Donald and Douglas (T&F)/Behind the Scenes

Background Information
Donald and Douglas are fictional Scottish twin standard gauge tender locomotives created by the Rev. W. Awdry. They carry the numbers 9 and 10 respectively.

Donald and Douglas first appeared in the second series episode, Break Van, which first aired in 1986. Their last appearance was in the special Big World! Big Adventures!, which was released in 2018.

The episode The Missing Coach was originally meant to be Donald and Douglas' introductory, but was canceled due to the belief of the plot being too complicated for young children to follow. Break Van was the episode that introduced them instead. They were also noted as possible candidates to take the role of Percy's friends in the television adaptation of Percy Takes the Plunge - which would have marked their first appearance in the television series, albeit unnamed. Bill and Ben were ultimately chosen for this role instead.

Unlike The Railway Series, where the twins were painted blue since they were allowed to stay, they remained black since their introduction. According to Robert Gauld-Galliers there were never any plans to repaint Donald and Douglas blue. This was most likely done to make it easier for the viewer to identify each engine from one another.

Donald and Douglas appeared as major characters throughout the second to seventh series, appearing as the most iconic twin engine characters along with Bill and Ben, although only Donald appeared in the fifth series, albeit without speaking. Since the sixth series, they were described as nearly always working together.

Since the eighth series, due to the stories focusing primarily on the Steam Team, Donald and Douglas were widely neglected along with many other characters and left absent for the majority of episodes from the eighth to the nineteenth series, although they were due to have a role in the eighth series episode Edward the Great before the scene they appeared in was cut and were mentioned in You Can Do it, Toby!.

They had supporting roles in the eleventh series episode, Gordon and the Engineer and had minor roles in the twelfth series episode, Saved You, but became absent again for five years when the series moved from live-action model to Computer-Generated Imagery. It would not be until the special, Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure that they would return as major characters.

Since their return to CGI, Donald and Douglas' episodes mainly involve them getting into quarrels and arguments with a common sibling rivalry much like Bill and Ben, and they are described as brothers rather than twins.

As a result of the stories from the show's twenty-second series onwards focusing primarily on the Steam Team and only occasionally some side characters, Donald and Douglas have not appeared in the television series since 2018.

Voices
In almost all English speaking narrations, Donald and Douglas have Scottish accents; reflecting their basis' origins. However, in the narration of the sixth series, Alec Baldwin portrayed Donald and Douglas with American accents. When Donald and Douglas returned in 2015, Joe Mills provided the voices for both twins in both the British English and American English dubs of the series. The following year Rob Rackstraw took over the role of Donald in the twentieth series, leaving the role of Douglas to Mills, presumably to help viewers tell them apart without only using sight. Joe Mills and Rob Rackstraw both maintain Scottish accents for the twins.

Gauge 1 models
Donald and Douglas were custom built with a plastic body shell and used a Märklin locomotive as a donor for the chassis and various parts. They were painted using automotive paint and lined with red and white automotive pinstripe tape with the numbers being custom cut vinyl stickers.

Their chassis and tender wheels were sourced from the Märklin gauge 1 locomotive, the BR 55. The buffer beams and funnels were also from the BR 55.

The eye mechanism had two servos, one for up and down movement and one for left and right movement. The up/down servo was attached to the body. The left/right servo had a rod attached to the arm, which connected to a bracket. The eye balls were coupled to the bracket, and locked in by the face-plate, so whenever the servos were powered, the eye balls would move however the crew member desired. In Series 11 Donald would be given a new JR Propo X2610 remote control for his eyes, Donald's new eye mechanism remote control was also used for Madge.

Model Changes
Donald and Douglas have modifications throughout the model era. These include:
 * Series 3:
 * Their nameplates were moved from their smokeboxes closer to the centre of their boilers.
 * Their brake pipes were moved from their left (viewer right) to their right side.
 * Douglas shared Donald's whistle sound.
 * In Donald's Duck, Donald's brake pipe faced upward in a few scenes.
 * Series 4:
 * Their pupils became smaller.
 * Their nameplates were moved precisely to the centre of their boilers.
 * Their whistle sounds changed:
 * Donald's whistle sound changed pitch and shared Duck's whistle sound.
 * Douglas had Thomas' whistle at ten steps lower-pitched (although he also used Duck's whistle sound in the UK version of Thomas and Stepney and in one scene in Toad Stands By). Although their original whistle sounds can be heard when other engines are whistling.
 * Series 6:
 * Their pupils returned to their original size.
 * Their paint were given a matte finish.
 * Their brake pipes now face upwards.
 * Their coupling rod bolts became black.
 * Donald regained his original whistle sound.
 * Douglas' whistle sound is the same as Donald again.
 * Series 11:
 * They both regained Duck's whistle sound.
 * Series 12:
 * Their cheekbones disappeared.

