Eerie Engine

"Burst my boiler!"

- Gordon

Eerie Engine is a magazine story.

Plot
One afternoon, Thomas has to fetch old engine parts from the Works and take them to the scrapyard. Thomas hates this job; the scrapyard reminds him that he will be scrapped one day too. As Thomas stops at the scrapyard, he cannot help shivering when he sees all the rusty, old engine parts.

That night, Thomas dreams about an eerie engine clattering along the main line. The engine is made of scrap and has come to life. The ghostly engine makes a shrill whistle noise and Thomas wakes with a start. The following morning, Thomas tells Gordon about his dream, but the big engine merely laughs.

Thomas forgets all about the dream until he puffs past the scrapyard on his way home. There, Thomas spots a strange engine shape and a glowing light. When he tells Gordon later on, the big engine thinks Thomas is imagining things.

That weekend, Gordon is taking lots of people to a modern art exhibition. Earlier, Thomas had collected something special from the scrapyard. As Gordon arrives at the exhibition ground, he stares in surprise. Thomas is standing on a siding beside the oddest engine Gordon has ever seen. Thomas explains that the odd engine is the same engine he had seen at the scrapyard. The sculptor had been working late at the scrapyard to make some pieces of modern art for the exhibition. The glowing light had been her blowtorch. Thomas had not imagined the strange engine after all and Gordon has to admit that he had been wrong; a scrap engine had come to life!

Characters

 * Thomas
 * Gordon
 * Duck
 * Sir Topham Hatt

Locations

 * The Scrapyards
 * The Works

Goofs

 * Gordon does not appear to be on the rails in the final illustration.