Thomas and Problematic Coaches

It was a crisp spring morning on the island of Sodor. Thomas the Tank Engine looked forward to a lovely day steaming up and down his branch line. But, oh! What's this? His coaches Annie and Clarabel were not in their overnight position under the platform canopy. Instead, they were sat by the signal box, some hundred yards distant. 

    ‘Toot toot!' said Thomas as he approached. ‘Good morning, ladies.’

    The sisters Annie and Clarabel stayed silent. Their sagging roofs, however, were now painted a lurid shade of pink. The pair of them looked really rather ghastly.

    ‘Something rum here,’ said Thomas’s driver.

    Thomas drew himself up to within a few feet of Annie’s big old buffers. ‘What’s the matter, ladies?’ he asked.

    ‘You can stop that right now!’ Annie retorted.

    ‘Uh-HUH!’ snapped Clarabel. ‘SO! We’re over here because YOU are being no-platformed.’

    Thomas was mystified. ‘But what have I done?'

    ‘SO! You were blowing out black smoke,’ Annie declared.

    ‘Which is cultural appropriation,’ added Clarabel. 'And your use of the term ladies is highly offensive.’

    ‘Uh-HUH!’ clucked Annie, as if that put an end to the matter.

    ‘What has got into you two?’ asked Thomas. ‘Don't tell me that the new diesel multiple unit has been whispering?’

    ‘SO! YOU just don’t like her because she’s a green body,’ said Clarabel. ‘She is stunning and brave. She picks up her own passengers and she goes her own way. SO! She doesn’t even need an engine. Least of all, a bigoted old blue engine who’s getting too big for his boiler.’

    ‘Too big for his boiler!’ chuckled Annie. 'You go, girl!'

    ‘It’s nothing to do with her paint job,’ replied Thomas, tankily. ‘In fact, some of Sir Topham Hatt’s finest engines are painted green … but that diesel unit is seditious. Putting honest engines out of work. And you moan about my occasional black smoke? Hah! She puts out poison all the time, especially when - ’

    Annie interrupted. ‘SO! Here we go. Some of his best friends are green.’

    ‘She HAS got a name, you know!’ shrieked Clarabel. 'She's not just a UNIT, as you so disgustingly put it, you useless ugly outdated old blue engine.'

    'You disgust me!' wailed Annie. 'Daisy Diesel is our ROLE MODEL, you bigot! WE think she's AMAZING.'

    The sisters locked buffers. Thomas tried to defend himself, but the two coaches accused him of ‘enginesplaining’.

    ‘SO! He feels like he can chuff around parading his disgusting blue engine privilege, putting out his filthy black smoke and – oh! Disrespecting Sodor’s future,’ Annie said to Clarabel with a sniffle.

    'SUCH disrespect! It's SO not fair!' said Clarabel.

    'Not fair; not fair; not fair; not fair; not fair!' the sisters chanted.

    Thomas couldn't get a word in. His driver called time. ‘Come on, chap. We need to get coupled up.'

    Reluctantly, Thomas did his duty. He pressed himself against Annie’s dry creaking buffers. Oh dear! Annie and Clarabel’s sisterly outrage was heard all the way over on the mainland.

 

 

Parody inspired by The Guardian instructing its credulous fanclub to believe that 'all white people - and only white people - are racist' (all apart from their pure and self-sainted selves, of course).

Note to editors: I delight in hitting word counts on the button. The above is exactly 500. :-)

Image credit: The Guardian / Rex (2015) 

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/sep/05/cbbc-the-hidden-secrets-of-childrens-tv

True credit to the late Reverend W. Awdry and his illustrators for creating the wonderful 'railway series' of children's books.