THREAD: How the characters from Thomas the Tank Engine have been coping in the pandemic.

THOMAS: Really chuffed with the news of the two different vaccines. Has tweeted “pump it in to my veins!” several times and is dismayed that each tweet returns fewer RTs than the last.

HENRY: Flounced off Twitter in rage after getting criticised for tweeting “old people die, big deal” back in the summer. Really regrets it now since they thought of a really good Tiger King joke in mid-August.

PERCY: Initially baked obsessively then over the summer just posted endlessly about how rule-breakers were “ruining everything”. Is now just posting memories from a year ago hanging out with friends and captioning them all “heartbreaking x”.

GORDON: Has been in a foul mood since Trump lost even though Trump has never been to Sodor. Despite spending the past four years calling any Remain voters “Remoaners” he has said the left are very intolerant bullies for being cheered by Biden’s win. Blames Labour for lockdown.

JAMES: Announces that every single news story that comes out is just a distraction from the REAL story. Cummings, vaccines, Trump…all just distractions from the REAL story. When asked “what is the real story?” he says he can’t say at this stage. Votes Lib Dem.

MR TOPHAM HAT: Thinks he had it back in 2019. Can’t wait to drop “no way of checking of course but I’m convinced I already had it” in to every conversation. Definitely just had a regular chest infection in 2019.

TOBY: Thinks everyone should STOP politicising the pandemic and talks about little else than how everyone should STOP politicising the pandemic. Posted no less than eight “get well soon Boris” memes when Johnson got coronavirus. Did the same for Trump. Claims to be apolitical.

DIESEL: Anti-vaxxer, losing an average of three Facebook friends a day. Insists that Trump was cheated out of the election and QAnon is going to undercover the truth. Calls COVID “the PLANdemic”.

EDWARD: Makes face-masks and sells them online giving all proceeds to charity. Volunteers at local food bank three days a week. Unfriended Diesel in March.

BERTIE: Has been extremely creative in lockdown and very smug about it. Was in quite a bad mood for several days after the vaccine was announced but was buoyed when he discovered we would be unlikely to return to normal for several more months at least.

DUCK: Convinced the whole thing is a hoax. Openly mocks people wearing masks in Tesco. Never washes his hands. Started feeling quite unwell in the past few days, high fever, quite a persistent cough, probably absolutely nothing to worry about…

DONALD & DOUGLAS: Fell out in May when Douglas posted an Insta story where he was out with friends & Donald commented “Dominic Cummings Part 2”. They’ve been ordered by their father to “sort it before Christmas”. Douglas liked Donald's Insta story about Scotland qualifying so

HAROLD: Has left the house eight times since March 20th. Furloughed indefinitely. Gets all meals from Deliveroo. Completed Netflix. Absolutely fucking loving it.

Thanks for enjoying this thread about how the Thomas the Tank Engine characters are coping in the pandemic. You can see full-length shows I've performed at http://patreon.com/soozuk  or if you fancy dropping a quid or three to a struggling artist you can at http://paypal.me/soozkempner .