Eric, a young boy, is excited about his birthday after reading a book and believes that a train will come for him, despite his sister Jill's disbelief. A few hours later, the train station's control tower wakes up and in the roundhouse, Tillie, a young little blue switcher engine, along with her best bird friend, Chip, wakes up four other trains: Georgia, a kind all-purpose engine, Farnsworth, a stuck-up, shiny, new passenger engine, Jebediah, a worn-out, rusty, old engine, and Pete, a gruff, burly, big, strong freight engine. After the tower assigns Farnsworth and Pete their jobs, Tillie tries to help with the milk train assigned to Jebediah, but the tower insists that she is too small for the job. Georgia is assigned to pull the birthday train. A clown named Rollo leads the toys into the