[Don't mind me. I'm just a line bump]

The Great Depression

Written and Researched by BNSF1995

Proofread and Corrected by Broa Island

The period between 1925 and 1929 was an extremely profitable one for the North Western Railway. New factories were built all over Sodor, the Ulfstead Branch Line began bearing the fruits of the labor it took to build it since the High Farm was one of the only farms on Sodor utilizing crop rotation, and there was a steady stream of stone, china clay, and slate coming from the three goods-carrying railways of the island. 1929 looked to be another great year across the board.

Then October 29 came, and with it, Black Tuesday. The global economy collapsed. HARD!

The United Kingdom was hit hard by the Great Depression, since it was still recovering from the Great War. Sodor, in particular, felt the full force of the Depression.

The railways found their fortunes souring. While the Culdee Fell Railway was hardly affected due to relying solely on tourist traffic (which remained steady), the other railways on Sodor experienced lower profits and widespread unemployment.

The North Western Railway found itself scrounging for whatever traffic it could get. While such commodities as coal, stone, china clay, and slate remained constant, others, like agriculture, livestock, and dairy products, which were practically the bread-and-butter of the NWR's goods traffic, fell sharply. To offset this, though, passenger traffic rose, as the people suddenly couldn't afford automobiles, let alone gasoline; this also caused many bus companies on Sodor to go out of business, forcing the remaining companies to merge into the Sodor Bus Co., which still exists to this day. More and more, the NWR's survival became tied to passengers, not goods.

The Skarloey Railway also saw a sharp decline in agricultural traffic. Slate remained in demand, though, and passengers found the SKR to be a viable alternative to buses, which rarely kept to time due to the already-poor road conditions on the island deteriorating even further, if they even ran at all with the shortage of petrol.

The Mid-Sodor Railway did well in the early years of the Depression, with the mineral traffic remaining constant, and passengers continuing to flock to the trains.

The situation on the NWR eventually became so dire, the Railway Board eventually started looking for ways to cut fat. Their attention turned to the myriad of surplus tank engines inherited from the TW&S and S&M. In 1932, these surplus tank engines, as well as obsolete four and six-wheel coaching stock, and the S&Ms open wagons dating back to 1856, were sold for scrap. Sir Topham Hatt balked at the idea of selling non-faceless vehicles for scrap when there was nothing wrong with them, but the board, to his horror, was made up entirely of human supremacists who saw non-faceless vehicles as an unholy perversion of God's will, and thus, believed that the Living Vehicle Act of 1865 was the only thing stopping them from scrapping the engines alive!

On May 16, 1932, James and Edward took a "Funeral Train" from Knapford to Crock's Scrapyard in Wellsworth. Topham objected to this, as Crock's couldn't afford Black Water, but he was silenced when the board threatened to plant evidence of him being a communist. James, very reluctantly, hauled Colin, Lily, Adam, Preston, Wallace, Clive, Matthew, and Victor to Crock's, having been threatened by a board member with a blowtorch.

After arriving at the scrapyard, Crock's was left with a motley collection of tank engines, coach stock, and old wagons. They kept several of the wagons on for their own uses and scrapped the rest. The four-wheel carriages were sold for cheap to private individuals for use as cottages thanks to the stall-out of the housing market, with a few being bought back by the NWR once passenger traffic levels warranted relief trains (the so-called "Tricky Tick" trains that would later be homaged by the preserved Ffestiniog Railway with their "Flying Flea"), and the six-wheelers were sold to a private collector.

As for the engines, they all experienced different fates:

* Colin was sold to Yeoman Foster in 1933, who put him to work at the Torr Works quarry; he became something of a mascot for the quarry, and stayed there until he was replaced by a faceless Class 08 in 1973, at which point he was donated to the Didcot Railway Centre, where he got his original W&S livery back; Didcot has hired Colin out to several railways, including the North Western Railway on multiple occasions

* Lily's story was already told by Wildnorwester

* Adam was sold to the Southern Railway, where he was reunited with his LSWR brothers and sisters; he remained in service until he was withdrawn by BR in 1960, at which point his controller sold him to the Bluebell Railway since he was the only 415 class that still had the original boiler pattern; Adam is currently stored awaiting a new boiler barrel and wheels, but his old Sudrian friends take comfort in knowing that he's alive

* Wallace became a stationary boiler for Crock's, remaining there until he was sold to the National Coal Board in 1967; he worked at Bold Colliery until it dieselized in 1982, at which point Wallace was in need of a major overhaul; he ultimately found his way back to Sodor as part of the Vicarstown Railway Museum, where he remains to this day as a static exhibit

* Preston was sold to the Southern Railway along with Adam, rejoining his LBSCR brothers and sisters; he was withdrawn by BR in 1950, at which point he and his autocoaches returned to Sodor as part of the Vicarstown Railway Museum; he is still technically part of the NWR roster due to how often he is spot-hired during periods of heavy passenger traffic

