Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends

Based on The Railway Series by the Rev W Awdry

Copyright © Gullane (Thomas) LLC 2001

Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends and Thomas & Friends are trademarks of Gullane (Thomas) Limited.

HIT and the HIT Entertainment logo are trademarks of HIT Entertainment Limited.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

www.randomhouse.com/kids

www.thomasthetankengine.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

A crack in the track : a Thomas the Tank Engine story / illustrated by Tommy Stubbs.

p. cm.

“Based on the Railway series by the Rev. W. Awdry.”

SUMMARY: A crack in the track brings Thomas the Tank Engine and the entire Island of Sodor Railway to a screeching halt in this rhyming adventure.

eISBN: 978-0-375-98614-7

[1. Railroads Trains Fiction. 2. Stories in rhyme.]

I. Stubbs, Tommy, ill. II. Awdry, W. Railway series. PZ8.3 .C8398  2001   [E] dc21     00-053330

BEGINNER BOOKS, RANDOM HOUSE, and the Random House colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

CAT IN THE HAT logo © and © Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P. 1957, renewed 1986. All rights reserved.

v3.1

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

First Page

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Thomas was a little blue steam engine.

He lived on the Island of Sodor

with many other engines.

Sometimes Thomas pulled his coaches,

Annie and Clarabel.

“Hurry, hurry!” said the coaches.

Sometimes Thomas pulled freight cars.

“Faster, faster!” said the foolish freight cars.

They would try to push Thomas down the hill.

And sometimes Thomas traveled

all by himself across the island.

He chugged in the rain.

He huffed in the sun.

And he puffed in the snow.

“There is nothing a train cannot do!”

Thomas said proudly.

One morning, Henry the Green Engine

would not come out of his shed.

He had boiler ache.

So Sir Topham Hatt asked Thomas to help.

“Peep, peep,” Thomas said to the people.

“I can take you where you want to go!”

Soon clouds gathered.

The sky grew dark.

Thunder rumbled.

Plip. Plop. CLUNK.

Hail began to fall!

It fell on Thomas.

It fell on the tracks.

Suddenly, Thomas’ driver

saw trouble ahead.

“Slow down!” said the driver.

The hail had made a crack

right there in the track!

Thomas came to a stop.

His driver called out,

“We cannot go forward,

and we must not go back.”

“Everyone off!” the conductor said.

“Now what shall we do?”

said the people.

They climbed down from the coaches

and climbed up to the road.

Bertie the Bus was just passing by.

Bertie beeped his horn merrily.

“A bus is as good as a train!” he said.

“I can take you where you want to go!”

All the people climbed on board Bertie.

Bertie scooted down the road.

“A bus is as good as a train,”

the people said.

Suddenly, Bertie’s driver

saw trouble ahead.

“Slow down!” the driver said.

There in the road

was a bright green toad.

Bertie came to a stop.

His driver called out,

“There’s a toad in the road!

We will have to unload.”

“Everyone off!” said Bertie’s driver.

(That toad in the road

caused a fuss on the bus.)

“What will happen to us?”

the people said.

Then they walked down the road

to another train station.

But the trains were not running.

“Why not?” asked the people.

They soon found out.

Thomas was still stuck

at the crack in the track.

Percy was stuck there at Thomas’ back.

Gordon was stuck

behind Thomas and Percy.

James, with two freight cars,

was in quite a hurry.

The freight cars were needed in the yard.

But James could not get past

Gordon and Percy and Thomas.

And the foolish freight cars refused

to back up.

“No, no, no!” they said.

“We will not go!” they said.

So no trains could move up.

And no trains could move back.

They were stuck where they were

at that crack in the track!

“I guess there are some things

that a train cannot do,” said Thomas’ driver.

“We need help,” said Thomas.

“And I know just who to call.”

Thomas’ driver called Sir Topham Hatt

and told him Thomas’ plan.

“An excellent plan!” Sir Topham said.

“Please thank Thomas,” he added.

In no time at all,

Harold the Helicopter

zoomed across the sky.

He landed near the people.

They all climbed aboard.

“A helicopter is

as good as a train!” said Harold.

“I can take you

where you want to go!”

The breakdown crew came

to replace the broken track.

By the time they arrived,

rain was falling hard.

The crew came with cranes.

They sang while they worked.

“A crane is as good

as a bus or a train.

We’ll fix up your track,

and we don’t mind the rain.”

Finally, Thomas could move.

So could Percy and Gordon.

James, with his freight cars,

was close behind.

They turned on the turntable

and went back to work.

The people saw Thomas

waiting to take them home.

“Are you sure you can take us

where we want to go?” they asked.

“I thought there was nothing

a train could not do,” said Thomas.

“But now I know that just isn’t true.

I learned a big lesson from one little crack.

A train is only as good as its track.”

Christmas in Wellsworth

Easter in Harwick

Halloween in Anopha

James and the Red Balloon

Misty Island Rescue

The Special Delivery

Steam Engine Stories

Stuck in the Mud*

Thomas and the Shooting Star

Thomas’ Christmas Delivery

Thomas-saurus Rex

Track Stars!

Trouble in the Tunnel*

*A STEP INTO READING® leveled reader

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

First Page

Other Thomas & Friends e-books