Gordon

Gordon is a protagonist and a member of The New Action Squad.

## **BIOGRAPHY**

Gordon was built at Doncaster in 1922 as an experimental prototype for Sir Nigel Gresley's A1 Pacific design for the Great Northern Railway (Gresley A0). Inevitably there were faults which needed correction; so Gordon was kept "hush hush" and apart from test runs, was never put into regular traffic or given a GNR number. He was used experimentally until all defects had been cured and the first batch of Pacifics had appeared in 1922/23. In 1923 therefore Gordon was no longer needed and was sold to the North Western Railway together with a spare boiler and firebox.

During Gordon's early years on the railway, he often looked down on the smaller engines like Edward and Thomas. However, he would soon find he needed help from Edward to be his banker after he got stuck on a hill with a train of trucks. He also needed Edward and Henry to pull his passenger train after he broke his safety valve in front of Henry's Tunnel.

Outside of Sodor, he is also a member of The New Action Squad. Due to his meetings and work, he had to sometimes get Spencer to do his jobs for him, which he was pessimistic about at first.

## **APPEARANCE**

According to The Island of Sodor: Its People, History and Railways, 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 indicating he is a slight deviation from the "standard" A1 design.

Gordon, being an experimental engine, never received a number and was never put into regular traffic; he was only ever used on test runs. Owing to various problems, Gordon was rebuilt in 1939 at Crewe. Sir Topham Hatt and Sir William Stanier worked together to rectify these problems - everything under the running board is of Stanier's design while the running board itself is that of Sir Topham Hatt's. In both the Railway Series and television series, Gordon is depicted with a Fowler tender.

His valve gear is similar to that of the LMS Stanier Pacifics in the illustrations, but in the television series, he and Henry share the same valve gear.

According to his Meet the Contenders video, Gordon is an LNER A3 Pacific in the television series, just like Flying Scotsman and his other siblings. This however is incorrect.

As "The Shooting Star," Gordon's appearance is based on a streamlined Pennsylvania Railroad K4 (Hank's class), specifically #3768.

Gordon is painted in NWR bright blue with red and yellow lining. His number is painted on the sides of his tender in yellow with red lining and the lining around his cab windows is yellow. In the *Railway Series*, he has a golden builder's plate placed on one side of his cab.

Before arriving on Sodor, he was painted in GNR apple green with white and black lining. In a magazine file fact, Gordon was incorrectly painted in NWR green.

In the sixteenth series 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 has painted in a lighter shade of NWR bright blue with silver, red and dark blue lining instead. His number was still painted on the sides of his tender in yellow but instead was smaller and surrounded by a dark blue circle.

## **PERSONALITY**

Gordon's important position as the engine who pulls the Express has made him proud, pompous, arrogant, stubborn, prideful and self-important, with a good reason too; he is the fastest engine on Sodor. He is extremely proud of this and is inclined to boast. But despite his pompousness, he is goodhearted, always willing to forgive and uses his superior strength to help smaller engines out of trouble. Though he is also vengeful and will plot retribution if he feels he has been sufficiently slighted, as mentioned before he is happy to forgive especially after he has either had his retribution or the individual has received some other comeuppance. He also has a great hatred of goods trains, though not to the extent that James does. Because of his rank in the social order of the North Western Railway, Gordon expects to get the important passenger jobs and either he sulks when he does not get what he wants, or gets jealous of engines who do get what they want.

Sometimes, Gordon acts mean and insulting, particularly towards smaller engines like Thomas or Percy, although he has helped them on a few occasions. He can also be rude to older and more weaker engines like 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, Gordon still sometimes doubts Edward is still reliable, such as the time he did not believe Edward could win a race against Spencer as he is only a "back engine" and a "waste of steam". He soon stopped belittling Edward for good after being tricked by Thomas; he learned his lesson and apologised to Edward, saying that he promised not to call him old or unreliable anymore. Despite the way he treats Edward sometimes, deep down, Gordon cares a great deal about Edward and the other engines on the railway. This was especially shown when he was very upset after he learned that Edward and Henry moved out of Tidmouth Sheds to sleep elsewhere for their own reasons, thus indicating how much he missed them. He appears to have a hard time accepting change, but with help from his friends (and Nia), he is able to pull through it.

Sometimes, Gordon shows a kinder side and gives the engines some 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. This side resurfaced once Rebecca joined the NWR, but this time, Gordon realised himself that he was wrong to do so, especially when he ended up smashing through a set of buffers.

## **TRIVIA**

* Gordon is named after a rude boy who 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.
* The Halloween Engine in the eighth series episode, Halloween, was recycled from one of Gordon's scrap models.
* Gordon's upset face is used for Boulder in Rusty and the Boulder.
* In the Greek narration of the Model Series, Gordon is called *Johnny*. From thirteenth series onwards, 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 attention 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! and the twenty-second series, 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 colour.
* As of the CGI series, Gordon's catchphrases are "Oh, the indignity" and "Express coming through".
* Gordon, Henry, Thomas and James are the only engines to appear in every special. The latter three, however, are the only ones to speak in every special.
* From the first series to the twelfth series of the television series, Gordon had at least two face masks: disgusted and yawning; that were never shown on-screen.
* Gordon's whistle sound was used for Henry in the eighth and tenth series.
* In the magazines file facts, it is stated that Gordon and Spencer are cousins.
* Gordon was one of 2 engines featured on a poster for the NWR. The other was Thomas.
* Gordon's whistle is a deeper toned version of Henry's.
* In a 2020 Australian Red Nose Day advertisement a child is seen playing with an Ertl toy of Gordon and 2014 My First Percy.
* A Brio toy of Gordon cameos in the sixth episode of the third series of *The Story Makers, "Trains"*.