Duck and the Diesel Engine - the First Grown-Up Railways Series Book

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[00:00:11]Hello, everyone.

[00:00:12]If you read Wilbert Awdry's books from start to finish, they get progressively more suitable for older kids as well as young ones.

[00:00:19]The first stories are far more simple affairs with things like engines getting stuck on hills and in tunnels.

[00:00:25]Later on the narratives got darker with aspects like scrapping being a tangible end and engines being lost in a landslide for years.

[00:00:32]For older readers, this provides a more mature story, while the younger readers will probably find the danger more exciting.

[00:00:38]It's a fun little challenge to pick where the classic Railway Series books end, with the classic books being the fun early simple stories that the more grown-up stories which are less well known to most people succeeded.

[00:00:48]Of course, they start with the first books in The Three Railway Engines and Thomas the Tank Engine, but could go on as far as say Edward the Blue Engine or maybe Toby's last book, Percy the Small Engine.

[00:00:58]There are many collections, compilations, and box sets of stories with classic in the title, and they're mostly drawn from the initial 11 books, with The Eight Famous Engines sometimes included and even sometimes the later but pretty cheery book Branch Line Engines.

[00:01:11]One volume that's right on the cusp of the classic divide is Duck and the Diesel Engine, the 13th book in the series.

[00:01:18]I think this is the one where the more mature themes really start to appear in the books and the tone gets darker while still maintaining the traditional Railway Series vibe.

[00:01:26]Today, I'll be looking at why I think this is and the effect it has on the books from this point onwards.

[00:01:31]Let's start with the protagonist.

[00:01:34]Duck is a fan favorite character, first introduced in Percy the Small Engine.

[00:01:38]He's a larger tank engine who puts Henry, Gordon, and James in their place in a way Percy cannot.

[00:01:43]He appears briefly in the following book, The Eight Famous Engines, where he argues with Gordon and a visitor about the nature of London.

[00:01:49]Following this is Duck and the Diesel Engine, where he is in the starring role.

[00:01:54]Duck is principled, dignified, and respectful. He won't stand any nonsense and is defensive of the Fat Controller and his railway. He's a good lad, basically.

[00:02:03]He's also got a good sense of humor, joking with the other engines, and takes their teasing of his Great Western Ways on the chin.

[00:02:09]Duck works as station pilot at Tidmouth, so he is trusted to run the yard, make sure trains are ready for the big engines, and seems to get on well with everyone.

[00:02:17]The first story in the book shows Duck as rather bashful when his driver suggests that he speak with City of Truro, and the Pannier tank is impressed with the engine known to go 100 mph being happy to talk with him.

[00:02:28]Their Great Western connection helps bond the pair, and when the famous visitor leaves the next day to continue his special train run by a railway society, Duck defends his new pal to Gordon, who doesn't take well to another celebrity express engine on the railway.

[00:02:41]Duck is cross with Gordon for slandering City of Truro, saying "Domeless engines aren't respectable." But Edward calms him down.

[00:02:47]The pair are talking about City of Truro being a fine engine when Gordon rushes through trying to beat City of Truro's record.

[00:02:54]Duck snorts with derision, and I think we all know what happens next.

[00:02:57]Gordon's dome dislodges, and he has to go around for the rest of the day as a domeless engine himself.

[00:03:02]He's greeted with a tease in the shed that night.

[00:03:05]"Never trust domeless engines," said a voice. "They aren't respectable."

[00:03:10]It's never confirmed, but it seems likely this voice is Duck's.

[00:03:14]The story is a typical first story in a railway series book, setting the scene and tone for the coming volume.

[00:03:19]Straightaway we have talk of a railway society and the history of the Great Western Railway, which are both things unlikely to have appeared in earlier books.

[00:03:27]In my recent review of James the Red Engine, an early book, the most technical language was a mention of James being a mixed-traffic engine. So, the language and information given to the reader here is far more advanced.

[00:03:38]By now, Wilbert was not only writing for himself and including areas that he appreciated, and not just the child who likes the slapstick element, but also the parent who has to read the story again and again and again and again and again, for whom he has to make the rereading both interesting and tolerable.

[00:03:53]The story involves the mention of domes a lot.

[00:03:56]It doesn't go into exactly what the function of a dome is, as it's inconsequential to the story, but the use of technical language is a technique Wilbert often used if it made the story more interesting and therefore engaging for the older reader, either a parent or an older child.

[00:04:09]These were the days when steam engines still graced the rails, so references to things like domes would have been known better.

[00:04:16]A comic device seen through the Railway Series is transposing an idiom about humans to the steam engines, and here is big-headedness being changed to Gordon's boiler being swollen.

[00:04:25]As he grows an author, Wilbert included more funny little touches like this, which makes sense to both the child hearing the story and the adult or older child.

