The Apocalypse Begins: The Rewrite

August 17th, 1974

I highly doubt that anybody might be reading this right now but if you are, then hello. My name is Bob and I'm the driver of Thomas the blue tank engine on the island of Sodor. I also have a partner Ted who's Thomas' fireman. Right now we are taking Annie and Clarabel to Elsbridge so that we can drop off our passengers. After this we have to go bring trucks to the coal mine. But honestly, I've had a few suspicions about this railway nowadays. For example, I've been seeing many many tankers go by reading Toxic Gases and it's very suspicious if you ask me. And also, many engines have been much more ruder than usual. These include Diesel, Gordon, and Douglas. The three just haven't been the same. Diesel has had more attitude, Gordon has been more angry than usual, and Douglas isn't joyful anymore like at all. Now, I don't know if this has something to do with the Toxic Gas Tankers but I do suspect that they might have something to do with this. I mean, how else do you expect that coincidentally when the tankers first arrived on the island or at least when I saw them, that's when the three started acting up. Either way, I'm just trying to get Thomas' work done so it's not my problem.

We are currently on the loop line heading our way towards Elsbridge to drop off passengers. And Ted is currently taking a water break after shoveling so much. I'm gonna be honest though. Taking breaks in the middle of driving an engine or vehicle does kinda give me anxiety. Anyways, we had just made it to the station and Percy was there taking the mail train and stopped by to talk to Thomas. I guess he must have had to stop and chat or something. I got out of Thomas' Cab and came up to Jake who is Percy's Driver. I asked him if he knew anything about those Toxic Gas tankers and but said he didn't know what I was talking about. This made me really confused. How did he not notice all of them being pulled around the island? This literally makes no sense.

Well unfortunately it was time to go since Thomas needed to bring coal trucks to the coal mine and BoCo was waiting for him for like 2 minutes now so we better get going. We made our way to Tidmouth Station so that we could drop off Annie and Clarabel and go collect the coal cars from Knapford that Rosie had shunted for us. Thomas was not too happy to leave his beloved coaches for dirty and filthy troublesome coal trucks. But that's too unfortunate for him because it's the fat controller's orders.

As soon as we uncoupled Thomas from Annie we made our way to Knapford. No time to rest. But on our way to collect our cars, I got an email from Sir Topham Hatt. The head of the railway. He basically sent the same message to all of us people working on his railway informing us that the tankers that read Toxic Gases are just tankers of waste that needs to go to the mainland and nothing we should worry about. However, even though he is our boss, the way he put that makes me feel a bit awkward. Could he be hiding something from us? Or am I just overthinking? Ted said that it's not too big of a deal and that we'll be fine. But I highly doubt that. Anyways, we had arrived at Knapford and Rosie was there shunting coaches. However, her face was as red as James' red paintwork. Thomas was concerned so he asked her what was wrong. Apparently, when she woke up this morning, her boiler felt a little off but she thought it was nothing. But little did she know that throughout the rest of the day, it would just get worse and worse and worse every single hour that passed by. Geez, I kinda feel bad now. Poor Rosie. I wonder what could have happened.

We picked up our coal cars from the sidings and steamed off. Surprisingly, they behaved very well on the trip. But Thomas still wasn't in the mood then and so he had a very rude attitude towards the trucks. I guess he was still mad about him having to leave his girls for trucks. I don't know why he's even acting like James. He's never done this before until now. We made our way down the Ffarquhar branch and towards the coal mine. Once we got there, I had to turn Thomas around so that he could park the trucks in one of the sidings. BoCo was there waiting and he was not happy I'll tell you that much. Him and Thomas started to argue and the only way to stop them was to drive Thomas away. And so that's exactly what I did.

After that we picked up the trucks in the siding to bring them to the Quarry. I don't really have much to write about that but anyways, I am just looking at the time like now and wow. It's really late. It's 7:06 PM right now. I better get Thomas to Ffarquhar sheds before I get in trouble, and fast. Me and Ted are pretty tired so I think it's time for bed. We brought Thomas back to the sheds where Percy was fast asleep, and Toby was wide awake. I put Thomas in his spot and hopped out of the cab. While me and Ted were walking away, I could faintly hear Thomas and Toby talking in the back but thought nothing of it. But little did I know that it was something serious. I'll tell you about it in the morning though. I'm tired.