"Spencer! Are you all right?" asked Spencer's driver, looking over the damage done to the modified LNER Gresley A4 of the Boxford Duchy.
He called to the fireman and guard "He's unconscious! A pipe burst in his smokebox!".
The fireman turned back to give the guard directions on what to do next.
"Call the yards! Send for a few engines!" ordered the fireman as the guard raced to find a telephone box.
Once the yards were phoned, it didn't take long for the Works Diesel and Hiro the Master of the Railway raced to see what they could do for Spencer.
When they arrived, they were aghast by the locomotive carnage.
"Oh, Spencer. Tell us it isn't so! Even if you did try to smelt me down long ago, no engine should deserve something this violent!" stuttered Hiro in disbelief.
"What? What's happened?!" gasped the Works Diesel, now very worried.
"Nothing, 'Geoff'. Please take the train onwards until every load is off" said Hiro.
He knew 'Geoff' had seen locomotive damage, but not such so gruesome.
"But Hiro..." interrupted the Works Diesel.
"PLEASE! 'Geoff', just go..." panted Hiro.
He did not want a maintenance diesel to be subjected to the horror that had befallen Spencer just yet.
"Aye, lad. Uh..." sighed the Works Diesel as he reversed backwards and came back to couple up with the brake van of Spencer's train and carry on.
By the time the Works Diesel had delivered the rest of the midnight goods and began his return trip to the Sodor Steamworks at Crovan's Gate, the site where Spencer had broken down outside of Barrow-in-Furness had already been cleared by Hiro and the workmen.
He arrived in the Steamworks and saw both Victor and Kevin.
"Hello, 'Geoff'. Our men received a call from up the line. They're bringing Spencer's body back." sighed Victor to his diesel friend.
"He's in pretty bad shape, 'Geoff'." muttered Kevin in sotto voce.
"WHAT?! What's wrong?!" gasped the Works Diesel in a state of hysteria.
"Best hurry to the old sheds at Vicarstown, 'Geoff'. They're the closest sheds to here. There might not be time to get him to Knapford, let alone Tidmouth." mumbled Victor.
"Don't have time, they... oh Lord!" gasped the Works Diesel in the sudden realization that it may be too late to save Spencer from the damage he had been dealt.
With that, he raced out of the Works and onto the main line towards the Vicarstown sheds along with the other engines on Sodor to see Spencer.
Once outside the sheds, the streamlined engines Connor and Caitlin blocked both of Gordon and the Works Diesel's views towards the sheds where Spencer's smoky heap was laid out, his cab facing the engines outside the sheds.
Both Caitlin and Connor wore grimaces and their eyes looked so red they were almost tearing up.
"Don't go any further, Gordon. 'Geoff'. You two will only experience more heartache and or trauma from this ordeal." sighed Caitlin reeling from the horror.
"No! He's like a cousin to me! I want to see him!" protested Gordon.
"No way, you two. It's too late!" insisted Connor, for he two was shocked.
"Uh-uh! It's never too late! We..." continued the Works Diesel.
"Gordon! 'Geoff'! Don't you realize why it's so silent around here?! The burst was too large. It caused a crack in his smokebox!" echoed Caitlin in a fit of indignation.
The notion hit Gordon worse than when he ran through Kirk Ronan.
"Connor, Caitlin..." gasped Gordon as his boiler fell in shock and grief.
"Gordon, I... I'm sorry." sobbed Connor, who was in spite of himself.
Just then; Henry, Bear and Murdoch came out with similar downcast faces as they had finished tending to Spencer in his final moments before his face fell off and faded away to reveal the smokebox door underneath.
The three then came out.
"Henry, you and the others take Gordon and 'Geoff' back to the station and sheds. They don't need to be here." sighed Caitlin as Henry rolled up alongside.
"Right, Caitlin..." sniffed Henry mournfully as she joined Murdoch and Bear in taking Gordon and the Works Diesel home.
Once Connor had left back for the sheds at Barrow-in-Furness, Caitlin decided to sleep over at Ulfstead Castle by taking the Maron-Arlesburgh goods line which included Ulfstead as a stop.
On the way, she thought long and hard to herself about what this meant for Sodor.
"He's really gone. Whether he was a hero to some or a pain in the tender to others. This should not happen to any engine whatsoever!" she wept as she tried to wrap her smokebox around what had happened, feeling foul play was one of the causes to look into.
Just then, she saw Arthur and Belle returning to their sheds on another track paralleling hers.
They were in a somber mood too.
"Let's go, Caitlin." sighed Belle with a heavy weight in her voice.
