The Nature Bus!

"Pah! Having so many children on board gives me a headache!" "You are a misery, Bulgy! The nature trips will stop in the winter!" "The sooner I'm a henhouse again, the better!"

- Bulgy and Thomas

The Nature Bus! is a magazine story.

Plot
One day, Bulgy is stood in his field grumbling when Thomas puffs past. Bulgy is fed up with chickens and wants to carry passengers. Thomas reminds Bulgy why he was turned into a henhouse in the first place, but he cannot help feeling sorry for him.

Next morning, Thomas takes some schoolchildren and their teacher to a country station near Henry's Tunnel, as they are going on a nature ramble. When they arrive, it is raining so hard that they cannot leave the train.

At the station by the school, the teacher speaks to Thomas' driver. She says it is such a shame that the countryside had been too wet. This gives Thomas an idea which he shares with the Fat Controller who then rings the school.

A week later, Bulgy is smartened up and towed by Terence to a field near Gordon's Hill, next to a railway siding. Bulgy is then filled with big posters of wildflowers and animals.

Next day, Thomas takes the excited schoolchildren to see Bulgy - their new nature-study centre. Now the children can observe nature and stay dry if it rains. While the children eat their packed-lunches they watch for nature through the windows. The teacher is delighted and decides to hold nature lessons in Bulgy every day. Everyone is pleased, except for Bulgy; he moans about being full of children as they are giving him a headache. Now, Bulgy can't wait for winter so he can go back to being a henhouse again.

Characters

 * Thomas
 * Bulgy
 * Terence
 * Annie or Clarabel
 * Henry
 * Gordon
 * Sir Topham Hatt