Ttte Duncan - Tumblr Posts
The hottest thing a man could do is be Scottish
This is why the Big Four were arguably better than BR could ever hope to achieve. You have innovation, you have pride in the workplace, in your job. You’re more likely to travel by train then you are by car if you lived when the Big Four were alive and well. I maintain that if BR had been a five year plan to get the railways back on their feet it’d be fondly remembered by the engines rather than disliked.
(I might also be saying this because of an absolutely stubborn person in a RP server I moderate in. He has this very 1955 mindset and just made OCs of mass-produced engines and gave them one emotion to go off of rather than actually flesh them out.)
What are Sir Topham Hatt’s (and the engines) opinion on how privatization was handled? When I read about it, I always think how absurd it was to keep the track nationalized, but let other companies run the goods trains, then different run the passenger trains. It is a spaghetti mess. Sodor had the right idea to yoink the old Furness mainline.
Thank you for your ask! (and I'm really sorry for the long wait). This is actually going to be really fun to potentially answer, so let's see...
Officially, the NWR regards privatisation as: "an important milestone in Britain's railway history and the beginning of cooperation between the NWR and our partner railways throughout Great Britain." It's a very prim and proper way of saying "the only thing that changed was the name of the idiot company that keeps delaying our trains." In private however, reactions were very, very different.
For a few engines, it meant very little: Thomas in particular barely cared at all. "What'll change? Not my branchline, that's for sure!" he once snapped at Duck when the Western engine tried to goad him into ranting with him about privatisation. Duncan said something very similar to a visiting diesel, only his version was far too inappropriate to be put in writing. Ever.
In stark contrast, a lot of the engines had very loud opinions about the entire thing. Duck spent most of one night trying to tell anyone who would listen that it was "disgraceful, disgusting and despicable" that the GWR hadn't been reformed after privatisation. (Henry, James and Gordon had to be physically restrained by BoCo and Bear before they tore Duck a new funnel for stealing their catchphrases). Donald and Douglas both tried to convince the Fat Controller to send them to London to 'politely make a case for a fully independent Scottish network'... multiple times. They also managed to say such inappropriate things that Oliver had to double-head all of Douglas' trains for a month to act as a censor for his language!
Gordon decided to offer the press his own solution to the privatisation issue, which went something like this: "What we need, is four companies to look after trains in different parts of the country - like we used to." "Like the Big 4?" "Indeed!" "We can't do that, such a system is considered to be a monopoly, and the government won't allow it." "Alright then, how about this: we have one railway that runs in the North and the East... and down to London perhaps. Then we can also have one railway that runs in the Midlands, and in Scotland... and also down to London perhaps, so you have your competition. Then we could have a railway that is in the West, and one in the South-" "Like the Big 4?" "No! These companies would be completely different!" "Look, Gordon, the government has made it very clear that the Big 4 will not return." "Well then FUCK JOHN MAJOR AND ALL THE TORY PARTY! [...] There would be competition anyway, with the roads, don't those blithering idiots understand?! [...] If any of them took a train for once, they'd realise just how bloody stupid the whole thing is, the bunch of------" (About twenty minutes worth of ranting has been omitted, due to various constraints...)
It was no surprise to anyone that Gordon personally campaigned for the Labour Party in 1997.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Sir Stephen Hatt and his sister Bridget were frantically pouring over the old charters of the NWR, hoping to be able to keep the new companies off Sodor - and indeed they found they could, as a 1925 Government deal originally intended to keep the NWR independent of the LMS also (entirely by accident) meant that no private, standard-gauge railway company other than the NWR could operate on the Isle of Sodor. Sir Stephen happily shoved that document in parliament's face when they tried to privatise the NWR's various assets, and then got his deal for the Furness Line from a different parliament committee before anyone could cross-reference him. By the time anyone managed to question why exactly they were selling an entirely railway line to a man who had very loudly told them to 'shove off and leave my railway alone', Sir Stephen had already taken control.
Their opinion: "Why treat a railway like its an airline? Honestly, it'll just wind up causing more problems in the end. A railway is a public good - yes, it makes us a lot of money, but we still run it for the people of Sodor, not for - no, we don't know why they divided British Rail like that, it makes no sense to us either - please stop asking more questions before we can finish our thoughts."
