//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1-A Bright and Sunny Morning 
// Story: Thomas and Friends: Secrets of Sodor 
// by The Blue EM2 
//------------------------------//

It was, as the chapter title suggests, a bright and sunny morning on the Island of Sodor. As was his custom, Thomas the Tank Engine chuffed cheerfully down his branch line with Annie and Clarabel. "Keep an eye out for Bertie!" Thomas called to Clarabel, his eyes filled with glee.

Clarabel rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Thomas. You shouldn't think so much about racing. If you'd only focus on the line instead of wherever Bertie is things would be so much smoother."

Just then, Bertie the Bus called from a bridge running over the line. "Let's have a race, have a race, have a race!"

"Why are you saying it like that?" Spike asked, looking confused.

"It's a reference for older readers," Bertie smiled. "See if you can catch me!" He stopped. "Wait a second. Spike, why is your voice so deep?"

"I went through puberty," Spike replied.

"Oh."

Thomas laughed, unaware of the odd conversation between Spike and Bertie. "Challenge accepted. On your marks, now get set go!"

With that, Twilight advanced Thomas' regulator, and he surged forward, his two coaches rattling along behind him and grumbling the entire way.

"Thomas!" Annie protested. "We are not intended to go this fast!"

"Sure you are!" Thomas snorted. "You're rated for 75 miles an hour, and we're doing well below that, aren't we Twilight?"

Twilight nodded. "About 40 and holding. Should do the trick!"

Thomas smiled as he flew along. "Perhaps you should just give up now, Bertie! I'm going to win!"

"Not of you don't watch the signals, you won't!" Bertie said.

Thomas looked up and spotted the fixed distant coming up. "We'd probably best be slowing down!" he said to Twilight.

"Seeing as the next signal is red, we probably should," Twilight replied, and shut off steam before applying the regulator. Thomas rolled to a stop at the platform.

"Get on quickly please! I'm in a hurry!"

"You're not booked to depart for another three minutes," the guard said, checking his stopwatch. "All of this high speed running will make the passengers most annoyed."

Thomas sat there impatiently, before at last Henry clattered in with a goods train going the other way. At last, the signal changed, and Thomas was on his way once more.

Thomas was certain Bertie had a head start so large he couldn't possibly overtake him, but to his surprise he saw Bertie was stuck behind a construction vehicle. Perfect! Thomas roared past on the line. "Good thing trains don't need overtaking lights, eh Bertie?"

Bertie just scowled in annoyance. "Why can't they just move this big heavy slow stuff by rail and free up roads for buses who need to be somewhere?"

Thomas pulled into Ffarquhar well ahead of Bertie. "That was fun!" he said. "I wonder if any people will appear from nowhere outside the station."

"That must have been a few crazy days," Twilight said.

Annie, however, had the distinct look of disapproval on her face. "Thomas, you should know that Sir Topham Hatt does not approve of racing or speeding!"

"We've been doing this for ages and he doesn't mind!"

"Just because you've been doing something for a long time does not make it right," Clarabel scolded. "The passengers do not enjoy being bounced about like peas on a frying pan, and if they are they complain."

Bertie rumbled in, grumbling. "I'm always getting stuck behind HGV's and construction lorries," he grumbled. "All because of this silly new branchline they're building."

"New branch line?" Twilight asked.

"Yes!" Spike said. "It's going to run from Arlesburgh West to Harwick to tap into the fish trade. well, technically they're relaying an old line that was closed by Beeching rather than building a new one, but let's not split hairs over a technicality eh?"

Annie looked horrified. "If they open a new branch line they might close ours!"

Thomas snorted. "Close our branch line because they've built one that serves an entirely separate section of the island? I don't think so Annie!"





Back on the mainland, hundreds of miles from Sodor, it was all systems go on the Maritime Line. Ships were docking to offload their heavy cargo, or picking up new supplies. Heavy formations of wagons were being propelled across the dockside, the twin exhausts of diesel engines or blasts from steam locomotive chimneys filling up the skyline.

Salty pushed some more heavy fish vans into position on the Eastern Breakwater. "More fish vans for you, me lads!" he called to the dockworkers.

Sunny hopped out to uncouple him as the dock workers began to load fish containers. "Work order says we're to pick up the Mogo vans over there and bring them back with the loaded fish!"

"Sounds good!" Salty said, as he inhaled. "Being back by the sea is always something I've valued. You can take the sea away from the sailor, but you can never take the sea away from the sailor. We will always hear her siren song and return."

"It wouldn't end will for you, I suspect," Sunny said. "It was hard enough getting you running again after the landslide." She hopped back into the cab and put Salty's reverser into reverse, before they began to back up to the next set of sidings.

Out on another portion of the dockside, Porter was moving some explosives vans. "Hot stuff, this!" he shouted. "Explosive stuff, you could say!"

Izzy leaned out of the cab as Porter pushed them to a stop next to a cargo ship. "It'll make quite the bang if handled incorrectly!"

Dock workers slid the doors open and began to load the cargo. This gave Izzy some spare time, so she took out her radio controlled car to work on it. "Now, if I can adjust the speed a little bit on Senor Butterscotch I could make him go really fast!"

"I'm still not sure how you managed to build an entire RC car out of junk," Porter said. "Don't motors expire easily?"

