Duke the found engine: Restoring his Grace!
As most of you reading this are probably already aware, we've had the honor and privilege to acquire the Duke the Lost Engine prop used in the fourth (and technically fifth) season of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. To us, this is a very special model having only appeared in 4 episode of season 4 (Our personal favorite season) and one episode of season 5 masquerading as Bertram, a simple repaint of Duke using Smudger's face. That means it never appeared outside the classic era of the show and a larger narrow gauge scale model of Duke was never made. He seems a product of his time, and most fans associate Duke with the best era of the show. He was never tainted by the mediocrity of the later model era or modernized with the advent of CGI. He remains a time capsule of sorts, taking us and many other fans back to the golden era of Thomas, a time that many of us hold very close. We felt truly honored to be able to present Duke to the public once again after being MI...