Also, a small rather large side note - Britain's railway privatisation is a complex and very unique affair that really showcases how exactly not to privatise a railway network. For example: for around seven years, the railway infrastructure was owned by a private company called RailTrack... which was terrible at doing its job and caused a number of major railway accidents (See Hatfield, 2000; Southall, 1997; Ladbroke Grove, 1999) and then panicked after the Hatfield crash and basically shut the network down, leading to questions over its competence and the finally its re-nationalisation because - surprise surprise - a private company trying to produce profits really shouldn't be in charge of the safety of millions of people with almost no proper accountability. Worse yet, the monopolies that the Tories wanted to avoid by breaking up the system happened anyway - see EWS, which bought up almost all the freight franchises and created a monopoly, only to be bought by Deutsche Bahn, which created an even bigger monopoly as it also owned (at the time) Arriva (they sold Arriva in 2024). To worsen the spaghetti, the system was divided into three basic sections: the infrastructure (RailTrack), Train Operating Companies (who owned the trains) and Franchises (who ran the trains and hired staff). In other words: a ticket in the UK is so expensive because you are paying for: the train crew, renting the train, renting the track, renting the platforms and producing profits for shareholders.
Oh, and suddenly freight and passenger trains owned by different companies are all competing to have priority at every. single. signalbox. in the country.
Now, I am not an expert in fixing extremely broken railway systems, but even still, I feel like I could probably do better than this mess!
Thank you for reading!
@vita940124's designs! duncan and rusty were especially fun to do that's why they were first lmao
The Skarloey Railway
i decided to draw whoever is in the photo above⬆️ (i know that Mac is not visible in the photo. but still).
Some face and hair concepts and sketches idk (Arthur still hate thomas)
June means many of the workers are now beginning to swap to the more lightweight "summer uniform" with shorter sleeves or putting away their coats until September
You're welcome my guy, and this turned out great UwU✨
(also fr can we start a trend because this is blowing up on especially Twitter)
Meme time, lads. Suggested by @mightywonder87 .
She also thought maybe we could start a new trend? XD
Got a great view of Duncan's dump truck right here.
Original format \/
Stubborn Scotsman doesn't like his partner doing stuff for him, and he takes it to the extreme. They don't mind though.
This was so much fun. XDD
Thank you, Wonder, for suggesting this. UwU
I feel like it was about time to show a WIP of that first page
Here’s the team so far!!
i agree with this statement :]
Protective Diesel Partner 🧡💛
looking at ttte knockoffs is both a hilarious and terrifying experience
found this meme format and my ttte-wired brain wouldnt shut up until i did something for it so. have this.
note that some of these are based on Vibes™️ and what i perceive of some of these silly lil guys lol
So the other night my brother and I started brainstorming a somewhat Choo Choo Charles inspired Thomas & Friends AU where almost everything is the same, except the trains have legs...
And I've done a bit of concept drawing
The point of these sketches were basically just to flesh out the proportions/structure of a handful of the character's hypothetical legs
I've also decided to give each type of vehicle legs that match a general species group, such as: The mainline steam engines will have mammalian legs akin to big cats or dogs (e.g, lions, wolves, foxes, etc), diesel engines will have somewhat bug-like legs, narrow gauge engines will have hoofed goat-like legs since they generally traverse mountainous areas, flying vehicles will have avian (bird-like) legs, water traversing vehicles will have fins or flippers, and road vehicles' legs will likely fall into a more ambiguous species category
There are a few exceptions to this rule, such as Duck having avian legs (I couldn't resist taking his name literally) or Salty having reptilian legs with webbed feet, but for the most part the characters will follow this species category rule
As for the amount of legs the engines will have, that will differ depending on the engine's size. Tank engines and standard diesels would have 6 legs each, bigger mainline engines would have up to 8 legs (12 with a tender coupled), and narrow gauge engines would typically have 4 legs.
The biggest exception to this rule would be Mighty Mac. Since they're conjoined twins they have a set of legs each, making them the only narrow gauge engine to possess 8 legs. Plus all of their limbs are front legs with opposeable thumbs, another anomaly among engines in general.
Since this has been an unusually text heavy post for my blog, I shall leave you with two bonus (very rough) sketches:
Here we have James in a pinup-style pose (my brother's suggestion) as well as Thomas and Percy hanging out on a shed roof after somehow fining a way up there
Currently trying to design some engines as marketable plushies, more updates will likely be up soon!
Grumpy Snow Fairy and An Ordinary Boy. (Pt.1)
platonic Fairy! Human! Duncan x Human! Luke because I SAID SO
Summary: Luke went out to explore the woods. He felt like a prisoner locked up in jail by his mother’s rules. And then he found a mysterious creature along the way.
Genre: Platonic fluff
Cw: mentions of mental abuse, Duncan is implied naked.
“Very good, Luke. It seems like your doing better than last time. Luke’s mother said as she placed a hand on his right shoulder. If you’re wondering, Luke is studying. For what you may ask? Well, for nothing, really. He was just forced into it.
According to his mother, his top priority is studying, he cannot go by a day without studying and disobeying his own mother’s rules. Luke was fed up by this, he used to be greeted by another somebody his age used to talk to him from a tree and telling that his mother’s behaviours are wrong and told him why.
And then Luke’s mom found out about it and forbids that boy to seeing him again. It has been 2 years since that incident happened. Luke is a grown boy now. He is 14 to be exact. And now, he is planning to escape when the clock stroke 12.