"We should at least let him rest in peace..." exhaled a mournful Arthur.
"Right, you two." said Caitlin, in agreement and finally understanding the finality of the damage Spencer had sustained.
He did not survive his accident.
The burst caused a crack in his smokebox under his streamlined shell.
Many railway workmen who were around to witness the accident say it killed him instantly.
For both the Boxford Duchy and the North Western Railway of Sodor, they were left without an engine to help with extra work or one who would insult them behind their backs.
A few days after Spencer's passing, the pace swing of summer travel was picking up across Sodor.
The Fat Controller and his associates realized that the loss of Spencer's power could lead them to bankruptcy.
One Friday morning, he met with his associates outside his office at Tidmouth - the main line terminus.
"Well ladies and gentlemen, I have noticed from these figures that the revenue has gone down lately. I know in the last few decades or so, I have been working on Sodor; and we have never raised prices unless inflation demanded it be so. Yet the demand for rail travel has increased in the first few weeks of the summer..." sighed the Fat Controller at a loss for why it was happening.
He then asked his daughter Emily Helen Hatt, "What do you think is the culprit, Emily?"
"Well, Father; ever since the unfortunate passing of Spencer, and seeing as some of our engines are being loaned out for rail tours, the sales have gone down in spite of limited resources to supply transportation." figured the younger Hatt.
"The only alternative to filing bankruptcy is to invest in another engine or a few more." muttered Norman Spencer, financial advisor to the whole railway.
"But everyone, that WILL lead us to bankruptcy!" panicked Mrs. Percival, the new operating officer of the Skarloey and Mid-Sodor Narrow Gauge Railway.
"It's risky, but what other choice do we have, my friends? I would much rather go out knowing I tried my best to improve things, rather than giving in like a crumbling pillar!" declared the Fat Controller, in a new sense of both zeal and a fervent determination.
The next Saturday afternoon, the engines had finished all of their work early and filed into the second biggest station on the railway's main line - Knapford.
Track 1 was clear; while Thomas, Percy, Mavis, Toby and Duck were stationed along Track 2.
Track 3 was occupied by none other than Edward, James and Bill.
Over on Track 4 were Donald, Douglas and Ben.
Track 5 had on its rails Henry, Bear, BoCo and the Works Diesel.
Finally on Track 6 were Gordon, Pip, Emma, Daisy, Diesel and Emily.
Just as Henry, Bear and Thomas had arrived and were backing down, they were feeling both worried and eager.
"Right. We're asked to finish our jobs early and show up here for what reason? There's not a passenger in sight, and I'm getting tired!" groaned Bear.
"Shh! We didn't come here to hear any engine complain for what that's worth." snapped Emma to the Class 35 Hymek who was not himself today.
"Will you all knock it off?!" grumbled Daisy as their attentions turned to face the Fat Controller who had just arrived to explain what was happening.
"Oh, it's the Fat Controller! He must have called us all here." smiled BoCo.
"Pah! Joy..." gagged James with the thought of a new goods train for him.
"Right. Sorry to make you finish your jobs early and call you here in the middle of this hot afternoon. But as you all can tell, the railways - especially this one are not doing so well financially. As a last resort, I have called you all here to greet our newest members to the railway. Granted they are coming up from not only Sussex, Swindon and Derby; but they left last night and should be arriving sometime in the next few minutes." announced the Fat Controller to all of his engines.
Just then, they heard the sound of two steam whistles and a diesel's horn.
Pretty soon, the three new arrivals came into view - one an ochre British Railways Class 42 Warship Diesel; another a secretly-restored lime-green 4-6-0 Patriot steam engine; as well as a black Southern Railway USA Class 0-6-0T, as they all reversed into Knapford and stopped on Track 1 to greet the Fat Controller.
"Here are Diesel 10, Nihilor and Maunsell. Maunsell here, she prefers the name of Odessa to Maunsell. They have come from the repair shops of Derby, Swindon and Sussex to help us out." said the Fat Controller as Diesel 10 popped what seemed to be a hydraulic claw out of his cab to pat Percy on the cab gently.
"Hello, Diesel 10. Nihilor. Odessa. Welcome to the railway!" beamed Percy, seeing as there was another big friendly diesel to help out with the work there.
"I already don't like that Nihilor. He seems familiar somehow, I know it..." mumbled Henry to herself, shivering at the cold demeanor of the Patriot.
Later that night, the engines were fast asleep.
However, at one point in the night, both Nihilor and Odessa left the sheds.
This awoke Henry and Thomas, who then fell back to sleep as they figured the two were just going out to get some fresh air...