Caitlin

> She's so fast Victor, it was incredible! She must be the best engine ever! - Emily to Victor about Caitlin
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**Caitlin** is a magenta streamlined tender engine from the Mainland, who is designed and built for speed. She has her own rake of coaches painted in the same livery as her.

## History

### Thomas & Friends

Caitlin loves to challenge the other engines to a race and has a tendency to get a little over-excited. She (along with Connor) regularly transport passengers from the Mainland to Ulfstead Castle on Sodor.

Along with Connor, Thomas, Percy and James, she helped with trying to find Stephen before Ulfstead Castle's opening. Caitlin once had to spend the night on Sodor and became too excited to listen to Sir Topham Hatt's advice. During her night on Sodor, she took the Mail Train and the Flying Kipper. Unfortunately, she did not take others into consideration and ended up waking lots of people up.

Once, Annie and Clarabel (who were in the yard waiting for Thomas) were accidentally coupled up to Caitlin, thanks to Charlie. She even took them to the Mainland, but was stopped by Hiro, who brought them back to Thomas.

Caitlin later thought that Toby was going to be scrapped after hearing about it from Gordon. Later on, she took Emily to the Steamworks after she broke down - a favour which Emily repaid after she saved Caitlin when her brakes failed and she became a runaway.

## Personality

Caitlin is a streamlined engine, designed and built for speed. Along with her friend Connor, Caitlin is an excitable and energetic character, who likes to be busy and loves to race. Both Caitlin and Connor are friendly and eager to get other engines to join in the fun with them. Caitlin is particularly impatient and restless if she has nothing to do. She would rather be racing than sit in a station and be idle.

## Livery

Caitlin is painted red-violet with light grey and light blue lining. She has golden nameplates on the sides of her boiler.

## Appearances

* Season 2 - Famous Little Engine
* Season 3 - Diesel 10 is Back! (*cameo*)

## Trivia

* Caitlin has been partially modified to work on British railways with a screw-link coupling and buffers on the back of her tender. She retains a streamlined cowcatcher (also known as a skirt) on the front, so she is unable to shunt. She has also been scaled down from her basis, with the rear section of her cab and doors noticeably thinner than her basis, and as a result, her cab is too small for her crew to fit in comfortably.
	+ Her crew has been seen climbing into her cab in the nineteenth series episode, "*Best Engine Ever*", however they were not actually seen climbing in through her cab door, possibly due to her doors being too small.
* In the twenty-first series, Caitlin gained a tail-lamp.
* Caitlin had a major rendering error in certain scenes in *King of the Railway* and the seventeenth series, where her connecting rods and cylinders would face the wrong way, making her eccentric rods and piston rods move incorrectly and leaving certain parts of her connecting gear disconnected from her body altogether. This error was corrected from the eighteenth series onwards.
* In the nineteenth series episode, "*Best Engine Ever*", the flap on Caitlin's skirt where her crew were inspecting her brakes was a compartment that housed a knuckle coupler on her basis to allow express trains to be double headed.
* Despite being based on an American locomotive, Caitlin speaks with a faint Irish accent.
* Caitlin shares her name with Hilary Fortnam's granddaughter. Fortnam was the youngest daughter of the *Railway Series* creator Wilbert Awdry.