During the SKR's ongoing expansion, the surprising origins of the Lucky Lamp are revealed.
Tropes:
- The Bus Came Back: A minor example, but Colin and Lily appear near the end in a flashback explaining how the Lamp wound up on the crossing near Knapford.
- Call-Forward: During the flashback to 1917, Colin & Lily briefly discuss the recent dynamite thefts and voice their concerns over how they don't want to get blown up. Come the events of The Stories of War, and that's exactly how they both go out.
- Foreshadowing: A possible example, but when Stanley mentions that whenever he had his crew write and send a letter to Sir Topham on his behalf following the First World War, he never got a reply. Then it's revealed that after being dismissed from service in 1917, Topham was sent to a Sudrian hospital run by a very shady doctor....
- I Have No Son!: Billy Shoepack admits that his son is dead to him for almost ruining his attempts to be professional.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: James backtalks Benson and he vows to report him to Sir Topham Hatt while he is with Sir Handel in the Valley to see how the Skarloey Railway is faring with the expansion. After Rosie tells Benson about the Lucky Lamp, he tells James that Sir Topham has a few stern words for him.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Discussed in the case of the Lucky Lamp, especially when it's discovered to be a normal, mass-produced military lantern. Benson eventually concludes that, wherever not the lamp is supernatural, believing in it isn't much different from when British soldiers wore crucifixes.
- Mythology Gag: A sub plot of the episode is based off Rusty and the Boulder but Sir Handel, with urging from Sir Topham Hat and Stanley, decides not to close the expansion.
- Pet the Dog: When Benson learns that the Lucky Lamp was his own lamp, he apologizes sincerely to Stanley, returns the lamp and retracts his doubts about its properties. Although he orders him not to let anyone know - he has a reputation to maintain, after all.
- The Reveal: After almost four seasons, the Lucky Lamp's origins are finally revealed. It started life in 1914 as a stock-standard War Department headlamp owned by Benson of all engines before it got lost during the First World War. It later ended up aboard the hospital ship Lady Rose, where a young Sir Topham Hatt used it to flag down a rescue team following the ship's destruction. Topham refused to let go of the lamp afterward and brought it with him to Sodor, where it fell out the window of Colin's train bound for the hospital at Carldon and ended up on the crossing at Knapford; explaining how it got there during the flashback in season 1's "Luck".
- Furthermore, the Lucky Lamp is apparently a Model 9 headlamp; which were mass-produced for engines of the ROD during World War One. According to Stanley, he went through about ten of them due to his jinx causing the bulbs to burn out.
