Bill and Ben are a pair of mischievous tank engine twins in The Railway Series, and its TV series adaptation, Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. They live at the Sodor China Clay Company, and work at the mines and pits, delivering trucks full of China Clay to Brendam Docks, where the clay is taken away by ships and other engines to where it is needed. They were built in 1948, in the same year that they arrived on the Island of Sodor.
In the CGI series, they were both portrayed by Johnathan Broadbent, but later Bill was voiced by Rasmus Hardiker and Ben was voiced by Matt Wilkinson. In Japanese, they were voiced by Noriko Shitaya and Tomoko Naka.
Biography
Bill and Ben work at a china clay quarry and their jobs are to take it in trucks along the Main Line for the engines and the harbour ships. The twins arrange some trucks one morning and leave to pick up more but they are surprised to find they have disappeared when they return. Their drivers notice an oil patch on the tracks and suspect that a diesel is responsible for taking the trucks. Mishearing this as "diseasel", the twins remember a notice in their shed saying "coughs and sneezles spread diseasels" and they argue over who is responsible. Their drivers intervene and make a plan to get the trucks back which involves removing the twins' nameplates to make them appear perfectly identical since the diesel is unaware that they are twins.
The twins find the trucks in a yard, with a large green diesel at the front. Ben hides behind while Bill goes forward and demands the diesel give his trucks back. The diesel claims the trucks are his and tries to shoo away Bill, who reverses behind the trucks. Ben, then, rides forward on the other side, surprising the diesel (who thinks it is the same engine). This pattern continues for a while, causing the diesel to get dizzy. At last, the two of them come along the diesel at the same time, making his eyes nearly pop out. He, then, realises there are two engines.
Edward arrives at the scene and asks what Bill and Ben are doing there. They claim that the diesel stole their trucks but Edward scolds them for their rudeness. The twins apologise and the diesel forgives them during an apology. He introduces himself as "BoCo" and explains that he got his trucks mixed up with the twins'. Edward then sends the twins to take their lot back once they have picked up BoCo's goods train in exchange for theirs. After they leave, Edward tells BoCo that they do not mean any harm but can be maddening at times, a statement BoCo wholeheartedly agrees with.
One day, Bill and Ben were sent to work in the yard. They got to use the turntable as a reward for their hard work, but they were both accidentally sent down the same track and they ended up buffer-to-buffer. They ended up blaming each other for the incident and refused to speak to one another. At last, Edward and BoCo lost patience and the Fat Controller heard about the incident. He gave the twins a chance to work together and sure enough, the plan worked. The twins started to speak to each other again. Bill and Ben sometimes found it dull up at the clay works and wanted something exciting to happen. They got their wish when a rockslide devastated the quarry. Luckily, Bill and Ben had taken all of the workmen and the foreman out of the quarry before the rockslide. The Fat Controller was so pleased that he called them heroes.
Later, BoCo could not handle the twins as much as he used to. This led to Sir Topham Hatt bringing in another diesel, Derek. Bill and Ben had heard from Percy that Derek had toothache, but they soon found out that Derek really had teething troubles. The twins and Derek had to pull a train the next day and Derek soon overheated. Together, the twins got the train to their destination. That night, they, BoCo and Duck talked about Derek all night long.
When Salty was sent to work with Bill, Ben and Mavis with an important job, he impressed them with his skills for handling the trucks. Unfortunately, the twins became jealous when they learnt that this was through him singing songs and telling tales of the sea and became even crosser when Salty told them stories. Luckily for them, Salty was transferred to Brendam Docks. Bill and Ben met Salty again when they themselves went to the docks and started teasing Cranky. This time, they encouraged Salty to tell them his stories, knowing that Cranky could not stand them. The twins spent the entire night being engrossed in and fascinated by Salty's many tales and when they left the following morning, Cranky was pleased. Afterwards, Ben had to get new buffers, so he was sent to the Works to get repaired. Bill became jealous and his mind drifted away from his work. After some trucks teased him, Bill crashed through the buffers at the end of the track, falling into a ditch. Ben arrived to rescue Bill and Bill was taken to the Works to be mended when he needed repaired.
Sometime later, Fergus was sent to help the twins at the quarry but they got tired of his "do it right" attitude. Bill and Ben collected a rock crusher from the docks and caused a rockslide. Fergus pushed them out of the way, but the twins returned the favour when they helped him out of the rocks.
In the seventeenth series, they teased Percy after he had an accident with a mailbag, unaware the pumpkins on their train were falling onto the tracks, which caused more problems for Percy. After Sir Topham Hatt ordered one twin to act as a back engine, Bill reluctantly went to push from behind. Ben ended up derailing near an embankment and Percy (although he was nervous because he had lost his new lucky charm) helped Bill pull Ben back onto the tracks.
After racing Connor several times (by racing, one would start the race and the other twin would be waiting at the finish), Sir Topham Hatt figured out their tricks. So people would not confuse the two or think they were the same engine, Bill was repainted blue. To continue the tricks, Ben tricked Kevin into giving him a blue coat of paint too like Thomas. Since then they were repainted to their yellow schemes like Molly. They also teased Harvey about going fishing with his hook.
