He had drawn the illustrations himself with coloured pencils: Thomas pulling Annie and Clarabel through a snowstorm; Gordon, proud and gleaming, on the repaired viaduct; and a final picture of a signalman, waving from a box, as an engine whistled its thanks.
His grandson, Leo, would visit every summer. While other children scrolled on tablets, Leo would sit on the worn bench in the signal box, and Arthur would read to him between the passing of the express.
Arthur’s smile was gentle. “That one got lost in the post during the strike of ‘72. Never did find another copy.” The Railway Series Complete Collection Pdf
Leo held the binder like it was made of gold leaf.
“Why don’t you have them all, Granddad?” Leo asked one rainy afternoon, pointing to a gap on the shelf where Gallant Old Engine should have been. He had drawn the illustrations himself with coloured
Years later, when Arthur’s signal box was decommissioned and turned into a museum, Leo donated the binder. But he kept one page—the final illustration of the signalman. And on his own laptop, in a folder named “Granddad,” he kept a single PDF file: a scan of that handwritten collection, shared only with his own children, and passed down like a driver’s watch.
Inside were not printed pages, but handwritten chapters. For ten years, during the long night shifts when no trains passed, Arthur had rewritten every story from memory. Not just the famous ones—but the rare tales the Reverend Awdry had only sketched in letters, the unpublished adventures of a little diesel called The Flying Kipper’s Cousin , and the true ending of the old, forgotten engine named The Sad Red Engine . Arthur’s smile was gentle
As remembered by Arthur Penhale