Duck the Great Western Engine is a semi-fictional steam engine from The Railway Series by the Rev. W. Awdry. He is a GWR 0-6-0 pannier tank locomotive and lives and works on the Island of Sodor.
Personality[]
The Fat Controller (Sir Topham Hatt) bought Duck from The Other Railway in 1955 to take Percy's place as station pilot at Tidmouth. Since The Fat Controller had been apprenticed at GWR's Swindon Works, he allowed Duck to return to his original Great Western Railway livery, and retain his number '5741', which Duck wears proudly on cast brass numberplates on his cabsides. (Apparently Swindon carried out the repaint, along with the application of his enlarged sandboxes, which were not a part of the original design; the numberplates were quietly switched.)
Duck is his affectionate nickname. When he first arrived, he explained he was referred to as Montague, but was usually called Duck because other engines on the GWR would remark on how he waddled. This was due to the way that he scurried in and out of Paddington Station in London, where he and others of his class handled the same duties he was to perform at his new home. He prefers Duck to Montague because of this.
The arrival of Duck allowed Percy to be relocated to Thomas' Branch Line to help Thomas with his goods traffic. When Percy was showing Duck round however, the big engines regarded his efficiency as simplicity, only for Duck to show he held much respect for the positions of Sir Topham Hatt and Percy respectively. Despite this getting him into trouble from triggering a disturbance, and the issues he faced when Diesel spread lies about him, the Fat Controller realized what a useful engine he had in Duck, and eventually gave him a branch line of his very own.
Duck's branch line runs between Tidmouth and Arlesburgh and is nicknamed The Little Western, as its chief locomotives and coaches all originate from the Great Western Railway. Duck shares the passenger duties with Oliver, but has his own two autocoaches: Alice and Mirabel. This requires him to have push-pull gear fitted, although this was actually fitted to him when he first arrived to provide a standby for Thomas, who works in the same fashion with Annie and Clarabel.
Although Duck holds principle credit in running his own line, he remains pleasured to assist elsewhere as required and makes friends easily, although Diesel's first impression left him reserved about other diesels initially. "There are two ways of doing things," Duck says, "the Great Western Way or the wrong way." This preference has been known to irritate other engines, but regardless he does not stand for any nonsense.
Origins[]
The nickname "Duck" comes from Rev. W. Awdry's OO scale model railway. He had bought a GWR Pannier tank engine manufactured by Gaiety as a spare engine for his model railway, but one of the wheels was not quite concentric, and the model had a pronounced waddle, earning the nickname "Duck" which stuck long after new wheels had been fitted. Some fans have speculated Duck being number 5741 is a reference to this.
Duck is based on the 57xx Class built by the Great Western Railway. These engines were designed to shunt and to work branch lines, and many were still working beyond the end of steam on British Railways. Several are preserved on steam railways up and down the United Kingdom, where they have proved as useful and versatile as Duck himself.
In the biographical work The Thomas the Tank Engine Man, Rev. W. Awdry recalls seeing pannier tanks at work on the Great Western Railway at Box in Wiltshire, where he lived as a child. These would not have been 57xx tanks, but might have been an early influence nonetheless.