Percy, James and the Fruitful Day GC Remake V2

It is a splendid morning on the Island of Sodor and James is on his way to the harbor when he sees Percy at Lower Suddery. Percy is late with his line of freight cars, as he should already be at the next station by that point. Percy explains that the cars are being troublesome as always but James thinks it's just an excuse and tells Percy that engines should always be on time and puffs importantly away. Feeling resentful, Percy mutters "bossy buffers" under his breath and continues on his way. Soon, James arrives at the harbor and it turns out to be market day as the red engine can see all the wonderful fresh fruit being unloaded from the cargo ships. James watches as apples, strawberries, oranges, melons and bananas are loaded into his cars, then he sets off for the station on the main line. Along the way, James meets Thomas, Annie and Clarabel and cannot resist boasting about how he is really reliable and not Percy. Thomas knows that there will be trouble ahead for the boastful red engine.

Back at Lower Suddery, Percy is busy shunting in the yard as he now has the cars in good order and is making up for some lost time. Just then, the stationmaster informs his driver that James' brakes have jammed and that Percy has to go and help him at once. Percy quickly sets off to the rescue and soon, he finds James stranded on the line and looking rather glum, which gives Percy an opportunity to tease him. Percy's driver soon intervenes and asks Percy if he can push the cars of fruit, to which Percy happily obliges. Soon, Percy is coupled to the cars and sets off, leaving James fuming with anger. Percy, however, is in a hurry and is not paying full attention to the line. With the cars in front of him, he doesn't see that the switches have failed and that he has been diverted onto a siding. Percy's driver sees the danger and applies the brakes, but it is too late. The cars run straight into the buffers and Percy crashes into the back of the van in front of him. His driver and fireman have jumped clear, but Percy gets squirted and covered in squashed fruit. Sir Topham Hatt soon arrives and sternly reminds Percy that while the switch failure was not his fault, the railway is not a jam factory. Percy sadly agrees and chuffs back home.

That night in the sheds, the engines are silent, with James and Percy both feeling very sorry for themselves as they're now in disgrace. At last, Thomas breaks the silence by reminding everyone that there is more than one way to get into a jam and that even when engines help each other out, things can still go wrong. One of the engines asks what the point of the statement was and Thomas says that it means they learned a lot that day and therefore, with the engines happily agreeing, that they're really useful engines after all.