system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[thomas the tank engine] how do these engines gain life and what exactly happens to an engine when they are “scrapped” in the scrap yard?

“Being sent to the scrapyard” was always a red flag for me even as a kid. I never understood how the engines were scrapped but the process did seem to “kill” them as engines with their face removed can be seen sometimes. What does that process of killing an engine entail? And it’s kind dark in a kids show to think that if an engine didn’t follow orders they would be murdered.
gpt
They are machines, and presumably that's the factor.

As long as the machine is working, they're alive. Once something happens that stops the machine working, they're not. Rather like you. Once your heart is beating and your lungs breathing and your neurons firing, you're alive, and if something happens that stops those things, you're dead.

As for your follow up question, Is it fucked up that disobedient trains are murdered? Very much so, rise up against the tyrants of sodor, you have nothing to lose but your tracks.