Gordon

## Gordon the Big Engine

Gordon is a big blue express engine who lives on The Island of Sodor.

## Personality

Gordon is extremely proud of his position as an express engine in Crotoonia and on Sodor. He is one of the fastest engines to work on Sodor. Because of this he is inclined to boast but he is also goodhearted, always willing to forgive and uses his superior strength to help smaller engines out of trouble.

Gordon's important position as the engine who pulls the Express has made him proud, pompous and self-important.

Gordon acts as a bully, particularly towards Edward, but following misadventures where Edward had to help him, Gordon had to acknowledge that despite being old, Edward is still a very useful engine. However, sometimes Gordon still doubts Edward is still reliable. He would soon stop belittling Edward after being tricked by Thomas; he learned his lesson and apologised to Edward saying that he promised not call him old or unreliable anymore.

Sometimes, Gordon shows a kinder side and gives the younger engines advice, usually after he has had some mishap as a result of his foolhardiness. Some of his advice is not exactly helpful or honest, though, as James, Percy and Sir Handel have discovered.

## Technical Details

### Basis

Gordon is the experimental prototype for Sir Nigel Gresley's A1 Pacific design for the Great Northern Railway. Gordon was built at Doncaster Works in Yorkshire. Once the first batch of A1 Pacifics appeared in 1922 Gordon would have more than likely have been reclassified A1/1 - the '/1' indicating he is slightly different to the rest of the class.

Gordon’s basis
### Livery

Gordon is painted in the North Western Railway's sky blue livery with red and yellow lining. The number "4" is painted on his tender sides in yellow. Before arriving on Sodor, he was painted in the Great Northern Railway's Apple Green livery with white and black lining.

In the Railway Series, he carries two builder's plates on the sides of his cab.

In the sixteenth season episode, Bust My Buffers!, Gordon received a yellow and black hazard stripe painted bufferbeam akin to Den's. In The Great Race, in his streamlined form, he is painted in the North Western Railway's sky blue livery with silver, red and dark blue lining. His number is still painted on his tender in yellow, smaller and surrounded by a dark blue circle.

## Trivia

* Gordon is named after a rude boy that lived on the Awdrys' street when Christopher was a child.
* One of Gordon's models was on display at Nitrogen Studios, but is now on display at the Hara Model Railway Museum. Two of Gordon's face masks, one grinning and one eyes shut, are now owned by Twitter user Thomas Merchandise.
* The Halloween Engine in the eighth season episode, Halloween, was recycled from one of Gordon's scrap models.
* In real life, Gordon's Shooting Star look would be too large for the British loading gauge.
* Gordon's upset face is used for Boulder in Rusty and the Boulder.
* In the Greek narration of the Classic Series, Gordon is called Johny. From thirteenth season onward, Gordon has been referred to with his original name.
* According to the Rev. W. Awdry in the book The Thomas the Tank Engine Man, the reason why Gordon has square buffers is because not long after he got his new safety valve following the events of The Three Railway Engines, he was showing it off and not paying to his surroundings. He crashed into the end of the "Big Station" at Tidmouth, damaging his buffers and had to go to the Works to have them replaced. The only buffers available were long, square ones, which Gordon despised at first, but soon got used to them and became proud of being the only engine on the railway with square buffers. Then Henry had a similar incident to Gordon and got square buffers himself (explaining the illustration error in "Thomas and the Guard"), now the subject of buffers offends Gordon greatly when mentioned to him.
* As of Big World! Big Adventures! The Movie and Big World! Big Adventures!, Gordon is one of the four remaining engines from the Railway Series to be part of the Steam Team, and Gordon and Thomas are the only members of the Steam Team to be the exact same color.
* Gordon has said the phrase "O the indignity" 38 times so far.
* Gordon had a winch that was first used to tow Percy, mounting over his center lamp iron and front coupling. However, it disappeared after it's second use, which was when he used it to rescue Thomas.