He looked back to his childhood room one last time, he looked a bit sad to see it go away. He will never be able to enjoy a bed like this for some time. Or smell his own scent on his pillow. He took a deep breath and hop onto the tree, and downwards to the ground. He got a bit tangled up in the process as well.
He ran away in the snowstorm and bringed his little legs to the unknown, the place he dreamt of, the place where he can have his freedom and live his life!
Unfortunately, the storm was thick. So thick. It looks like he was about to pass out from it. He panted and shivered through it all, but to go back to his childhood room and sleep comfortably there, just to be awoken by more imprisonment by his mother? No way!
He was lost in the outskirts of his little gloomy town, everywhere he see was just a bunch of trees covered in soft snow. Oh, and he was hungry. If only he can eat snow.
He layed down to the nearest tree he can find. He layed down and covered himself in a thick coat he had bought along with him. He closed his eyes and let the winter breeze sang a lullaby to him. The next morning, he has awoken from his slumber. He let his back rest to a pine tree, he was still a bit sleepy, considering the fact that he slept like a baby that night.
After enjoying the cold air around his body, he decided to travel further to see if there was a nearby village. But the only thing he found was a beautiful river, and a sight of a snowy mountain that looks like it was inhabited by people, “Well, this was perfect!” Luke said to himself, but his feet was sore from walking non-stop. He took off his boots and dip his feets into the chilly water.
He was having a great time until he noticed something brown from the icy blue water, it was a tiny fairy! And it looked like Luke suffocated him on accident, “Oh, s-sorry Mr.Fairy!” Luke apologized, but it just spat out water from him, “Next time, do be careful when dipping foot into the water!” The fairy angrily shouted at the giant human.
“And what were you doing in the water, may i ask, Mr.Fairy?” Luke asked with a sarcastic tone, “I was getting water, but it looks like you destroyed it or it gotten away to know’s where!” The fairy then rested at the top of Luke’s head. He complimented on how warm it is, and said that he was freezing to death. Luke pointed out that he was naked and that he needed clothes, but the little fairy stated that he and the townspeople doesn’t know what ‘clothes’ are. Luke felt sorry for this little guy, he doesn’t know fairy’s had it that way through the winter.
But then Luke had an idea that has arrived through his head, “Hey, if you can show me the route to that village, then maybe i can make you clothes! How does that sound?” Luke confidently said, the fairy rolled around on Luke’s hat as he is deciding what to say. The fairy did come there often when he is slacking off, and he is cold every day on winter, so maybe this is a good deal, “Alright, i show you how to get to that village, and you make me warm clothes.” The fairy said as he grew from a little fairy to a tall man with a good build. Luke awe in his growing abilities, “Also, call me Duncan.” The fairy added
And so they travel through the woods to the tiny village, it was exhausting but it was worth it. Even though it was still a long way to go, and it turned dark without the both of them realizing it. Luke panted, “Duncan, do you know how much longer do we have to go?” Luke asked, Duncan just said that it will be a few hours later and that they can continue tomorrow because he is cold and tired as he nuzzled in Luke’s hat and scarf.
Luke thought that he is one step closer to freedom as he went to sleep as soon as he let the fire out and let all of his worries go away.
Little does he know, back at home, everyone was searching everywhere for Luke. His mother was more furious than worried, he treated his son with so much care and did what’s best for him...AND THIS IS ALL THAT SHE GET’S??? HIM RUNNING AWAY? THAT PIG!
“Mrs.Bloomhill, we still can’t find your son anywhere!” One man said, “Indeed, we even search so far for him but we still can’t find him!” A woman said. She was bursting out with anger and told everyone to just go further and further until he is found.
Makes sense, thanks for answering 😊
For Duncan 🚔- have you ever been arrested?
Duncan: Bah! Humans cannae arrest me! Ahm a spirit and we spirits are above human laws!
Rusty: I’m pretty sure there are many times the coppers wanted to arrest Duncan, but what he says is true. All of us Spirits aren’t tied to human laws.
👀 remind me to never anger Rusty
Protective Diesel Partner 🧡💛
Incorrect Ttte Quotes 12:
Rusty: Duncan, let me see what you have.
Duncan: A KNIFE!!!!
Rusty: NOOOOO!!!!!
Incorrect Ttte Quotes 14:
*The Skarloey Railway gang arriving at a McDonald's drive thru*
Luke, Peter Sam, Duncan and Sir Handel: McDonalds! McDonalds! McDonalds! McDonalds!
Skarloey, Rheneas and Rusty: We have food at home.
*Duke then goes to the drive thru*
Luke, Peter Sam, Duncan and Sir Handel: YAAAAAAY!!!!!
Duke: *Orders one black coffee and leaves*