Present Day
After production of the model series wrapped in 2008, most of the models and sets would be put into storage, with some being put on display at Drayton Manor Theme Park. All other models would be logged and referenced in 2009 by HiT Entertainment, from this HiT would decide on which models were to enter storage once again, which would be given to crew members and which to be disposed off. Due to only having one set of models made in gauge 1 scale, Donald and Douglas' models would stay under HiT and later Mattel's ownership.

Donald and Douglas' models are currently on display at the Hara Model Railway Museum in Japan. One of Douglas' nameplates is also currently owned by Twitter user TomsProps. Additionally Donald's new eye mechanism remote control is owned by Twitter user SkarloeyRailwayAdventure. One of there snowplows would also be displayed at the second Clearwater Event in 2022.

Faces
Eleven different facial expressions were sculpted for both Donald and Douglas and used on-screen. The faces were first sculpted in clay, and from that resin casts were made using a silicone mould. Some of Donald and Douglas' faces were duplicated in case they needed to wear the same facial expression in the same shot.

Fonts
The following fonts were used on Donald and Douglas' Gauge 1 models:
 * Times New Roman Bold Condensed

Close-up model
A close-up model of Donald and Douglas was required for scenes where they had to interact with close-up scale figures. The model was not complete and only the tender was built. The close-up model was made with a filler-cap, something their regular models did not have. Donald and Douglas' close-up model only appeared in the third series.

CGI models
In 2009, the series introduced Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) as a replacement for the show's long-standing live-action models. In 2014, Donald and Douglas were recreated from scratch in CGI by Arc Productions for production of the 2015 special Sodor´s Legend of the Lost Treasure. Their models were "hand-sculpted" in Maya, a 3D animation and modelling software. Photographs of Donald and Douglas' Gauge 1 models were used for referencing. Aside from minor facial differences, nameplates and textures, their CGI models are identical.

Donald and Douglas have had modifications throughout the CGI series. These include:
 * Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure:
 * Their nameplates became smaller and were moved back to the sides of their smokeboxes, like in the second series. Their nameplates also became curved to their smokeboxes rather than just being flat plates.
 * The boiler band in line with their domes was removed.
 * They gained rivets on their buffer beams and smokeboxes.
 * Their handrails became thicker.
 * Their cheekbones were restored, though somewhat less prominent compared to earlier appearances.
 * Both twins gained permanent lamps and tail lamps.
 * Their funnels and cabs became more accurate to their basis.
 * They gained a stepladder in the middle of their running boards, like in the Railway Series.
 * They gained new whistle sounds.
 * They became slightly smaller in size.
 * Their buffer beams were lowered closer to the track.
 * Their tenders slightly decreased in height, so that the lining matched that of the lining on their cabs.
 * The design of their numbers was changed slightly.

Texture variants
In addition to their standard liveries, a few other texture variants exist of Donald and Douglas' CGI models. These texture variants include:

Fonts
The following fonts were used on Donald and Douglas' CGI models:
 * Times New Roman Bold Condensed
 * Trebuchet MS Bold

Voice Actors
Donald:
 * Joe Mills
 * Rob Rackstraw
 * Yūki Satō
 * Kyousei Tsukui
 * Nozomu Sasaki
 * Fabrice Trojani
 * Piotr Bajtlik
 * Józef Pawłowski
 * Nir Ron
 * Zvika Fohrman
 * Fred Meijer
 * Ricardo Bautista
 * Christian Stark
 * Carsten Krabbe
 * Vasiliy Zotov
 * Alexander Horlin

Douglas:
 * Joe Mills
 * Takeshi Endo
 * Yūki Satō
 * Kyousei Tsukui
 * Nozomu Sasaki
 * Bernard Demory
 * Fabrice Trojani
 * Cezary Kwieciński
 * Przemysław Glapiński
 * Gadi Levy
 * Fred Meijer
 * José Ángel Torres
 * Christian Stark
 * Ole Jacobsen
 * Daniil Eldarov
 * Alexander Horlin