Gordon (RWS)/Behind the Scenes

Background Information
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:

Inspiration
The inspiration for Gordon himself came from the Rev. W. Awdry watching trains on the Great Western Railway as a child. He said in an interview with Brian Sibley for The Thomas the Tank Engine Man that, to him, the noise of the locomotives' exhaust almost sounded like dialogue - for example, the larger engine having trouble climbing the hills would appear to be saying, "I can't do it, I can't do it" and the smaller engine helping them would sound like it was saying, "I will do it! I will do it! I will do it!" The larger engine would become the inspiration for Gordon and the smaller engine would become the inspiration for Edward.

In 1942, the Reverend Awdry told his son Christopher a bedtime story about an engine named Edward who was sad because he was never taken out of the shed for being old and the drivers choosing the bigger engines first. One of these bigger engines would eventually become Gordon. Awdry would write another story, featuring Gordon pulling a goods train, much to his dismay. He deliberately stalls at a hill and Edward comes as a "banker".

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.

Awdry's model
Awdry's model of Gordon was built in 1956 using a Tri-ang LMS Princess Royal with a tender from a Tri-ang 3F, and was the last of the Famous Eight to be modelled. Since a Princess Royal was used, the model has the accurate Stanier-designed 2-cylinder chassis and unique running board that Gordon received in his 1939 Crewe rebuild. Some black-and-white photographs show a Hornby A3 (first released in 1968) alongside some of Awdry's other models, but there is no public information suggesting that this was intended to be Gordon, and was likely an illustrator's reference for Flying Scotsman's appearance in Enterprising Engines. The Gordon and A3 models are the only known models from Awdry's collection to not appear at the Awdry Extravaganza in August 2021.

P.R.Wickham's model
Edmund Ward had comissioned P.R. Wickham to produce models based on Engines 1-6 around the early 1950's, and were featured in an article titled "The Locomotive Family" featured in the March 1953 issue of Model Maker Magazine. These models were made in 7mm scale and were unpowered due to the lack of motors, although they did prove to be guides for the illustrators to work with, and the designs were based on C. Reginald Dalby's original illustrations.

Voice Actors

 * Kan Tanaka