* Victor, due to his general bulkiness, was viewed as undesirable by all prospective buyers, ultimately being sold to a scrapyard on the mainland, where he got the Final Firing and was scrapped in 1933

* Clive was purchased by a private individual who collected Victorian steam traction; his great-grandson still maintains him as part of the collection

* Matthew was donated to the upstart Kirk Ronan Railway Historical Society, where he is kept in a shed in the harbor in operable condition

The board had also considered selling Glynn, Neil, and Kate, but ultimately, Sir Topham Hatt managed to find Neil a home at a steel mill in Glasgow, while the board decided to keep Kate in service due to her strength, and Topham threatened to go public with the boards human supremacy if they sold Glynn. Thomas was never considered for sale due to being a newer design, not to mention the sole locomotive running the Ffarquhar Branchline.

With the tank engines sorted out, the board next turned to the tender engines. Although they badly wanted to get rid of Henry and the Red Engines (sans James), the upsurge in passenger traffic gave them all a reprieve. Ultimately, they chose to sell Emily, but did so without telling Sir Topham Hatt. When he found out, he made good on his threats and went to the press with the boards' human supremacism. This, in turn, saw a Parliamentary inquiry that resulted in the entire board being removed and replaced. Although a new board was installed (one that was subject to intense background checks to ensure none of them were human supremacists), the damage had been done. Emily had been sold to a scrapyard in Japan, but thanks to the help of some non-faceless Japanese engines with cooler heads than their nationalism-blinded co-workers, she ended up back in Southampton, where she was hidden in a shed at the docks by Jenny after the other E2s threatened to snitch on her, having learned nothing since the E2 Rebellion. And there she stayed for a long time...

Back on Sodor, the old board's short-sighted decision to sell of the majority of the railway's tank engines left Knapford without a station pilot, meaning all engines would now have to shunt their own trains (of the remaining tank engines, Thomas and Kate were too busy with their own work, and Glynn wasn't strong enough for the intensity of the shunting work). While engines like Ruby, Yang, and the original Red Engines didn't mind, Henry (who had been repainted green in 1934 due to people constantly mistaking him for Gordon), Gordon, and James certainly did. After all three had various mishaps (Henry had an encounter with an escaped circus elephant at the Ballahoo Ridge tunnels, and Gordon and James had their own mishaps with the turntable at Vicarstown Shed: Gordon stuck on the table, while James spun too easily thanks to the winds rolling in from the Cumbrian Sea), the three went on strike, refusing to leave Tidmouth Sheds, and using the now-famous phrase "tender engines don't shunt".

Sir Topham Hatt drafted Edward to serve as Knapford station pilot, and although the trains ran, the strikers accused Edward of being a scab and began harassing him and the other tender engines who shunted. This came to a head in an incident where James bumped Ruby off the rails while she was shunting her own train. Gordon and Henry were involved in similar incidents earlier that day with her, at which point all three faced Yang's wrath (this part wasn't in the books because her tirade was extremely profane). Exasperated, Sir Topham Hatt knew they needed a permanent station pilot for Knapford, and to that end, went to a used engine dealership on the mainland primarily catering to industrial and private railways. There, he found the perfect tank engine.

NWR #6, Percy, was immediately purchased, and began work immediately. Gordon, Henry, and James got what they wanted, but they got local confinement (or as the book and TV series put it "shut up in their shed") for assaulting Ruby; to this day, she still hold unyielding hatred for the three. With the three out of commission, the amount of trains on the railway plummeted overnight. Thomas and Edward were reassigned from their respective branch lines to help the mainline passenger traffic, while Percy was temporarily assigned to the Ffarquhar Branch Line with Annie and Clarabel.

Eventually, the three strikers were allowed to work again, but the atmosphere on the railway remained tense. This was best exemplified by an incident where Thomas confronted one of the former board members and exploded at him for selling Emily. Then Henry began acting up again, not behavior-wise, but mechanically. Budget cuts on the railway saw low-grade coal brought in. Due to his small firebox, Henry couldn't cope, and began failing more and more. But Sir Topham Hatt wouldn't give up on him, and to that end, managed to convince the board to import Welsh Coal from the GWR. This proved to be the ticket, and Henry went from being the runt of the railway to its primary goods engine overnight.

But the Welsh Coal proved expensive, and since this was still the Great Depression, the board had a non-faceless C2 named Klondike brought in from the LNER in the event they couldn't continue importing Welsh Coal, at which point Henry's performance would go down the toilet, so to speak. Klondike was a cruel engine, much like Alfred and Cecil, and needless to say, it didn't do any favors for the LNER's reputation on Sodor.

Events would soon seal Henry's fate. One night during the Freeze of '35, Henry was pulling an express fish train, the now-infamous Flying Kipper, when ice froze a set of points outside Ballahoo, and snow forced the home signal down, causing Henry to plough into the back of a goods train.

