Stephen/Behind the Scenes

Background Information
Stephen is a fictional tender engine created by Halim Jabbour, Ian McCue, Andrew Brenner and Sam Wilkinson.

In 2013, Stephen made his debut in the movie, King of the Railway. His last appearance was in the twenty-fourth series episode, Nia's Bright Idea, which was released in 2020.

Stephen is voiced by Bob Golding (UK/US) in the CGI version of the series on both sides of the Atlantic, respectively.

Stephen is based on Stephenson's Rocket. Though his design is based on a combination of the Rocket as originally built (such as angled cylinders) and its post-Rainhill modifications (such as a smokebox), Stephen has identified himself as the original Rocket, describing the Rainhill trials and his subsequent working years.

CGI Model
In 2009, the series introduced Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) as a replacement for the show's long-standing live-action models. In 2012, Stephen was created from scratch in CGI by Arc Productions for the 2013 movie, King of the Railway. The model was "hand-sculpted" in Maya, a 3D animation and modelling software.

Stephen has had modifications throughout the CGI era. These include:
 * King of the Railway
 * When he was restored, he gained a headlamp.
 * Series 19
 * He gained a tail lamp.

Texture variants
In addition to his standard livery, several other texture variants exist of Stephen's main CGI model. Many only appear once, however a few are reused mutliple times. These texture variants include:

Fonts
The following fonts are used on Stephen's CGI model:
 * Bernard Condensed

Voice Actors

 * Bob Golding
 * Rainer Schmitt
 * Knud Riepen
 * Atsuhiko Nakata
 * Nobuaki Kanemitsu
 * Stig Krogstad
 * Øyvind Borgemoen Lyse
 * Piotr Warszawski
 * Gadi Levy
 * Eduardo Fonseca
 * Paul Disbergen
 * Juan Navarro Torelló
 * Denis Bespaliy
 * Alexander Horlin
 * Arto Nieminen
 * Um Sang-hyun
 * Bede-Fazekas Szabolcs
 * Volodymyr Tereshchuk