical rhythm but they weren't able to complete it as well as Salty did. When Sir Topham Hatt arrived to the quarry he could see all the work was done and congratulated the three engines on their work; Mavis told him that with Salty's help, they wouldn't have got it all done. Sir Topham Hatt awarded him with Brendam Docks and since that episode, Salty works dockside like he always wanted.
Personality[]
Unlike some of the other diesels in Thomas & Friends, Salty is an easy-going, jolly, friendly, and very practical diesel who very rarely gets upset. He also enjoys telling stories revolving around the sea and fantasy. His seafaring ways and nautical accent are sometimes ridiculed and teased by the other engines (though Percy and Thomas imitated his accent since they thought he was amazing), but his usefulness almost always helps the others overlook that. He can work with trucks like no other engine; this is due to his enjoyment of working to a musical rhythm like the trucks and it may also be due to his vast collection of sea shanties. He loves the sea so much that he pines for it when he is away from it for long periods of time. He was once afraid to travel by ocean due to his knowledge of sea tales, but he overcame that.
While Salty is normally very patient and easy-going, certain levels of tomfoolery like Cranky and Carly arguing and Gordon trying to leave without any buffers can provoke a far more stern reaction from him. For most other cases, however, Salty normally deals with issues in a playful manner; his response to Gordon's boasting was to make jokes at the big engine's expense, while he willingly went along with Thomas's plan to make Diesel behave on Christmas.
Trivia[]
- Salty has been cut from more episodes than any other engine, being cut from a total of four episodes, with those being the sixth series episode, "It's Only Snow", the eighth series episode, "Emily's New Route", the ninth series episode, "Thomas and the New Engine" and the eleventh series episode, "Emily's Rubbish".
- Salty consistently speaks with a West Country English accent, which matches his bio and his deep love for the sea.
- Salty's Thomas & Friends model used to be on display at Nitrogen Studios and wore his happy face mask.
- A production-made face of Salty is preserved by the Coffey Man Preservation from the Prop Gallery.
- One of Salty's happy face masks is now in possession of Twitter user ThomasTankMerch.
- Salty's current horn sound from Day of the Diesels onwards is reused from Derek's horn sound, which in turn is a stock truck horn sound effect that has been used in many other forms of media, such as the Tom and Jerry Show episodes, "Molecular Breakup" and "Road Tripping", the Woody Woodpecker episode, "Time Warped", the Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales episode, "Unidentified Flying Mater", and in the Everybody Hates Chris episode, Everybody Hates a Part Time Job when Chris arrives at Julius' job.
- Salty's horn sound from the seventh series was used for him in most of his merchandise, except for Wooden Railway, in which his model used his current horn sound, otherwise known as Derek's, and My First Thomas, where he had his original horn sound from the sixth series only, but at a different design.
- Salty's horn from the sixth series is from the magic train from the PS2/PC game Play with the Teletubbies.
- It is also heard in the ‘I Love my Train’ song from the British children’s show ‘Me Too!’
- His horn sound from the seventh series was later reused for Diesel 10 in Calling All Engines! and Patrick in the Jack and the Sodor Construction Company's episode On Site with Thomas.
- Salty's horn sound from the tenth series episode Toby's Afternoon Off to the twelfth series and Thomas' Musical Day for Percy in the kids app, Speakaboos is the same as Bert's horn from the eighth series episode, Percy's New Whistle.
- Salty had a total of twelve facial expressions, two of which (sleeping and angry) were not used on-screen.
- According to the Thomas and Friends Writers' Bible and various merchandise bios, Salty has worked at docks all across the world.
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