Perhaps he was tough. Perhaps he was just lucky. We don't know how Thomas survived when the war arrived in Sodor. All we know is that Thomas somehow made it through it all--though he wished that he hadn't when Sir Topham Hatt was done modifying him.
Y. Nakajima, a Japanese modelmaker, works for the Takayuki Takeya sculpture studio. He made Thomas into a monstrous 6-legged mecha armed with a laser. Yes, that laser is powerful enough to be dangerous: it can pop balloons and light matches.