Hiro

Hiro the Old Steam Engine

Master of the Muddle

**Hiro** is an old and wise Japanese tender engine, who is famously known as the "**Master of the Railway**" on both Japan and the Island of Sodor.

## Appearance

Hiro is a Japanese steam engine painted black with gold lining, boiler bands and fittings and red wheels. His number (51) is painted on the sides of his tender in white and he has gold nameplates, with his name in black on the sides of his smoke deflectors.

His "patchwork" colour scheme consists of a blue boiler with gold lining, a green feedwater heater, a green left smoke deflector, a purple right smoke deflector, a brown dome, green pistons and rusty-red coloured wheels except for the right rear driving wheel which was blue. Two more parts, the part between his lamp and funnel and the part under his face, were also green.

## Personality

Hiro is an old steam engine who has been on Sodor for a very long time and was originally known as the "Master of the Railway". He is grand, masterful, mature, wise, very dignified, enormously kind and is able to find good in any engine he meets. He has an appreciation for serenity and order and often thinks fondly of his homeland, far away, where he was once one of the strongest engines. Hiro fell victim to neglect when waiting upon parts to arrive for him from his home country, when he began to break down and became lost.

He was eventually rediscovered by Thomas, who, despite some problems in worrying about sharing the discovery of Hiro with the Fat Controller, helped Hiro to be fully restored to his former glory. Hiro continues to be gentle, wise and graceful, as well as a useful engine on the railway and a good friend to the other engines, especially Thomas.

He does not appear to hold a grudge; in his first appearance, he helped Spencer after an accident, despite Spencer previously trying to send Hiro to the smelter's yard. Hiro is also very close to his friends on Sodor, knowing that even in a different location they will always be his friends.

## Trivia

* Hiro is the first of a few things:
	+ The first character to have the same voice actor in both English dubs.
	+ The first character to be created in CGI without having a live-action model.
* Hiro's character is designed as being the first engine on Sodor. Taking his basis into account, this would be historically inaccurate, as Hiro's class would not have been built until 1935.
* According to Christopher Skala, Hiro was originally going to be painted blue. This carried on to his patchwork model.
* Hiro has only been partially modified to work on Sodor. He has been scaled up to standard gauge and has been given buffers on his front and his tender. But oddly enough, he has a chain and hook coupler on the back of his tender and a buckeye coupler on his front. This would make Hiro pulling rolling stock or another engine backwards or being pulled away by another engine from his front physically impossible, unless a special adapter used to connect the buckeye coupler as fitted onto his chain coupler or a pin was put on top of his knuckle coupler so he could couple from the front similar to Vinnie from *The Great Race*.
	+ During production of Hero of the Rails, merchandising reference faces were created for Hiro along with Victor and Kevin to be sent to merchandise makers. Only two face masks of Hiro are known to have been produced.
	+ His name has four meanings: 裕 means "abundant". 寛 means "generous, tolerant" and 浩 means "prosperous".
	+ The magazines file fact, it is stated that Hiro is on loan to the Fat Controller from a Japanese Railway.
	+ Hiro's eccentric rods are not animated properly as they do not complete a full rotation around his larger connecting rods.
	+ Hiro is the only international engine to return to his home country after moving to Sodor and the only one to appear before his country's formal introduction.
	+ Hiro's whistle was later reused for one of The Mean Engines.
	+ Hiro is one of only two characters to appear from the start of the CGI switch to the last series made with computer animation. The other was Victor.
	+ Hiro is the second character in the television series to have smoke deflectors. The first being Murdoch.