[00:04:33]City of Truro is the first famous real engine to be seen in the series.

[00:04:37]While younger children may not know about their history, steam enthusiasts would.

[00:04:41]City of Truro is shown to be kind and generous engine who takes well to Duck.

[00:04:45]It's more shocking then when this cheerful and modest tank engine falls from grace when another visitor arrives.

[00:04:50]This engine is a diesel, the first we've ever seen in the series, and by far the nastiest character we've met so far.

[00:04:57]It's no surprise that Awdry made this modern interloper villain, another first for the series, as he was famously displeased with these two-faced upstarts.

[00:05:05]Wilbert was persuaded to write this new breed of engine into the series by his publisher and the changing face of UK traction.

[00:05:11]The malevolence written into the newcomer make the book seem more mature than the jolly eight famous engines that preceded it.

[00:05:18]Diesel arrived in Pop Goes the Diesel.

[00:05:21]He is borrowed by the Fat Controller to help around the yard, and the other engines are at once happy to see him.

[00:05:26]They're growing a bit tired of Duck's pride in being Great Western.

[00:05:29]For although he makes the yard run like clockwork, he makes them work harder, too.

[00:05:33]Diesel sucks up to the big engine at once, but Duck sees through this brown-nosing and doubts him.

[00:05:38]He then puts Diesel in his place when he calls Sir Topham Hatt the Fat Controller, a name he has not yet earned the right to use, and he was criticizing him to boot.

[00:05:47]Diesel says that he and all Diesel kind are revolutionary and he already knows what to do without [music] Duck's help.

[00:05:53]He wants to flaunt his abilities to Duck by picking up his trucks while Duck goes away to arrange Gordon's train.

[00:05:59]Duck by now is tired of this smarmy know-it-all, so lets him.

[00:06:02]Diesel is first rough and rude with Duck's trucks before trying to force a line of empty trucks which are visibly not in service to move.

[00:06:10]Duck returns in time to see Diesel making a mistake and proving himself not to be the revolutionary machine he believes he is.

[00:06:16]Duck thanks him innocently for arranging his trucks and leaves while Diesel is annoyed Duck didn't tell him to stop.

[00:06:22]Duck hasn't done anything wrong here, but Diesel is petulant and blames him.

[00:06:26]The trucks tease him with a song as he clears up his mess.

[00:06:29]If this were an early Railway Series book, Diesel would probably learn his lesson here and the next story would be about him trying to make things right.

[00:06:36]But he doesn't.

[00:06:37]Diesel sulks and seethes and we know we have a very different type of character on our hands here.

[00:06:43]Throughout this story, [music] there's a lot of direct speech which is great for the person reading aloud.

[00:06:48]Diesel's lines are written perfectly for the oily yet thin-skinned character he is and there's a great page full of trucks wailing and Diesel growling which is full of capital letters and exclamation marks and italics. It's great.

[00:06:59]The trucks have a funny little song which kids will like and Diesel's use of the word revolutionary isn't something you'd normally find in a children's book.

[00:07:06]The aggression of Diesel compared to the character of the trucks and cheeky demeanor of Duck suggests Diesel won't learn from this embarrassment and will take his revenge.

[00:07:15]The third story is Dirty Work. As soon as Duck returns from taking his train, he tries to stop the trucks singing at Diesel and apologizes for their behavior.

[00:07:24]But the damage is now done.

[00:07:25]Diesel cannot take responsibility for his mistake and blames Duck and wants him to be sent away.

[00:07:31]Henry, Gordon, and James side with Duck, so Diesel makes a plan.

[00:07:35]He spreads malicious rumors to the trucks making spiteful jokes about the big engines and blaming Duck knowing the lies won't be traced back to him.

[00:07:42]The big engines, feeling betrayed by Duck, bar his entrance to the shed when he returns from a hard day's work.

[00:07:48]Duck denies saying cruel jokes about his friends, but the Fat Controller sends him to Edward Station for a while.

[00:07:54]The last line of the story shows how cruel Diesel is after seeing Duck tired, betrayed, and alone trundle away. We are told he smirked with triumph in the darkness.

[00:08:05]Dirty Work shows Diesel's subtle method to get rid of Duck, shrewdly making the trucks the shield from blame, and saying hurtful things about the big engines who carry a lot of influence in the yard.

[00:08:15]He has weaseled his way into their company with his flattery and pushed out Duck.

[00:08:19]The great phrase "disgraceful, disgusting, despicable" with the alliterative words said by the big engines is perfectly selected for each character, as are their nicknames conjured up by Diesel.

[00:08:31]Gordon would hate to be disgraced, [music] and a galloping sausage is about the furthest thing from graceful you can picture.

