Duke (T&F)/Behind the Scenes

Background Information
Duke is a fictional narrow gauge saddle tank tender locomotive created by the Rev. W. Awdry.

In 1994, Duke was introduced in the fourth series of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. The series placed a great focus on the narrow gauge characters, with a number of stories from the original books televised.

In 1998, the production crew of the fifth series introduced large scaled models of the narrow gauge engines for ease of filming and reliability. Due to budget reasons, no model of Duke to this scale was built; this is attributed to why he never appeared after the fourth series (excluding portraits and stock footage cameos).

In a 2015 interview with SiF, railway consultant Sam Wilkinson also expressed his interest to reintroduce Duke into the CGI Series, however this never came to fruition.

O gauge model (Small scale)
Duke's small model was custom built from brass by model maker, Peter Eves to run on O gauge track to the Gauge 1 Scale Standard during production of the fourth series. It was painted using glossy car body paint and lined with yellow Letraline pin-striping tape. The nameplates were custom printed foil stickers.

Duke's drive wheels were sourced from 10 Spoke Wantage Tramway driving wheels made by Slater's Plastikard and tender wheels were sourced from 10 Spoke LNER 02 Bogie Wheels. These wheels were used on an O gauge locomotive chassis. Duke used rods directly lifted from an OO scale Triang Hall class with little modification. These rods did not fit well at all and Duke ran notoriously poorly behind the scenes.

There were ten different facial expressions sculpted for Duke, although only eight were used on-screen only in the fourth series, and two of which, his shocked and startled faces were left unused. The faces were first sculpted in clay and from that resin casts were made using a silicone mould. Duke's smiling face is owned by Twitter user ThomasTankMerch.

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 the larger models being more frequently used at the time, Duke's small scale model would be disposed off by the company as it would be cheaper and more cost effective to build a larger model if for whatever reason a model was needed for a display or a promotion. Following this Duke's model would be logged as "NO LONGER EXISTS" on HiT's prop archive in 2010 which didn't happen with other models disposed as only one main Gauge 1 model would be logged on said archive.



In 2018, Duke's model (along with his happy face and nameboard (the nameboard being supplied by TomsProps)) is now owned and preserved by Twitter and Instagram user ThomasTankMerch. When first received, the model was missing the eye mechanism, handrails, side rods, cad side inserts, and tender. ThomasTankMerch had built a replica tender in its place which was made based on the original reference photos to be as accurate to the original as much as possible, Only shortly after making a new tender, they acquired the original tender making the replacement useless. The original tender was missing its coal load, so a replacement was made from a cast of an original wagon coal load which was cut to fit the tender.

The models chassis was missing all of its side rods. The new piston rod was sourced from an OO gauge Hornby Triang Princess model while the main backing rod had to be custom lazer cut like the original (also being custom made). The replacement backing rod was provided by Twitter user Cudak888.

In 2019, the model was exhibited at the Edison train show alongside various other props from ThomasTankMerch's collection and then again in 2022.

Close-up model
A larger scale model of Duke was built in the fourth series. It was required for scenes where he had to interact with the close-up scale figures.

The cab was made in pieces so it was able to be dismantled and reassembled for use of interior shots if required. Unlike most close-up models, and like Thomas’ close-up model, the one for Duke was built as a complete engine.

Two facial expressions were made for the close-up model of Duke (happy and stern) and used on-screen.

Present Day
In 2009, reference photos of Duke's close up model were taken for the animators at Nitrogen Studios and as a easier way to reference the models and props in HiT's possession at the time. Following this Duke's close up model would be disposed of due to its age.

Duke's Portrait
As dressing for the large scale set, a portrait of Duke was made. The portrait was illustrated by art director, Robert Gauld-Galliers and was roughly 80 millimetres in length and 60 millimetres in width.

The portrait appeared in the fourth and fifth series at Tidmouth Sheds, Sir Topham Hatt's Office and a Signal Box.

Voice Actors

 * Masaharu Satō