Donald and Douglas/Behind the Scenes

The Railway Series
Donald and Douglas are fictional Scottish twin tender locomotives created by the Rev. W. Awdry. They work and live on the Island of Sodor and are known to work on the Little Western and occasionally on Edward's Branch Line. They carry the numbers 9 and 10.

They first appeared in the Railway Series book, the Twin Engines, which was published in 1960. Their last appearance was in Thomas and his Friends, published in 2011.

Television Series
Donald and Douglas were introduced in the television series in the second series. The episode the Missing Coach was originally meant to be their introductory, but was canceled due to the belief of the plot being to complicated for young children to follow (although one screenshot of what appeared to be based on Hullo Twins was revealed, there is no information as to whether or not the story was meant to be an episode). Break Van was the episode that introduced them 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 characters along with Bill and Ben, although they never spoke in the fifth series. Since the sixth series, they were described as nearly almost working together.

Since the eighth series, due to the stories focusing primarily on the Steam Team, Donald and Douglas were widly neglected along with many other characters and were 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 when the series moved from live-action model animation 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 occasionally have at least one story featuring them as either main characters or minor characters. Their stories 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.

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. Joe Mills and Rob Rackstraw both maintains Scottish accents for the characters.

Awdry's models
The Rev. W. Awdry only made a model of Donald for his model railway; there never was a Douglas model. The model is currently on display at the Narrow Gauge Museum in Tywyn.

Gauge 1 Models
Donald and Douglas were custom built with a perspex 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 bufferbeams and funnels were also from the BR 55.

Ten different facial expressions were sculpted for Donald and Douglas. The faces were first sculpted in clay, and from that resin casts were made using a silicone mold.

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.

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 Model
In 2009, the series introduced Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) as a replacement for the show's long-standing live-action models. In 2015, Donald and Douglas were recreated from scratch in CGI by Arc Productions. Their model was "hand-sculpted" in Maya, a 3D animation and modelling software.[2] Photographs of Donald and Douglas' Gauge 1 model were used for referencing. Aside from minor facial differences and textures, their CGI renders were nearly identical.

Donald and Douglas have had modifications throughout the CGI series. These include:
 * Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure:
 * Their nameplates are smaller and have moved back to the sides of their smokeboxes, like in the second series. Their nameplates are now curved to their smokeboxes rather than a flat plate.
 * They have rivets on their bufferbeams and smokeboxes.
 * Their handrails are thicker.
 * Their cheekbones are restored, though somewhat less prominent compared to earlier appearances.
 * Both twins gained permanent lamps and tail lamps.
 * Their funnels and cabs are more accurate to their basis.
 * They gained a stepladder in the middle of their running boards, like in the Railway Series.
 * They gained new, deep-toned whistle sounds.
 * They are slightly smaller.
 * Their bufferbeams are lower to the track.
 * Their tenders slightly decreased in height so the lining matches the lining on their cabs.

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
 * Carsten Krabbe

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
 * Ole Jacobsen