Gordon/Behind the Scenes

The Railway Series
Gordon is a fictional standard gauge tender locomotive created by the Rev. W. Awdry. He is the No. 4 engine on the North Western Railway.

He first appeared in The Railway Series book, The Three Railway Engines, which was published in 1945. His last appearance was in Thomas and his Friends, published in 2011.

Front of Gordon:

Gordon is based on the LNER A1 and A3 Class locomotives, particularly the Flying Scotsman. Gordon is the last remaining brother of the Flying Scotsman, and is mentioned as being Mallard's cousin.

Television Series
In 1984, Gordon was introduced in the first series of Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends and has appeared in every series as one of the main characters since.

Neil Crone voiced the character in Thomas and the Magic Railroad, giving the character a faint but noticable British accent. Keith Wickham assumed the character's role in the UK and Kerry Shale in the US. While Wickham maintains Gordon with a British accent, Kerry Shale's performance is clearly American.

Gauge 1 model
Gordon’s original model was custom built to run on gauge 1 track for the Unaired Pilot. The model was built with a perspex body shell by model maker Martin Gill. It was painted using glossy car body paint and lined with red automotive pinstripe tape with the numbers being custom cut vinyl stickers. The axleguards on Gordon's tender were made by Tenmille. The chassis was built from scratch, it was never tested before being filmed in front of the camera and proved to be unreliable.

CGI model
In 2009, the series introduced Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) as a replacement for the show's long-standing live-action models. Gordon was recreated from scratch in CGI by Nitrogen Studios. His model was "hand-sculpted" in Maya, a 3D animation and modelling software.

Photographs of Gordon's Gauge 1 model were used for referencing. According to Greg Tiernan, every detail of the original television series models for each character is carefully reproduced in the CGI model. The models are subjected to many rounds of review before they are submitted to HiT Entertainment for final input and approval.

In 2016, a new render of Gordon was made by Arc Productions for the special The Great Race. This render depicted him in streamlined casing, with everything bar the face being completely changed. The "Shooting Star" render only appeared in The Great Race.

Gordon's CGI model was identical to his Gauge 1 model but has had slight modifications, these include:
 * Hero of the Rails:
 * The wheels on his bissel truck and tender got larger.
 * His tender's height got thinner.
 * Series 13:
 * The middle sections of his driving wheels are painted black.
 * Series 17:
 * He gained a permanent head lamp and tail lamp.
 * His wheels are fully blue again.
 * The Adventure Begins:
 * His side rods become silver.
 * Series 23:
 * He gains another lamp on his left lamp iron, giving him the BR express headcode.
 * He gains handrails around his cab entrance and on his door.
 * He gains rivets on his cab, bufferbeams front and sides, the back and sides of his tender, his coupling hook base, around his cab side windows, cylinders, smokebox saddle and around his smokebox.
 * He gains red lining on the back of his tender.

Voice Actors

 * Neil Crone (Thomas and the Magic Railroad)
 * Keith Wickham (UK; Hero of the Rails onwards)
 * Kerry Shale (US; Hero of the Rails onwards)
 * Kenji Utsumi (Japan; first - eighth series)
 * Kenta Miyake (Japan; Calling All Engines! Onwards)
 * Bernard Demory (France and French speaking Canada; sixth series onwards; excluding the eighth-twelfth series)
 * Michel Lasorne (France and French speaking Canada; eighth-twelfth series)
 * Øyvind Borgemoen Lyse (Norway; Hero of the Rails - Tale of the Brave)
 * Norbert Gescher (Germany; Thomas and the Magic Railroad)
 * Tetje Mierendorf (Germany; Hero of the Rails onwards)
 * Jürgen Holdorf (Germany; Audio Books only)
 * Salvador Nazar (Latin America; Thomas and the Magic Railroad)
 * Jorge Roig (Latin America; Thomas and the Magic Railroad; TV Version)
 * Dafnis Fernández (Latin America; Hero of the Rails onwards)
 * Leo Richardson (The Netherlands)
 * Sławomir Pacek (Poland; Hero of the Rails onwards, except Emily Saves the World and Samson at Your Service)
 * Miłogost Reczek (Poland; Emily Saves the World and Samson at Your Service only)
 * Danny Segev (Israel; Thomas and the Magic Railroad)
 * Nir Ron (Israel)
 * João Carlos Guerra (Brazil)
 * Salvador Serrano (Spain)
 * Karacsonyi Zoltan (Hungary)
 * Markus Bäckman (Finland; Hero of the Rails only)
 * Pasi Ruohonen (Finland; thirteenth series onwards)
 * Vladimir Antonik (Russia; thirteenth - sixteenth series)
 * Denis Bespaliy (Russia; King of the Railway onwards)
 * Um Sang-hyun (South Korea)
 * Loukas Frangoulis (Greece)
 * Karacsonyi Zoltan (Hungary)