Thomas was sent to work with the twins at the Clay Pits while a bridge on his branch line was being repaired. They ran away from him and after he caught up, they teased him about being slow. They showed him to a line of trucks, which he was coupled up to. Thomas began pulling them but did not realise that Timothy was on the other end, jerking the little oil-burning engine backwards. Later that day, there was a storm at the Pits and the rain made the cliffs unstable. Thomas was near some cliffs and saw a set of mysterious footprints. However, the area was still unstable and he was unable to investigate. Bill and Ben pushed Thomas to safety just before the three were hit by a landslide. The next morning, the twins were congratulated by the Fat Controller. Later in the week, Thomas asked if they were playing a trick on him (he thought they were scaring him with fake footprints). However, Bill and Ben thought that he thought that their rescuing him was a trick and so they puffed away, offended. When Percy went to the clay pits to prove his bravery to James, Bill accused Ben of making puffing noises in his sleep and when Thomas came looking for Percy, the twins assumed that they could literally hear what Timothy was dreaming. When they went to work that day, they were almost hit by a landslide and after Marion found a fossil, Bill and Ben were both very intrigued by the concept of fossils.
In the eighteenth series, Bill and Ben played Guess What's In My Shovel with Marion. They also teased Timothy for being an oil-burning engine, but when the Clay Pits ran out of coal, Timothy went to pick up some more. They apologised for their teasing. However, they later sent Timothy on what the Fat Controller referred to as a "fool's errand" to search for a rainbow-coloured truck. Timothy brought back a green truck with several colours of paint on it full of dockyard waste. Bill and Ben were sent to take it to Whiff's Waste Dump as punishment, as well as being on waste duty. They also teased Emily and Samson.
In the nineteenth series, the twins became convinced that Timothy was no help at all. So when they found out that the Fat Controller was looking for an engine to help at Brendam Docks, they volunteered Timothy. Unfortunately, the twins were too busy messing around to work on their own property. Luckily, once Timothy was no longer required at the docks, he came back to the Clay Pits to help them clear up the mess.
In Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure, they teased Henry when he saw a ghostly rail boat on the rails the previous night, which was really Skiff.
Bill and Ben were one of the engines who wanted to go to the Great Railway Show but they were not selected.
In the twenty-second series, Harvey came to help them out when they had an accident. Rebecca was there to see Harvey arrive to help them and thought he looked cool with his crane. Later on Valentine's Day, Bill, Ben and Diesel teased Thomas and Rosie that they were a lovely couple, while Thomas and Rosie did not want to be embarrassed by the teasing.
Bill and Ben made up a game called "Hunt the Truck" and hid a truck for Nia. After Edward made them give Nia her truck, the twins attempted to get revenge on Edward by hiding his truck full of Christmas decorations and presents for Sir Robert Norramby's Christmas party. Edward knew what the twins were up to and took the truck from where they hid it. As a way to give them a taste of their own medicine, he pretended to be worried about losing the truck and how the party would be ruined, prompting the twins to go on a search for it. They eventually gave up and decided to apologise to everyone for what they did, only to run into Edward at the party and realise that he had taken the truck they hid and taught them a lesson on how it felt to have trucks hidden from them.
They were later seen in a queue of engines at Ulfstead Castle, after Percy told the latter there was to be a railway show there.
Personality
Bill and Ben are young, cheeky, naughty and rather troublesome, and love teasing or playing tricks on the other engines. However, their behaviour always lands them in a lot of trouble. Despite their mischievous behaviour, they always learn from their mistakes, try to do the right thing, and always act like heroes. For example, in the TV series, they successfully rescued the workers at the Clay Mines during a rock slide that nearly destroyed their home, by evacuating them to safety. Despite the twins' pranks, they don't seem nearly as bad as some larger engines, or even some of the diesels, since the most damage their pranks have done is to simply cause delays for the other engines. In the TV series, after a temporary stint working with Mavis at Centre Island Quarry, they have returned to their old home at the Clay Mines, sometimes helping BoCo and Edward on the Wellsworth Branch line as well.
As Bill and Ben are females in Poland, you could say that they are tomboys in that dub.
Basis
Bill & Ben are based on Bagnall 0-4-0STs "Alfred" and "Judy" of Par, Cornwall, who are both preserved at the Bodmin and Wenford Railway. "Judy" is currently under restoration, while "Alfred" is awaiting overhaul.
Trivia
- In some international dubs, Bill and Ben's names/genders were changed:
- In the first Polish dub, Bill and Ben were portrayed as females. In Stefan Knothe's redub, they were both male.
- Bill and Ben were known as Guillaume and Benjóin in the French dub during the second to seventh series.
- A behind the scenes picture of Bill's model reveals that he and Ben were to have numbers on their smokeboxes above their faces, as they did in the Railway Series.
- Sir Topham Hatt's ownership of Bill and Ben changes in the television series, as the second series episode, Percy Takes the Plunge refers to them as not being Sir Topham Hatt's engines, while the third series episode, One Good Turn refers to them as "the most mischievous engines working on the Fat Controller's railway".
- Nathan Clarke did an audio sample of Bill and Ben on his DAA Management Page.
- In an interview with SiF, Andrew Brenner stated that Bill and Ben were two of his favourite characters, along with James and Toby.
- Prior to Jonathan Broadbent's departure from the voice cast, Bill and Ben were the only pair of twins to have the same voice actor longer than any other twins in the series. The reputation later went to Annie and Clarabel.
- Bill and Ben's whistle sounds are higher pitched versions of Thomas'. Bill's whistle sound is Thomas' at thirteen steps higher-pitched, while Ben's is Thomas' at eleven steps higher-pitched.
- While Ben has appeared in three episodes without Bill, Bill has never been in an episode by himself.
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