[00:08:37]James is rather vain, and the idea of rusty red scrap iron is disgusting to him.

[00:08:42]Henry has had problems with performance in the past, and the thought of being called old square wheels is particularly unkind to him, and is a despicable name to call him.

[00:08:50]The final story is a close shave.

[00:08:53]Duck arrives at Edward Station, who soothes Duck's worries that the Fat Controller and other engines don't like him anymore, but the big engines still won't speak to him.

[00:09:01]Still, Duck is happy with Edward and enjoys his work.

[00:09:04]One day after helping an engine up Gordon's Hill with a goods train, he is puffing back down to the bottom when 20 heavily loaded trucks break away, lose their guard, and race down Duck's line towards him.

[00:09:15]Duck and his crew carefully bring the train under control, but after missing a passenger train by inches, they collide with a barber shop at the end of a siding.

[00:09:23]The barber, annoyed with Duck bursting through his wall, lathers his face, but apologizes when the Fat Controller says how brave he has been, and that Diesel has been sent packing, and his friends want him to come home.

[00:09:34]Although he doesn't appear in the story, Diesel's actions are very consequential.

[00:09:39]If he hadn't lied in the first place, Duck would not have been there to save the day. And it's his continuing fibs that lead him being sent packing.

[00:09:46]The chase in this story is brilliantly written, and is possibly one of the most entertaining accidents so far.

[00:09:51]It has the tension and gallantry of Old Iron, and the dramatic end of Flying Kipper.

[00:09:56]The chase builds [music] tension excellently, and I think even now it's a really exciting piece of prose.

[00:10:02]The chatter of the crew, and determination and despair of Duck, bring the danger of the situation home. But the most frightening thing is the trucks. They are out of control like we've never seen them before.

[00:10:12]"Chase him! Bump him! Throw him off the rails!" they yell.

[00:10:16]We've never heard the Troublesome Trucks so violent before, and they're described as hurtling, bumping, and swaying with ever-increasing speed.

[00:10:23]This is truly dangerous, and thrilling to hear Duck's handling of the situation.

[00:10:28]In the resolution of the chase, Duck is at first chastised by the barber, and then congratulated, with The Fat Controller delivering the punchline, "But Duck's bravery narrowly avoided a calamity, which was a close shave."

[00:10:39]Perfect.

[00:10:40]The story finishes with The Fat Controller promising to tell City of Truro of Duck's heroism next time he comes to Sodor.

[00:10:47]Diesel was horrible in this book. He was conceited, a show-off, and flattered others, but his worst traits were his lies, his rage, and his lust for revenge.

[00:10:56]He divides Duck from the big engines insidiously, [music] and causes them to betray their friend.

[00:11:00]With Wilbert being a vicar, it's easy to draw biblical comparisons here, but I'll leave that for another time.

[00:11:06]Diesels who arrived in future books may not always be the nicest engines, but are never truly villainous as Diesel was.

[00:11:13]He represents the thin end of the wedge, and Wilbert uses each subsequent visitor to show how much of a foothold Diesel's had on the mainland at that time.

[00:11:22]So, Duck and the Diesel Engine gives the series its first true villain, and shows a modern type of engine that's far colder and with less personality than the familiar steam engines.

[00:11:30]But what else separates this book from the early entries?

[00:11:34]One thing that had changed since the first books was that Wilbert's children had grown.

[00:11:38]No longer was Christopher a preschool lad with measles, but he was a teenager, as was his elder sister, with his younger one not far behind.

[00:11:45]As such, receptive audience for Wilbert's drafts would have properly encouraged the tones and themes seen in the later books.

[00:11:52]As well as Wilbert's children getting older, so were everyone else's.

[00:11:56]Fans of the series would be encouraged to state if the stories age appropriately alongside with new younger fans starting with the early books and then getting some of the later ones as they grow.

[00:12:06]Although he didn't appear until 1956 in Percy the Small Engine, Duck's origins were actually from 1949 when the double-0 gauge model was purchased as a spare engine for Wilbert's model railway.

[00:12:17]Christopher states the original reason for the model being bought was so he could also use the model railway without having to ask his father to borrow an engine.

[00:12:25]The model had slightly misformed wheels, which made the engine run with a waddle, and the children christened Duck with his distinctive name.

[00:12:32]The children asked for stories about Duck, and after a key role in Duck Takes Charge and a supporting role throughout the Eight Famous Engines, the children got four stories starring the engine with the funny wheels.

[00:12:41]However, Wilbert considered ending the railway series after book 12, so these stories were almost not told at all.

[00:12:47]After writing the Eight Famous Engines, Wilbert wrote the first of two longer children's books.

[00:12:52]Both stand-alone stories with chapters rather than the anthology format of the railway series.

