//------------------------------//
// Growing Pains 
// Story: Thomas and Friends: Tales from the Mainland Volume 1 
// by The Blue EM2 
//------------------------------//

One morning, it was morning, as morning's are known to be from time to time. Hitch was setting out into town and keeping a close eye on goings on as he went on his way.

"So far, so good," he said, as he pencilled something into his diary. "Nothing untoward happening at the moment."

Once he was done writing he continued on his way down the street, keeping to the pavement in order to avoid getting hit by a tram. This was wise, as Fraser rolled by a few moments later, loaded with passengers travelling down from the housing establishment out of town.

"Morning!" the tram called. "It was a bare bricht moonlit nicht last night!"

"What?" Hitch asked. "I have no idea what he said." Hitch continued on his way through town, keeping a close eye on what was going on.

But as was normal at this time of day the place seemed pretty quiet. He smiled as he reached the end of the street. "I think I can safely say that nothing can go wrong."

He stepped around the bend and sighed. "Looks like I spoke too soon."

The lines that access the yards and the dockyard both run over a public highway, which is protected from the trains by crossing barriers installed following the Porter incident earlier that year. Unfortunately, the level of traffic on some days meant that cars could be waiting a while, and this seemed to be happening today.

Ray moved incredibly slowly across the road, with a large flatbed in front of him. Attached to this flatbed was a heavy load.

The motorists were getting very cross, and honked their horns impatiently.

"Hurry up!" shouted one driver. "It never used to be this long of a wait!"

Another driver then joined in, but the words he used were of such vulgarity I will not be giving him the liberty of being transcribed here. Needless to say, it provoked Ray.

"This load is very heavy and needs moving carefully!" he said. "This is going to the house up the road that's being renovated."

"Of course, Lady Haven's pet project," the first driver grumbled. "We all have to sit here and wait whilst she brings our town to a standstill and has large amounts of stuff delivered. Typical English."

"If you don't do something about this, Hitch," said one driver, "we will never do business in Falmouth again!"

This put Hitch in an awkward position. But it was then he spotted a loophole in her instructions. "Sure thing. Goodbye!"





Later that day, a meeting had convened outside the town council building, and Hitch was standing before a podium. "Concerned citizens of Falmouth," he said. "I am aware that our lives have changed rather substancially since the magic returned."

"I'll say," somebody said.

"And that the new rail improvements have caused some traffic problems. Obviously, the flow of road vehicles through town needs to be maintained, but at the same time the dockside is dependant on rail access to keep goods moving. As a town, we need both and need to balance our two ways of life."

"So, what's the plan?" Argyle asked from the crowd. "I hope it's not a blanket ban on railway usage."

"Not at all!" Hitch said. "My proposal to the town council is that we have certain parts of the day for each. Ships tends to dock in the early morning and leave in the evening. To this end, I propose that between Six in the morning and Six in the evening, rail movements into and out of the yards and the docks are prohibited. However, engines that have already crossed the threshold into the yard may continue working there, as the yard itself does not block the road."

"It's not a perfect solution, but it's a start," said Misty, who was somewhere at the back.

As the crowd dispersed, Sunny walked forward and spoke to Hitch. "I understand the importance for quick action, and I understand your thought process," she said.

"That's a first," Hitch sighed.

"But there are serious flaws in your proposal. I thought you said you wouldn't do anything drastic!"

"No, that's not what I said. I said I would think it over. I have thought it over, and that is my answer. If we don't do something then these traffic problems are only going to get worse. People will get annoyed and skip town, and that will be bad for businesses in the town."

Sunny rolled her eyes. "Firstly, ships are dependant on the tidal conditions in the area, as some are too big to come in at low tide. For example, high tide can be as early as 9 in the morning, which is within your travel ban. That would mean a bigger ship like some of the larger trawlers would only be able to dock then and offload their cargo."

"Then they wait until the evening to move their cargo out," Hitch replied. "See? Easy."

"What if they're carrying perishables that need quick transportation? A good example is seafood, which is dropped off by those trawlers I mentioned earlier."

Hitch sighed. "That's not my issue. What we need is a workable compromise that allows both parties to be happy until we come up with a better solution. And if some fish goes mouldy in the meantime, so be it."

Zipp had been trailing them on her way to the shed, and decided to voice her opinion. "Hitch, it may be too early to bring these measures in. What if we make an error now that causes harm down the line?"

Hitch shrugged. "I care about the Non-Faceless Vehicles as much as you do, and the rail network has helped regenerate a lot of the old town area. But if we are going to survive in this new world we need to find ways to work together."

Argyle had caught up to them, and decided to voice his opinion. "How about we trial this new proposal tomorrow and see how it goes before coming to any conclusions?"

"Fine by me," the three younger people said.





The very next day, the new schedule went into operation. At Six in the morning, gates on either side of the road were bolted shut, and whichever side of the fence the engines were on was where they stayed for the day. Porter had been moved over the road in advance to shunt the dockyard, whilst Sophie had been assigned to the main goods yard for shunting.

