• Published 1st Jan 2020
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Thomas and Friends: The Retold Adventures - The Blue EM2



Picture a Land where the Sky is so Blue, a Storybook Land of Wonder...

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Sir Toppham Hatt's Engines

It was a glorious summer evening on the Island of Sodor. Thomas came to a stop in the station at Knapford Junction with his last train, and sat there whilst passengers got on and off. Twilight opened a water bottle and took a drink, so hot it was, that she was thirsty. Come to think of it, so were the engines, but let's not get into technicalities here.

Percy called over to them. "I've been told to go to Tidmouth Sheds!" he called. "Have you?"

"Yes I have," Thomas replied. "Why?"

"I have too!" Percy said.

"Has a giant cake monster covered all the world's cake in cake?" Pinkie asked, excitedly.

Twilight laughed. "Seriously Pinkie, with all the sugar you eat, I'm amazed you don't feel sick!"

"I wonder what's up?" Thomas asked. Toby then looked up at the sky.

"What's up where?" he asked, suddenly seeing that the set ended just in front of them.

Sorry, I don't know what happened there. "What's up where?" he asked, suddenly seeing the sky.

"Down here silly!" Thomas said. "Not up there at all!"

"Though," Twilight added, "I am told that tonight when the Sun and the Moon sit at 28.1 degrees and 62 degrees respectively, the sky will look utterly dazzling!"

Thomas looked in confusion. "How do you know that?"

"Science," Twilight replied.

"How can something be up when it's down?" Toby asked, by this point extremely confused.

"It's a figure of speech," Flash explained. "It's also the title of a terrible film I saw once. Never again..."

Just then, some whistles echoed from the junction as a pair of steam engines raced by. "Hello Jinty! Hello Pug!" he called.

"Who?" Percy asked.

"Jinty and Pug are from the mainland," Thomas explained. Just then three more rolled by, two tender engines and a tank engine. "A BR Standard 5, a Duchess, and a J94? What is going on here?"

"Sir Toppham Hatt must have something big planned if engines from the mainland are coming here," Twilight said. "Let's go!"

So they went along to the station at the end of the line, where they proceeded further to Tidmouth Sheds. Standing there before them was Sir Toppham Hatt, holding a piece of paper.

"Silence!" he called, in response to all the whistling going on. "I have an important letter to read that has been sent to us by a five year old girl." Silence remained, as he began to read the letter.

The letter read:

Dear Thomas and all the engines,

May I meet you? My friends say they would like to meet you too. We have heard all about you from the stories that kindly Reverend wrote, and you could always come to my house for tea, but my mummy says that there aren't any railway tracks to my house. Can you come to the station instead?

Thank you very much.

Sir Toppham Hatt coughed as he finished reading the letter. "It would seem," he said, "that there are many girls and boys who would like to meet you all. As a result, I have decided to do one better than go to the station. The National Railway Museum at York has agreed to let us use their Great Hall to display you all, to do a meet and greet, if you will. This will disprove those fools who believe you don't exist-"

"Hear hear!" called a voice from somewhere. Sir Toppham Hatt glared in its general direction, and the voice fell silent.

"Anyway," he continued, with a loud voice, "we shall be leaving in a few weeks."

"HOORAY!" everyone cried, and the engines began to whistle loudly.

"SILENCE!" boomed Sir Toppham Hatt. "To cover for the time when you are all away, we have brought in other engines from the mainland to do your work. You may have seen several BR Standards and other designs coming onto the island. These are all engines from many different railways, so please show them our ways and how we do things.



The engines were all very careful to teach the other engines how to do things. As Annie and Clarabel would be going to the National Railway Museum with Thomas, Thomas and Twilight practiced with other coaches alongside an LMS 3F 0-6-0T, or 'Jinty' as he was known. Thomas became more and more excited, I'm sorry to say.

"I'm glad to be going to the mainland, as Sir Toppham Hatt thinks I'm a really useful engine."

"Right," Jinty replied, sounding somewhat disinterested. He cared little for Thomas' talk, and in many ways wanted to go back to his quiet branch line in Yorkshire. But Thomas went on and on.

"You know," he said, one day, "I had a race once with a red bus, Bertie, and his driver Spike."

"As in Spike Milligan?" Jinty asked.

"Same spelling, different person," Twilight replied.

"I flew through the tunnel and stopped within an inch of the buffers. Like this!" Thomas made a careless mistake here, and shot forward.

"Thomas! What are you doing?" Twilight cried. She jumped from the footplate just in time. Thomas crashed into the buffers, which broke apart in the impact, wood and metal flying everywhere. Thomas vanished off the end of the track, and started rolling clean down an embankment, through a wire fence, down another embankment, into a brick wall (and through it), over a road, and into another brick wall, where he finally stopped.

"Oops," he said. "I guess that works better when the buffers are further away."

Jinty rolled his eyes. "Show-off," he grunted. "Does he often crash through buffers?"

Twilight sighed. "This railway is worryingly accident prone," she said. "It's a miracle the Office of Rail and Road don't get involved more often."

Twilight dialled Sir Toppham Hatt, who picked up the phone. "For the last time, I am not sighing in the third person!" There was a pause. "Oh? Thomas had an accident and bent his front bufferbeam? Well, we'll need to get that mended quickly. I'll sent a breakdown crane, but if they can't mend him in time, we'll go to York without him."



Thomas was more surprised than hurt, but felt foolish nontheless. The next morning arrived, and the clock reached eight o'clock (as clocks do at least twice a day). Percy and Toby had been loaded onto flatbeds, Pinkie Pie and Flash Sentry having made sure to tie them down. Duck and Apple Bloom had shunted into place behind Edward, and Applejack had helped couple them together. Gordon, James, Henry, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy were waiting to lead off, but there was a crucial engine missing. They whistled impatiently.

"OH COME ON!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed. "Where is Thomas?"

"He could have bashed into some buffers," said Gordon.

"Or dropped down into a mine," James added.

"Or rolled into the ocean 'cause he passed a danger sign," Percy finished.

"I'm pretty certain that was you," Flash said.

Sir Toppham Hatt checked his watch. "We really must be-"

PEEP PEEP PIPEEP!

There, rushing around the bend, was Thomas, rolling to a stop in the platform. "You two," said Sir Toppham Hatt, "nearly made a mess of my arrangements. However, I am of a mind to forgive you both."

"Thank you sir," Thomas said.

"Thanks sir," Twilight added.

Just then the guard blew his whistle. The cavalcade moved off, engines whistling and cheering.

"Let's go!" Gordon called.

"Rock on!" Rainbow Dash added.

"Yay," Fluttershy added quietly.

"This is fabulous!" Rarity exclaimed.

"Scoot yer boot, Duck!" Applejack called. "The big city ain't gonna come ta us!"

"We're comin', we're comin'!" Apple Bloom called. "Big city, here we come!"



The engines were later displayed in the Great Hall of the National Railway Museum, light shining onto their boilers and happy visitors all around. Steps had been built to allow them to access the cabs, and their drivers were more than happy to show them around. It was a wonderful occasion, but eventually the time came for them to go home.

"The other engines did a good job, but not as good as you," the people of the Island said. "There's no engines like Sir Toppham Hatt's engines."

THE END... FOR TODAY AT LEAST.

Author's Note:

Author's notes: This particular story was heavily edited from the original book version upon TV adaptation. This particular take was created by combining both versions.

Anybody care to guess where Jinty is from?

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