For those wondering how Sir Topham Hatt knew it was Douglas, in real life it's said that each individual locomotive has their own personality (in their sounds, feel, and operation on the footplate.) Even locomotives of the same type, built consecutively by the same works, are said to be slightly different. It's a testament to STH thoroughly knowing his job as a railroader.
@@matthwe3468 I mean, he does have 80 years of life experience (assuming this book is set in 1960, when it was published), and yet he lives on for decades and decades without the years ever touching his mental faculties until he was well over a century old, so you'd expect him to be in possession of an uncommonly sharp mind.
Fun fact: Gordon referenced Tugboat Annie. The 1933 MGM film. Back when Ted Healy and his Stooges worked there before 1934 when Moe, Larry and Curly left Healy and signed with Columbia Pictures and became "The Three Stooges".
This is what I like to think was going on: The passengers saw No 10 (Douglas) shunt them into the siding. After they leave the coach and complain to STH, only No 9 (Douglas pretending to be Donald) is in the yard. No 10 (Donald pretending to be Douglas) just left with a goods train, so he couldn't have shunted the coach. He was in charge of shunting in the yards, true, but he just left with a goods train, so how could he have shunted Gordon/ Thomas' coaches and his goods? Furthermore, No 9 _couldn't possibly_ have shunted the coach, cuz his tender was acting faulty. All of this tho, is assuming the twins were trying to trick the passengers and make them look foolish in front of STH
Best explanation I've seen, hadn't totally gotten it till this point - it's kinda hard to picture the logistics of Donald getting Douglas' tender while having his own placed out of the way, but it's possible. I think the big gap between Awdry's writing it and reader comprehension is accounting for how long it takes for an engine to leave with a goods train - and how that would make it look impossible for either to have shunted the coach. Still, wish this got adapted if for no other reason than how they crunched this great book down to 2 eps of the show.
@@epicdude8742 Thanks, I'm glad I was able to make sense of it! I had to reenact the story with my own Take N' Play Donald and Douglas to grasp the concept lol. Douglas knows where he messed up, so him pretending to be his twin allows for "Donald" to make a perfect cover story regarding his tender. It definitely would've been an interesting, maybe even funny episode. Since Duck was showing them around the yard, I imagine they were indirectly (maybe unintentionally) blaming the missing coach on him. Which wouldn't be the first time Duck's been through that. Crazy story
@@jaylenware363 I'm sure they didn't have any ill will towards Duck there, but definitely the show wouls have helped people visually grasp what is happening too. Maybe if the episode went through, people wouldn't think this story is so confusing.
It has been said that this story was difficult to grasp going towards the end for Britt Allcroft, hence why after being halfway filmed as an episode for the TV series it was canned and switched. I can see why; it would seem unlikely that they would switch tenders so close to being potentially seen by the Fat Controller even with him being distracted by the passengers. I would more likely have taken advantage of how Awdry established in the first story that the coaches were taken out again as another train almost as soon as they came in; Henry or James could have unwittingly taken Thomas's coach with his next train, and gone someway down the line before they had to be stopped while the Fat Controller left the big station to sort out the mix-up; the twins and their crews could have taken advantage of that to do the switcheroo. The outcome would more or less still have been the same. Regards, Samuel Farris.
was that filmed first as i remember when they came they had name plates on just noticed at the end of the brake van douglas has his name on and the deputation their names are on and off
It would've been cool if Nitrogen Studios (the animation company who did the CGI Thomas series from Seasons 13-16) got to take a stab at an adaptation of this story.
The Nitrogen era was not a good one. The Brenner era would have been the best opportunity, but they would have had to have reworked the plot entirely or re-adapt the book's last two stories.
@@DevoidBear The Fat Controller I can buy into the idea he was just too smart to fool that way, like a parent who knows their twins individually. I admit I never got the tender part either though, except to make a clearer punchline in the end that the Fat Controller didn't buy it. Also wouldn't switching tenders be a pretty long and elaborate process compared to just switching the engines and Donald making some excuse up? Tenders from what I know aren't just decorated coal trucks chained to the engine. They have drawbars and water pipings connecting them.
@1RichardHunt if you listen, Duck was busy assembling a goods train at the time, so Douglas offered to shunt the coaches away for him. Thomas had no way of knowing that.
I find it ironic tho, how Henry is making fun of the twins for having deep tone whistles, when black 5's (which is what Henry is) have deep toned whistles as well
@1RichardHunt I'm not sure how that would work. Thomas would have had no idea who would have shunted the coach, as he was on his branch line the whole time. Duck, on the other hand, was the one who was supposed to shunt the coaches, Thomas would have known that, so if anyone, Thomas should accuse him. And why would Thomas think so badly of Donald and Douglas so suddenly? He barely knew them, they'd only been on Sodor a few days.
ITS A SHAME THE STORY WASNT EVENTUALLY ADAPTED TO TV IM 11 YEARS BIY JUST USING MY MOMS LAPTOP AND I UNDERSTAND EVERYTHIN IN THIS STORY IT ISNT COMPLICATED