It didn't take long for them to run into problems. Sophie backed into the gate as she tried to access another siding. "This was not thought through," she said.

Pipp got out and took a look. "Whomever put these gates in didn't measure the engines beforehand," she said. "The headshunt is too small for us to move properly in and out of the yard. Which will make shunting most of the yard impossible. Que horror!"

Porter was having a related problem down below. "What's that smell?" he asked.

"That's fish," Izzy said, as she brought him to a halt on the dockside. "Fish and chips is very popular around here."

"I don't like fish."

"Well, that's handy given you run on coal and water. Wouldn't want to get one of those wriggly things in your tanks, eh?" Izzy laughed at her own joke. "But wait! If not transported quickly it can go off, and we don't have any way to power the refridgeration equipment on the vans!"

By lunchtime, the entire town was subjected to the horrific smell of fish rotting on the dockside. It was so awful that sales of air fresheners surged by 300%. And the cars continued to sail by as they drove past the yard, much to the annoyance of others.

"We can't get the goods they need out, and they can't get the coal and water we need in!" Porter said. "This is ridiculous!"

"I think this plan wasn't properly thought through."

Eventually, another meeting of the friends was convened to try and sort out the problem. "I'll be the first to admit that the proposal hasn't quite worked as planned," Hitch said.

"You don't say," Sunny added, her voice dripping with so much sarcasm you could have cut it with a knife and spread it on toast.

"But we cannot give up. My thinking is to perhaps move the fences back a few feet to give the engines more space to shunt."

"That still doesn't fix the problem of priority traffic being unable to get in and out," Zipp pointed out. "Like the fish which is currently turning the town into the Great Stink."

"In which case, locomotives operating priority workings will have special badges attached to the running board," Hitch proposed. "These engines are permitted to work across the road outside of normal hours."

"Isn't that basically the same as the arrangement we have before?" Pipp asked.

"Yes," Sunny sighed. "You see, Hitch, your 'solution' has only made the mess worse!"

Hitch held his head in his hands. "I've overdone it," he said. "We need to come up with something a bit more flexible, and that suits the needs of everybody."

Suddenly, there were vibrations from upstairs, where the crystals were housed in the former lighthouse lense room. "What was that?" Zipp asked.

"We should take a look!" Izzy said, and sprinted for the lift.

Getting to the top floor took several minutes as the lift could only carry one person at a time. When they arrived at the top, they discovered a mysterious rainbow energy bathing the room in prismatic light.

And floating above it all was a projection of an older gentleman, with white hair and a pair of large black glasses sitting over his eyes. He was wearing a grey suit with a blue shirt and dark blue tie, and looked very serious.

"Who's the old dude?" Pipp asked.

Sunny looked on in awe. "No. Way."

The man began to speak. "If you are receiving this message, then the magic that dwells within all engines and vehicles has been succesfully reactivated, and is stronger than before. Our world is alive, and the forces that power it are ever changing. But be wary, as there are those out there who would spoil it for everybody else, and would use the magic's incredible power for evil. Once, somebody tried to steal the power and conquer these lands with an army of-"

Unfortunately, the tape seemed to be damaged, as several parts of the message were impossible to understand. These have been transcribed with the word [STATIC].

"And if she had succeeded, our world would have fallen. Myself and the others did all that we could to protect [STATIC] from [STATIC], but we were left with no choice but to split the crystals that powered it up. But now the crystals are back together, and you must be on your guard. You must protect the [STATIC] from [STATIC], or else the-"

This was then followed by a long burst of static which left the sentence impossible to understand.

"I am with you, always. Best of luck." And suddenly, the message vanished.

"What was that about?" Zipp asked.

Sunny turned to the others. "If that's who I think it was, we have a very important task."

"And who was it?" Pipp enquired.

Sunny grabbed a book from the bookcase and flipped through it. "It's who I thought it was. The chronicler of Sodor, and one of the Guardians. The Reverend Wilbert Awdry."

"Who?"

"Back in the day, he, Teddy Boston, and Eric Treacy meticulously mapped the Island of Sodor and its railways, and published tales from the island in the books that eventually made it to publication. I guess we now know why Non-Faceless Vehicles began to disappear. But what was this threat he was talking about? Who tried to steal the magic?"

"And who's going to deal with the growing traffic jam out there?" Izzy asked.

"Alright then," Hitch said. "It's time to reverse action. I know I said I wouldn't but old me doesn't know what current me knows now. It's time-"

"Who are you talking to?" Pipp asked, looking confused.





Eventually, a new proposal was submitted to the council. This called for the construction of a ring road to go around the town for traffic that was trying to get to other places and wanted to avoid crossing the railway. This would only mean that town traffic was passing through the area, reducing traffic volumes.

The engines liked this too, as it meant the barriers could be removed and normal operations could resume.

And so, dear readers, sometimes all it takes to solve big problems is working together, and using a little bit of common sense.