Equestria Girls: The Railway Stories

by friggin normie

Thomas and the Guard

Thomas the Tank Engine loves his branchline very much and thinks it's the most important part of the railway. His fireman, Spike, and his two coaches Annie and Clarabel agree with him. Annie can only carry passengers, while Clarabel can carry passengers, their luggage, and the guard. The two carriages are both old and in need of new paint - as Rarity mentions whenever she gets the chance - but Thomas loves them very much.

As they run backwards and forewords down the line, they like to sing songs to each other. Whenever Thomas leaves a station, he sings 'Oh come along, we're rather late. Oh come along, we're rather late' and the coaches sing 'We're coming along, we're coming along!"

Twilight and Spike could never bring themselves to tell them the songs weren't that great.

The two coaches never mind what Thomas says to them, and they know that whenever he is cross, he is never cross with them.

One morning, Thomas was waiting impatiently for Henry at Elsebridge station.

"Where is that Henry?" Thomas said to himself. "We'll be late if he doesn't get here soon."

Twilight was anxious, but did her best to hide it from Thomas. "I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason as to why he's late."

"Maybe a cow strayed onto the line," Spike suggested.

"Then that would be a pretty lost cow. The only ones I've seen are the ones from where James crashed, and that part of the line isn't on Henry's passenger route."

"How do you know Henry's passenger route?"

His older sister grinned. "I keep copies of everybody's schedules to make sure we're all running right on time!"

At last, Henry puffed feebly into the station.

"Where on Earth have you been?" Thomas asked.

"I'm sorry I'm late," the green engine moaned. "My system is all out of order. No one understands my case."

Fluttershy patted his cab sympathetically. "He's been having trouble making steam ever since he came out of the tunnel."

Thomas scoffed. "Rubbish! You're just being dramatic. With the way you've been acting, anyone would think that Rarity was your driver!"

"Thomas!" cried Twilight indignantly. "There's no need to be so rude!"

"Well, if Henry could get his smokebox out of his tender for five minutes..."

While the pair bickered, the guard blew the whistle. But as he made his way to Clarabel, the poor man tripped over a woman's umbrella. Clarabel watched in horror as the station and the guard disappeared as Thomas began moving.

"Stop, stop, stop!" she cried. "We've left my nice guard behind!"

Annie's eyes widened in shock when she heard this.

"Wait, Thomas, wait!"

But Thomas wouldn't listen.

"We musn't be late," he puffed.

Spike had heard the coach's pleas and tried to tell Twilight.

"Twi, the coaches said-"

"Never mind their songs," she said dismissively. "Let's just finish up our work so I can give Thomas a proper talking to."

"We haven't a guard, we haven't a guard," the two coaches fretted.

The coaches were cross that Thomas wasn't listening, but their was nothing they could do. The couldn't apply their brakes to stop the train without the guard, and if they bumped Thomas to make him listen, the passengers would get cross.

But Thomas wouldn't stop until they reached a red signal.

"Bother that signal!" he shouted. "And we were going so nicely, too! Why have we stopped?"

Twilight had forgotten to be cross with Thomas and looked around in confusion. "I don't know, but the guard should tell us soon."

So they waited....and waited...and waited some more, but the guard never came.

"Where on Earth is the guard?" asked Thomas.

"We've left him behind!" the coaches wailed.

Thomas gulped. "Oh dear. I hope he isn't cross with us."

The tank engine was about to reverse back to the station when Clarabel shouted.

"Look!"

In the distance, a small figure was approaching the train. Panting heavily, the guard came to a stop, leaned on Clarabel and had a long drink. Once he had gotten his breath back, he told everyone what had happened.

"I'm so sorry we left you behind, Mr. Guard" Thomas said to the guard.

"And I'm sorry that we weren't listening to you," Twilight said to the coaches.

"It's quite alright," replied the guard. "If we hurry, we can still make up for lost time."

Thomas smiled at that and went as fast as Twilight would let him.

"As fast as you like, as fast as you like!" sang the coaches. They were very pleased to have their guard back.

They raced along so quickly, that they reached the end of the line very quickly.

---

Afterwards, Thomas promised to try not to be so impatient in the future, and he and Twilight learned to always listen when the coaches said something was wrong.

Comments

[Sudrian Engineer]

What about listening to Spike? He tried to tell Twilight, but she ignored him...

[The Blue EM2]

"Never mind there songs,"

Their.