The Mainland Diesels/Behind the Scenes

Television Series
The Mainland Diesels are diesel engines created by Ian McCue and Andrew Brenner.

In 2016, The Mainland Diesels made their debut in the movie, "The Great Race".

In Journey Beyond Sodor, two were voiced by John Schwab.

CGI Model
In 2009, the series introduced Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) as a replacement for the show's long-standing live-action models.

The Mainland Diesels' models recycled from Diesel who was created by Nitrogen Studios in 2009. The Mainland Diesels were created from scratch in CGI by Arc Productions for the 2016 feature length-special, The Great Race. The model was "hand-sculpted" in Maya, a 3D animation and modelling software. At least four different faces were created for these characters. One of these faces was recycled from Diesel's test CGI model in Thomas and the Stinky Cheese by Stardust Pictures in 2008.

In 2018, international recoloured versions of these diesels were featured in the Big World! Big Adventures! era of Thomas & Friends.

Diesel #1:

Voice Actors
Diesel #1:
 * John Schwab (UK/US)
 * Kozo Dozaka (Japan)
 * Jorge Ornelas (Latin America)
 * Joshy Peters (Germany)

Ulli:
 * John Schwab (UK/US)
 * Kozo Dozaka (Japan)
 * Daniel del Roble (Latin America)
 * Joshy Peters (Germany)

Fernando:
 * Gabriel Porras
 * Kunihiro Kawamoto
 * Kento Shiraishi
 * Gabriel Ortiz
 * Ángel Amorós
 * Carlos Moreno
 * Ingo Mess
 * Tuukka Leppänen
 * Alessandro Imperador
 * Anton Savenkov
 * Bolla Róbert