YMMV / The Railway Series B13: "Duck and the Diesel Engine"

• Accidental Aesop: "A Close Shave" teaches readers to "never set up shop at the end of a train track".
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Diesel. He was only created for this one book to exist as a generic shunter and an introduction to the dieselization of railways. However, he became an iconic antagonist of The Railway Series, enough to be brought back for a one-off novel Thomas and the Evil Diesel, and end up a recurring character in the Thomas & Friends TV adaptation.
• Evil Is Cool: As the series' first proper villain, Diesel certainly left an impression. Thanks mainly to his talents as a Manipulative Bastard, and him serving as a "broken mirror" to Duck.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The barber. While his eventual Jerkass Realization does slightly mitigate things, setting up shop at the end of a train track is stupid and dangerous no matter how you look at it, especially considering the lack of any buffers.

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