Nia

Nia is an orange tank engine from Kenya who befriended and accompanied Thomas on his journey around the world. She is now a permanent resident on the North Western Railway, and a member of the Steam Team. She was rewarded with the job of helping out at the Sodor Animal Park regularly after succeeding in transporting a stubborn elephant there, and she also performs mixed traffic and shunting jobs across the island. She also does odd jobs, much like many of Sodor's engines.

Personality
Nia is an adventurous and fun engine who taught Thomas - and even Gordon - about friendship and new things during her new beginnings. Whether she is in her homeland of Africa or travelling around the world, Nia is positive, kind-hearted and caring. Her eagerness to help can sometimes irritate her friends, but her truthfulness and kind heart always win them over. She is a good problem solver, although she once had trouble reading numbers until Annie and Clarabel helped her. Nia can be very sensitive about being abandoned or ignored, and this can quite often make her give someone the cold shoulder if they maintain this type of behaviour, especially if someone is acting very rude. This doesn't stop her from befriending others though, and aside from playful retributions she will happily forgive any offenders if she feels they are truly sorry.

Basis
Nia is based on a Kenya-Uganda Railway (KUR) ED1 class, a class of 2-6-2 tank locomotive built by Vulcan Foundry for the Kenya-Uganda Railway between 1926 and 1930. Primarily used for shunting duties, they were also used to haul branch line trains. They were later operated by the East African Railways and were reclassified as part of the EAR 11 class. One member of this class, No. 327, has been preserved at the Nairobi Railway Museum in Nairobi, Kenya.

Nia has been modified in order to work on British railways. Whereas her original basis was metre gauge, Nia is standard gauge and she has been given buffers and screwlink couplings in order to work with the other engines.

Livery
Nia is painted orange with yellow lining. She has stripes with a Kenyan pattern consisting of red, yellow, green, black and purple painted along with her tanks and dome, as well as green and yellow lining on her cylinders. Nia has green stripes on her boiler and brake pump. Her footplate is painted red with black buffers. Her name (Nia) and her number (18) are painted on the sides of her tanks and cab respectively in yellow within black squares.

Appearances

 * Nia will appear in the series soon.

Trivia

 * Nia's name means "purpose" in Swahili.
 * Experts at the United Nations and The Royal African Society assisted the production team with creating Nia.
 * At one point during her creation, Nia was originally going to be called Kessie. She was also going to be given a Norwegian coupling, but it was quickly changed to buffers and screwlink couplings.
 * An early test trailer (with footage from it later reused for The Journey Never Ends) and certain merchandise lines depict her with red wheels, due to the fact that one piece of Nia's concept art shows her with red wheels. Nia was also accidentally shown with red wheels in the fantasy sequence of Counting on Nia.
 * Nia's number 18 originates from the year her first appearance in Big World! Big Adventures! was released; 2018.
 * Nia is the only member - current or former - of the Steam Team for a few things:
 * The only member to arrive on Sodor from a country outside the United Kingdom.
 * The only member to have a snowplough that is not the same colour as her.
 * The only member not to have ever pulled the Express.
 * Nia is the first engine to have a female crew member, as well as being the first Steam Team member to have her name painted on her side.
 * Nia's whistle is Shane's at three steps higher-pitched.
 * Nia is the second character to get a singing double, with Marion being the first.