Smudger/Behind the Scenes

The Railway Series
Smudger is the first character in the television series to not originally come from the Railway Series. However, his role replaces that of Stanley (No. 2), a red American 4-6-0 narrow gauge pannier tank engine from Duke the Lost Engine. Unlike Smudger, Stanley was converted into a pumping engine.

In the illustration of Stanley as a pumping engine, he is incorrectly portrayed as saddle tank engine. The same error was made in the magazine story, Duncan Has a Spill.

O gauge model
Smudger was repainted and recycled from Rheneas' model, which was custom built to run on O gauge track. Four different facial expressions were worn by Smudger on screen. The faces were first sculpted in clay, and from that resin casts were made of a silicone mold. The model had a motor to power it mounted inside the chassis as well as an eye mechanism. The eye mechanism used servos which were mounted in the cab, the servos were hidden by blacking out the cabs and windows. Metal rods went all the way from the servos in the cab to a bracket in the smoke box behind the faceplate, one for up and down movement and one for left and right movement. This limited the range of movement of the eyes as well as being cumbersome and jamming often.

As he shared the same model as Rheneas, the inside of his cab and the front of his cylinders is red. In a promotional image of Smudger as a generator, the red from Rheneas' coal bunker and wheel arches can be seen.

Voice Actors

 * Nobuhiko Kazama (Japan)