Will Cuddle Mavel please come forward?

Lately, when I make up stories for Lucas he wants to hear about Thomas and all his friends. He asks for each of them by name "Thomas and Gordon and Toby and Salty..." and the names keep coming because he knows about 12 of them. Then, he'll throw in "and Cuddle Mavel".

The first time I heard about Cuddle Mavel, I asked him to repeat the name. Yep, I heard right, Cuddle Mavel.

But, just who is Cuddle Mavel? I went to the Thomas the Train character guide, but couldn't find anyone with that name, or even any name that sounds similar. I Googled Cuddle Mavel, Cuddle Mabel to see if I could find him, thinking he may be a character in a storybook he heard of. Nope, I still came up empty-handed.

According to Lucas, Cuddle Mavel is not only the biggest train, he is also the nicest, oh, and he's brown. He has been the hero in many made-up stories over the past couple weeks. We even roleplay this mysterious character -- Lucas or I will be Cuddle Mavel and the other will be Toby or Gordon or another train.

Last night Lucas wanted to see Thomas and his freinds on the computer. I pulled up the character guide and he asked for the ones he knows by name. Then he asked the big question, "Can I see Cuddle Mavel?" I kind of poked around and showed him 2 or 3 different ones asking, "Is this Cuddle Mavel?" He said no to these. I was running out of options, he had to be a brown train. Then I clicked on Old Slow Coach. Lucas exclaimed, "There he is, that's Cuddle Mavel!"

Thank god I found you, Cuddle Mavel.