"Oh, MY!" Thomas said, as the contaminated train cargo spread cholera across Sodor and into neighboring fictional towns.
"Oh, bother..." said Pooh as the H dropped from his name.
"-and everyone died of dysentery. To this day, Optimus sometimes dresses up as an ox cart in their memory. Tries to dress it up Samurai-theme sometimes to not upset the kids, but we know why he does it. Tragic..." as Kup explained how the war really ended.
Which leads to the question as to if Megatron turning into a pig and Starscream wearing a bird costume about the same time are memorials to those lost in the E. coli and Bird Flu outbreaks that wiped out most of the survivors right after.