[00:12:57]These concern the Car Parlin to the Beetle and her adventures involving criminal gangs and stolen gems.

[00:13:03]This exercise in a longer narrative may have influenced Duck and the Diesel Engine.

[00:13:07]While previous books sometimes had closely connected stories, the second, third, and fourth stories here almost form a stand-alone trilogy.

[00:13:15]I think that here after the railway series books more often than not had running storylines throughout them, and my belief is that the Belinda books may have been important in showing Wilbert how he could make elements connect over the course of a book, which is a more grown-up way of telling a story for one thing.

[00:13:28]But means these stories could have running themes of a more serious nature.

[00:13:33]Going back to the Railway Series, the earlier books did have an element of peril, from being told off by The Fat Controller, crew member, or an upset passenger, to injuries caused by silliness, all the way up to serious crashes.

[00:13:45]But the engines were always safe, and everything was made well by the end of the book.

[00:13:49]Diesel's introduction ended this period of innocence, and also brought the books closer to the developments that were happening in the real world.

[00:13:56]If Diesel hadn't appeared, you could mistake the stories in the early Railway Series for occurring decades before they were published.

[00:14:03]Edward the Blue Engine brings up the topic of scrap with Trevor, the traction engine whose owner has no more use for him. But that gets sorted out quickly with Trevor being saved, and it is not until this book with the introduction of Diesel, the idea of steam engines being permanently replaced is brought to the fore.

[00:14:17]This sets up later scenes like Gordon worrying about the end of steam, and Oliver's escape from scrap >> [music] >> in Enterprising Engines.

[00:14:24]Duck and the Diesel Engine marked the second of John [music] T. Kenney's outing as illustrator.

[00:14:28]His first book was The Eight Famous Engines, which is a far more humorous book. But in Duck and the Diesel Engine, there is a more brooding atmosphere.

[00:14:36]He was able to convey this sense of discontent in the faces of Duck and the big engines who fall out with him, and especially that of Diesel, [music] at times furious, at others simpering, or with a calculating sneer.

[00:14:47]The moodiness radiates from the engines into the surroundings of the pictures.

[00:14:51]The Twin Engines, which was published 2 years after [music] this book, is also one for which Kenney provided the artwork, and is darker still.

[00:14:58]Even more humorous volumes illustrated by Kenney still have more pictures with morose atmospheres than Dalby ever produced.

[00:15:05]This book would be the last appearance of Diesel in Thomas material, aside from a few illustrations by Edgar Hodges retelling the story of Duck and the Diesel Engine, until he made his debut in Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends.

[00:15:16]In 1986, the Duck versus Diesel trilogy was adapted for the second series of [music] the TV show.

[00:15:22]Dome Messenger was held back until series three, probably due to the cost of making the City of Truro model.

[00:15:28]Instead, Duck Takes Charge was moved close to the three stories with Diesel in order to introduce Duck as a rather noble character before his running with Diesel.

[00:15:37]I think Ringo Starr's voice for Diesel and the excitement he builds during the chase in the close shave are some real highlights of his tenure as narrator.

[00:15:44]While the books touched on it, the TV series really ran with the idea of steam engines versus diesels.

[00:15:50]There is no definite dividing line separating the classic railway [music] series book from the likes of Enterprising Engines and Duke the Lost Engine.

[00:15:57]But to me, Duck and the Diesel Engine really is the point when the series grows up a little and contemplates the end of steam may indeed be coming.

[00:16:04]The changes in the age of Wilbert's immediate audience and his wider public.

[00:16:08]Kenny being a more capable railway artist and the changing face of British Railways meant that rather than swimming against the tide, Audrey embraced the changes that were going on around him and included these developments in his book series.

[00:16:19]Yes, there were now darker elements in the stories and maybe something older children would be interested in rather than more cheeky tank engine forgetting their train or leaving the guard behind.

[00:16:29]But just because some of the stories got more serious, it doesn't mean the rest were any less whimsical and overall the stories were no less wonderful.

[00:16:36]So, it all growing up meant its initial fans could stay with it longer and newcomers had a variety of types of story to choose from.

[00:16:43]The books beyond this one introduced even more new angles to approach railway stories.

[00:16:47]>> [music] >> Not only with more famous engines and diesels, but with flashbacks, industrial railways, mountain climbing engines and a variety of gauges.

[00:16:55]He may not have liked diesels, but Wilbert's decision to finally include one in this book may have helped encourage him to write other sorts of train stories.

[00:17:02]So, maybe it's fair to say this book not only made the railway series grow up, but grow more adventurous.

[00:17:07]And looking at all the great books that came after Duck and the Diesel Engine, thank goodness it did.

[00:17:13]Thanks for watching everyone.

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