"Only the bodywork is junk," Izzy explained. "The rest of the structure is a custom build from bits I've acquired from hobby shobs. It's good fun if you know what you're doing!"

Over at the station, Bellerophon was pushing another rake of coaches into the platform. "With this volume of traffic we could do with auto operation!" he said.

"That would put shunters out of a job!" Misty said, looking concerned.

"That's a fair point," Bellerophon conceeded. "Where else in the country can you see engines running round their trains or shunting coaching stock? And saying 'preserved railways' doesn't count."

Charles' engine roared to full power as he pulled away with a passenger train. "FEEL THE SPEED!" he said.

Zipp glanced down. "We're doing 15 miles an hour."

"Which is still faster than going at no speed at all."

Sophie reversed into the bay platform with some cattle trucks. "Cattle for unloading!" she called.

Pipp looked out of the cab, then quickly snapped a selfie of herself. "This isn't quite how I'd imagined my life would change, but it's fun nontheless! This really is the bestie life!"

"Bunny bunny, do the bu-"

Pipp swiped the image to one side. "That meme is old." She then frowned at another comment. "Really? The dress I was wearing for that performance is white, not blue!"





A bit later, Sunny popped home for her lunch, as was her custom, and met up with Argyle along the way. "So, how's it going?" Argyle asked.

"Dockside is still moving, somehow," Sunny joked.

Argyle smiled. "That's always good to hear. Things have been fine at the University too, so hopefully nothing too out of the ordinary happens."

As they stepped in through the door, and closed the door, Argyle suddenly spotted a letter on the floor. "A letter? How quaint." He picked it up and walked it over to the table. "And it's not a bill. That's a nice change."

He turned it over to open it, whilst Sunny went to get some plates out and rinse them under the tap. It was a routine they had very well rehearsed.

Argyle opened the letter and looked at it in surprise. "Well, this was unexpected," he said. "It's addressed to you?"

"That is weird," Sunny said, and walked over. She cleared her throat then began to read it aloud.

Dear Sarah Starscout,

I am writing to you to congratulate you on your stellar service to the North Western Railway last Autumn. As such, I have an exciting new opportunity for you and your friends.

I am building a new branch line on the Island of Sodor, and would formally like to invite you and your friends to help out with the construction. Please bring your engines too.

Signed,

Sir Topham Hatt,

North Western Railway General Manager.

Sunny shrugged. "Not often I get called by my birth name."

"It's probably all they had on record," Argyle said, as he went to get some bread. "But being asked to help with a branchline is a great honour. I assume you want to go for the opportunity?"

"Yes please!" Sunny said. "I'll go tell my friends right away!"

Just then her stomach gurgled.

"I'm not having you go anywhere on an empty stomach," Argyle said. "You can tell them this evening."





Sunny skated to a stop at their usual meeting bench outside the engine shed, and slipped into her usual seat. "I've got some great news for you guys!" she said.

"What's cookin', Sunny?" Zipp asked.

"Sir Topham Hatt-"

"For it is he," Pipp added. "What? Just trying to add some flare!"

"-Has invited us to work on the North Western Railway, helping to build a new branchline!" Sunny said excitedly. "He even asked us to bring our engines!"

"I can only wonder how we'll handle the work here and there," Hitch said.

"I can only assume other engines will be deployed to help out here. Besides, a change of scenery is as good a break as any." Pipp smiled. "Knapford has so many boutiques I want to try out! One of the stores had a Livre Cheval on display!"

"A what?" Hitch asked.

"It's a fashion line," Zipp said. "I don't understand a word of it either. Besides, don't you already have loads of clothes?"

"I need to keep the variety up!"

"So, we up for this?" Sunny asked.

"You bet we are!" Misty said.

Sunny hopped out of her seat. "I'll go tell dad right away!" She skated away, punching the air as she did so.





"Oh, not this again!" Twilight complained.

Thomas' fire wasn't building properly. It kept going out, which meant there was not enough steam. And the lack of steam meant that Thomas couldn't move. The fact he was asleep probably didn't help matters.

"Gone fishing..." he said quietly to himself.

About half an hour later, Gordon was waiting for his coaches. He was fuming. "Where is Thomas?" he complained. "He was supposed to have put the coaches in the platform half an hour ago!"

"We're gonna be late now," Rainbow Dash grumbled. "Of course, the passengers will complain either way, but Thomas needs to speed it up a little."

At last the coaches arrived. "Hurry up!" Gordon snapped.

"Hurry up yourself!" Thomas replied.

"That didn't end well for us last time," Twilight pointed out.

"Besides, you know why I can't collect my own coaches," Gordon continued. "My wheelbase is too long for the sidings- I would derail on the points!"

Thomas tuned him out as he began to propel them forwards into the loop. "Call the signals for me!" he said.

Twilight leaned out of the cab. "Signal is green! We're good to get into position for reverse move!"

But as the front of the coaches approached the signal, it suddenly changed from a green aspect to a red aspec. "What the?" Twilight immediately slammed the brakes on, trying to bring the train to a stop.

But even at the relatively low propelling speed of 15 miles an hour they were going too fast to stop. The coaches slammed into the points set against them and derailed, falling into the ballast and blocking the lines.

Thomas blinked. "That didn't go to plan."