Later that evening, when Gordon returned to the sheds after he had been repainted NWR blue, Alfred could be seen glaring furiously at him a distance from the sheds. After that, 98462 reversed out of the station, angrily billowing out his nullified name as he did, but the only thing he got out of that was Edward saying what a scoundrel he was. When he made Gordon the Number 4 engine, 98462 crossly said that Fat Controller that said he would give him and 87546 the next numbers in line after Henry, but the Fat Controller sternly made it firm and clear to him that they would only earn those numbers if they behaved, which they hadn't, and that they had been nothing but trouble since the very day they arrived on Sodor. When Gordon returned to Knapford, Alfred spitefully mocked Gordon for his 100 MPH achievement on his express run earlier, only to be immediately silenced by the Fat Controller. The next day when Gordon was tasked with taking the first high-speed express service to Vicarstown, Gordon confronted him with what the other engines had told him the other night and once again he tried to manipulate Gordon to get him on his side. He tried to manipulate Gordon and lied to him by making up his own reason why he had his name and LNER apple green livery removed, however this didn't work in the end after the engines told Gordon about 98462's true arrogant and horrid nature later that evening in the sheds. In Pride of the LNER when Gordon arrived in 1923, 98462 believed he could be redeemed. As a result of this accident, it was quite clear to the Fat Controller that his name and LNER heritage had made him very arrogant and impertinent, so to try and resolve this, he had Alfred repainted into NWR blue like Thomas and Edward and had his name withdrawn to simply his number 98462 in order to 'prevent disgracing Sir Jovington even more'. The next day, he tried to do this by speeding down the rails recklessly at high speed with his passenger train, racing through the station and into the harbor, but it only caused him to crash into a line of vans, come off the rails and land in the sea. Angered by the Fat Controller telling him this, Alfred became determined to prove his worth and show him the 'ways of the London & North Eastern Railway'. Out of anger, Alfred viciously insulted the other engines, Henry's being the worst as he called him a 'mixed-bred mongrel', which made the Fat Controller scold him severely for insulting the engines and tell him he was a disgrace to the man he was named after. After rescuing 87546, who had run out of water because he was too impatient to take on more, Henry became the number 3, which angered Alfred and 87546 greatly. He and 87546 were very rude and nasty to Henry, treating him very horribly mainly because of his flawed design. Alfred was built around 1911, originally for the Great Eastern Railway, and was later named after Alfred Jovington of the London & North Eastern Railway and arrived on Sodor in 1922 along with Henry and 87546 in The Trouble with Three.

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