Of course, that's the story you were fed. In truth, Klondike had tricked the signalman into setting the points that way. Also, Klondike's crew was killed in the crash (Henry's driver and fireman jumped clear, as was said in the book and TV series).

Investigation into the crash ruled out weather as a factor, and after Klondike ran his mouth off, he was sent back to the LNER, where he was charged with attempted murder of a non-faceless locomotive and involuntary manslaughter; he was found guilty on all charges, and was given the Final Firing and scrapped.

Henry, on the other hand, won the Solid Gold Kewpie Doll. Sir Topham Hatt was owed a favor by William Stanier, CME of the LMS. Henry was sent to the works at Crewe, where he was rebuilt from the patchwork mess he was built as into an LMS Stanier Class 5 (the so-called Black 5). Nobody knows the exact nature of the rebuild, or whether this engine even was the original Henry, but he still remembered everything that happened before the rebuild; even so, the "two Henrys" debate rages on to this day.

Henry's return to the NWR in 1937 couldn't have come at a better time. With the worst of the Great Depression now passed, goods traffic on the railway began to pick up once more. Indeed, 1935 was the first year the railway posted a healthy profit, and in 1936, while Henry was away, construction on a new branch line began. The Peel Godred Branch Line begins at Killdane, and calls at Abbey, Hawin Lake, Kirk Machan (giving the CFR a connection to the outside world), terminating at Peel Godred, where a hydroelectric plant was being constructed. The Peel Godred Branch Line was built with electrification in mind, and to that end, four faceless LNER Class ES1 locomotives were acquired for goods service, and a pair of non-faceless SR Class SL multiple units named Hal and Gilbert for passenger services. This branch line did wonders for the NWR, but had disastrous consequences for the Mid-Sodor Railway, which now found itself surplus. Shortly after the branch line was opened, the MSR ceased passenger services, leaving it an industrial railway.

Another line was constructed during the Depression. Known officially as the Kirk Ronan Branch Line Extension, the line connects the Kirk Ronan Branch Line to the Mainline Loop. The line's main purpose was to simply provide jobs, with no heed given to its purpose, in yet another short-sighted move by the old board. The line only hosts a single goods client (the Sodor Bakery) and is mainly used by seasonal tourist trains. Its greatest claim to fame is being the setting for the bulk of the infamous Thomas and the Magic Railroad.

With the Peel Godred Branch Line open, Henry rebuilt, and goods traffic on the rise again, the NWR began looking at a bright future. But that future came crashing down soon enough. The Great Depression was mostly over, but the damage had been done. And among that damage was the rise of extreme political ideologies such as communism and fascism.

The island began fearing another war was coming. In Vicarstown, a military base known as Fort Sudrian was built (as Victor Tanzig stated), and an airfield was built at Dryaw for the RAF.

Then on September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Two days later, work on the NWR ground to a halt, as Neville Chamberlain made an address to the nation.

I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at 10, Downing Street.

This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock, that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us.

I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.

You can imagine what a bitter blow it is to me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed. Yet I cannot believe that there is anything more or anything different that I could have done and that would have been more successful.

Up to the very last it would have been quite possible to have arranged a peaceful and honorable settlement between Germany and Poland, but Hitler would not have it.

He had evidently made up his mind to attack Poland whatever happened; and although he now says he put forward reasonable proposals which were rejected by the Poles, that is not a true statement.

The proposals were never shown to the Poles nor to us; and though they were announced in a German broadcast on Thursday night, Hitler did not wait to hear comments on them, but ordered his troops to cross the Polish frontier the next morning.

His action shows convincingly that there is no chance of expecting that this man will ever give up his practice of using force to gain his will. He can only be stopped by force, and we and France are today, in fulfillment of our obligations, going to the aid of Poland, who is so bravely resisting this wicked and unprovoked attack upon her people. We have a clear conscience. We have done all that any country could do to establish peace. The situation in which no word given by Germany's ruler could be trusted and no people or country could feel itself safe has become intolerable.

And now that we have resolved to finish it, I know that you will all play your part with calmness and courage.

At such a moment as this the assurances of support which we have received from the Empire are a source of profound encouragement to us.

When I have finished speaking certain detailed announcements will be made on behalf of the Government. Give these your close attention.

The Government have made plans under which it will be possible to carry on the work of the nation in the days of stress and strain that may be ahead. But these plans need your help.

You may be taking your part in the fighting services or as a volunteer in one of the branches of civil defense. If so, you will report for duty in accordance with the instructions you receive.

You may be engaged in work essential to the prosecution of war for the maintenance of the life of the people – in factories, in transport, in public utility concerns or in the supply of other necessaries of life. If so, it is of vital importance that you should carry on with your jobs.

Now may God bless you all and may He defend the right, for it is evil things that we shall be fighting against – brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution – and against them I am certain that the right will prevail.

All at once, the Island of Sodor went silent.

The Second World War had begun...

Cue the opening notes from Jeff Wayne's 'The Eve of the War'.