Hiro

"Sodor will always be your home too, Hiro."

- Thomas, "Hero of the Rails"

    Hiro  Hiro is a Japanese engine who was introduced in Hero of the Rails.
 * Designer: Hideo Shima
 * Builder: Kawasaki Heavy Industries Rolling Stock Company
 * Configuration: 2-8-2
 * Number: 51

Bio
Hiro is wise, very dignified and enormously kind. He's friendly and is able to find good in any engine he meets. 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 once lived on a faraway island. He was the strongest engine on his railway, and was famously known as "Master of the Railway". He was eventually brought to Sodor where he worked for many years. He was also one of the first steam engines to arrive on Sodor, which impressed Thomas. However, he began to show his age, and the works didn't have the necessary parts to repair him. To avoid scrap, he was put on a siding, where he had to wait for the parts to come from his homeland.

Thomas eventually found him and, fearing Hiro would be scrapped if he wasn't Really Useful, promised to bring him back to his former glory while keeping him a secret from Sir Topham Hatt. Thomas also had many of his friends help in the restoration, and Hiro quickly gained their friendship. After breaking down again while trying to avoid Spencer, Hiro was hidden away in another siding, where passing engines visited him and kept him company.

When Sir Topham Hatt found out about the situation, Hiro was brought to the Sodor Steamworks, where Victor oversaw his restoration. Once Hiro was restored, he helped Spencer after his accident, and worked with him and Thomas to finish the Duke And Duchess's summer house. Despite everything, Hiro had grown homesick, so Sir Topham Hatt arranged for him to be sent home.

Basis
Hiro is based on a Japanese National Railways (JNR) Class D51 built by Kawasaki. However, Hiro runs on standard gauge track, while the real D51 engines were built for cape gauge.

Livery
Hiro is painted black with gold bands and fittings and red wheels. His name is written in black on gold nameplates, on his smoke deflectors. His "patchwork" color scheme consists of some blue, green, purple, and rust colored parts.

Appearances

 * Hero of the Rails
 * Season 13 - The Biggest Present of All and Buzzy Bees

Trivia

 * Hiro is voiced by Togo Igawa.
 * Hiro says that he is the oldest engine on the Island, but the D51 class was not built until 1936, making him much younger than most of the other steam engines on the island.
 * Hiro's profile on the Thomas and Friends website specifically mentions that he is Japanese.
 * Like Hank and Flora, 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 loose coupling on his tender, and a knuckle coupler on his front. This would make pushing rolling stock or being pulled away by another engine physically impossible, unless a special adapter used to connect knuckle couplers and loose couplings was fitted onto his knuckle coupler.

Merchandise

 * Learning Curve Wooden Wooden (In regular, "patchwork" and "lost and found" versions)
 * Take-Along/Take-n-Play (In regular and "patchwork" versions)
 * TOMY/TrackMaster (In regular, talking, and "lost and found" versions)
 * My Thomas Story Library (coming soon)