Chuggington (also known as Chuggington: Tales from the Rails in series 6) is a British animated television series aimed at pre-school children, produced by Ludorum plc and Herschend Entertainment Studios. It is broadcast on the BBC's CBeebies channel and other channels internationally. Originally composed of five series running from 2008 to 2015, the series left its five-six year hiatus when a new batch of episodes was released on Playhouse Disney and Disney Junior in the United States on 29 June 2020, and on CBeebies in the United Kingdom on 2 January 2021.^[1]

In the fictional town of Chuggington are young novice anthropomorphic railway locomotives, called "Trainees", Koko, Wilson, Brewster, Hoot, Toot and Piper. The trainees and sometimes the more experienced chuggers learn the value of loyal friendship, telling the truth, listening carefully, persisting under adversity, completing tasks, resolving conflict without violence and similar values. The locomotives, called "Chuggers", are intelligent, empathetic, independent and somewhat self-directed. They have mobile facial and body features. Chuggers have no crews, yet some have crew doors that can open. Chuggers regularly interact with humans such as passengers and maintenance crews. Some chuggers are modeled after well known locomotives.

The town of Chuggington has a central area of large modern buildings. Side-by-side railway tunnels coloured red, blue, yellow and green run under the town centre, leading to the outside world. Countryside settings include a farm, a safari park and a quarry. A 'Chugston Hotel' is mentioned. "Old Chuggington", an abandoned old town with a similar name to the titular town, overgrown with wild vegetation, is occasionally visited.

Wilson, Brewster and Koko are the main characters in Chuggington.

The creative core behind Chuggington is Sarah Ball, a producer and director who worked on Bob the Builder, and Don Toht, who designed the characters and sets.^[12]

The animation is made with Autodesk Maya software.^[13]

As well as the regular ten-minute episodes, there are four-minute shows, Chuggington: Badge Quest, focusing on the trainees' efforts to earn reward badges for their "Chugger" training.^[14]

Three Chuggington specials were commissioned for release on DVD from 2013 onwards.^[15]

On 10 December 2018, Herschend Entertainment Studios acquired the rights to the series.^[16]

The first series of 52 episodes was sold to broadcasters including the BBC, ABC (Australia), TF1 (France),Super RTL (Germany) and Fuji TV (Japan) in a deal announced in February 2008.^[17] A second series of 26 episodes was purchased by the BBC and many other broadcasters throughout the world. Aimed at children between the ages of 3 and 6, Chuggington made its UK debut as a "soft launch" on BBC Two on 22 September 2008. In the US, it was broadcast on Disney Junior.

In January 2009 it was announced that RC2 would be producing Chuggington toys under their Learning Curve brand; the toys were released to the market in 2010.^[18] RC2 contributed to half of the series' production budget in exchange for long-term global toy licensing rights.^[12]

According to Okayama Electric Tramway press report on 12 January 2018, it will be operated in 2 cars and 1 train with its own decorated appearance that reproduced Wilson and Brewster in Japan. With the all-seat reservation system, the operation start date is 16 March 2019. It is confirmed as the world's first in the railroad and tram related motif with this character as a motif.^{[20][unreliable source?]}

• Thomas & Friends
• Underground Ernie