"Once upon a Train"

[spitfire]

....took another step forward, then another, and then - what the heck? no one could move!!! "My feet are stuck to the ground!" cried Otis, the elevator operator. "So's mine!" exclaimed Floyd the barber. "Mine too!" moaned the rest of the crowd, as they stood there unable to move.
"Oh man, if Ausien comes down here and sees this, we are going to be in a heap of trouble". Just then, the sun came on overhead, and heavy footsteps were heard coming down the giant escarpment across the Great Divide.
"Ok", said a booming voice. "This is where I..........

 

[ezdays]

...take inventory. They're running a photo competition on The Gauge this month and I gotta get all you rascals together." The booming voice owner looked around and noticed that they were already "all together" and didn't have a clue as to why the were all soaked and so stiff, as if they were made out of plastic. "Homer, Otis, Floyd, Fred and Wilma, expalain yourselves, right now." "Well sir", says this rather meak voice from behind, "they are...."

 

[spitfire]

....bonding!"

"Bonding?" said the booming voice. "What kind of psycho-babble is that? There was no bonding in the 1800s! It was a time of rugged individualism. And what are all these cartoon characters doing here? And what's this Delorean doing on the tracks?"

"Sir?" asked the meak voice. "I can explain. We......."

 

[ezdays]

...ordered some stuff out of the Sears and Roebuck catalog, and somehow they got our order mixed up with someone named Golck. Some of the stuff we had no idea what it was and it's out in the garage next to that big round thing that those funny looking green guys parked there one day."

:Glock, you say? That was the name of that big green guy, he was their leader and last I knew, they were all heading...

 

[Pitchwife]

out to the fields to pick peas and beans and corn, oh my! And by the way, where is that little green critter called Sprout? They had better come back with a trainload of produce," snarled Booming Voice

 

[ausien]

of the fat controller, yes the kids had fired up thomas and was chugging around the layout, and wasaproaching the station when...

 

[Pitchwife]

Thomas noticed the hullabaloo going on up ahead. "I don't want any part of that," he said and immediately switched to a siding that took him.....

 

[ezdays]

...to a seaport where they put him to work as a switch engine because of his size. "hey" says Thomas, "I'm way too young for this kind of work, this is slavery of the worse kind." But the dispacher had no compassion. "Kid, this is a rough world, the sooner you learn that the better, now get your little tender out of here and start moving cargo or else..."

 

[N Gauger]

..I'll introduce you to the Town's Mascot... The cat... Thomas froze in fear for a moment.. Everyone was afeared of "The Cat"!! He was huge, almost as big as Babe, maybe bigger...

He came mostly at night, picking up things & LPB's in his huge jaws... Carrying them around the Layout. Sometimes playing with them, chewing on them...

Thomas was worried because.....

 

[ezdays]

...with such a big snout, he was a prime candidate for allergies. Beside, a bit of cat dander in the gears is all it would take to bring the mighty Thomas to a crawl. No, he couldn't stick around a place like this, slavery, work, loud bosses and now a cat as big as Babe. Well, he did what was justified, and at the first chance he got...

 

[Pitchwife]

he high-tailed it on down the line. "I'll be in trouble for this, but not as much as I would be in if I'd stayed put." thought Thomas. After a while he came upon a spur line that looked interesting. "I wonder what's down there," mused Thomas. "Well, only one way to find out," So he.......

 

[ausien]

saw the switch was turned to head onto the spur, so with a deep breath he opened the throttle and sped his merry way down this unknown spur on to an adventure.....

 

[ezdays]

...unlike anything he saw, he was heading to the Big Easy, just in time for the Madi Gras. He'd better hurry since it is Fat Tuesday and he still has one stop to make and pick up...

 

[ausien]

a costume for the Mardi Gras, but what was he going to where....

 

[Climax1880]

Thomas continued running along the spur which ran by the shore of lake ponchatrain. He looked out over the water and saw IT; a large wooden crate floating near the shore. He stopped and opened up the crate and to his surprise, inside there was a...

 

[N Gauger]

Smaller Crate - marked "Return to The-Gauge"... He opened it & inside there was.....

 

[ezdays]

...a big, no small, no...."not THAT!", tooted Thomas, who by now has learned some basic English. Seems as if the long lost Gauge car has been located, floating, bobbing and somehat waterlogged, but still intact. Well, Thomas knew in an instant what he had to do. Since he missed Mardi Gras he now had time to...

 

[Pitchwife]

repack the Box and get it ready for shipping. Only one question remained, "
who the heck do I deliver this to?" Thomas wondered. "Well, I guess that first I'll try to get hold of.....

 

[ezdays]

...the last person to have it and find out who they sent it to." Hmm, the mystery deepens, who had the car last? Who was to get it next? Where was it going? Who's keeping track of it? Who started it all in the first place? What scale car is this anyway? so many questions, so few answers, but Thomas was not daunted, he know just where to go for help to unravel it all, and was...

 

[SLUSSERS]

"Thumbing through the want ads in the Shelby County Tribune" when: