Hodge

**Hodge** is an American Dandy (dog)-Diesel that lives in Chuggington. His name comes from the fact that he was built from a hodge-podge of parts - basically refurbished metal from the scrapyard.

## Bio

Hodge is partly one of the younger Chuggers, just a few years older than the Trainee's Brewster, Wilson, and Koko. He is a pick up Chugger who is always there to help out with any job big or small. Hodge spends his days running around the repair yard in Chuggington running errands for Eddie the Handyman. He has a "seen it all" attitude to most things and it takes a lot to get him excited. He hates being marginalized by Eddie, this is most evident in Hodge's Secret.

He is a very wise chugger, and occasionally offers advice to the trainees.

## Basis

Although Hodge is not based on any actual locomotive, he resembles one of early modified rail Mack AC trucks. He is described in one episode by the mayor's son as being a "6-wheeled dandy half-engine". He has a vague family resemblance to a wide range of railway cars built in a number of local railway company shops from a mixture of automobile, bus, truck and railway car parts. Likely inspiration came from the USA's Rio Grande Southern "Galloping Goose" series of contrivances. Of the three preserved RGS "Galloping Goose" series of cars, Hodge most closely resembles RGS #6 (which has a flat bed truck frame on its rear) but with the stove pipe of RGS#7 (used for heating the passenger compartment - which on RGS #7 was partly created from wooden passenger coach parts). Hodge also lacks the vast snowplows used on the RGS machines. However, many such shop-built contraptions were assembled and used by small budget railway companies throughout the world, and each of them were uniquely built for local needs using parts on hand. Hodge, like his ancestors throughout the world, is a locally designed and built machine, created from whatever parts happened to be available, to meet specific needs of his railway.

## Trivia

* He is Eddie's assistant, though their relationship has ups and downs.
* Hodge used to be a trainee with Zephie as stated in Outward Bound Olwin. But according to most episodes this can't be it as Zephie is possibly too young to become a trainee.
* He has a boiler chimney atop his roof.
* His voice resembles a smoker's voice (only in UK version, seasons 1-4), and in some episodes his voice can be dry and stressed.
* Hodge is one of two of the smallest heavy hauling engines in Chuggington. The other is Calley.
* His voice in the American version deepened in Season 3.
* He is one of the only chuggers with only one coupler. For this reason, he cannot see what he is doing when he is using a car. The other is Zephie. However, he has been seen with a front coupler on several occasions.
* He is a one-of-a-kind chugger.
* He got his name because he was made from a 'hodgepodge' of recycled parts.
* In Zephie's star club, he isn't interested in clubs, knowing the inevitable outcome of them falling apart.
* In Polish, he is called "Hugo", in Czech he is called "Brbla".
* Hodge is friends with Edward
* Hodge is also friends with Daisy and Harvey since they're all most singular/one-of-a-kind engines.
* Hodge guest star in Thomas and Twilight Sparkle's Adventures Series.