edwards-exploit

[edwards-exploit]

sodor lightshow 2024 time!!!!

of course i had to do my best lad james for this!!! having an absoltely WONDERFUL time with a lights train :3 this was so fun to draw- i had so many issues with the landscape and then the lights, but it was quite enjoyable just messing about until i found stuff i liked! and i did!! i hope you guys enjoy this one : ) !!

[edwards-exploit]

Christmas Story

Monday morning had started with the same clear air that had made the weekend so enjoyable, but as dawn gave way to the late morning and early afternoon, the weather began to take a turn for the worse. 

Thick clouds covered most of the island - Gordon and the big engines reported that there was still sun around Barrow and Vicarstown, but as far as the Little Western was concerned, it was a gloomy start to the two week rush period leading up to Christmas. 

There were more trains scheduled - an extra morning service and another one in the evening. The peak hour “Truro Trains” were now running all the way through the lunchtime hours as a regular service, and even then it was decided that a special holiday-only service would run from Knapford to Arlesburgh at noon, to relieve pressure on the big station at Tidmouth. That train didn’t have a particular engine or coaches “assigned” to it like the others, and so the enthusiast community was out in force, hoping to see something interesting, adding to the clutter around the station. Additionally, just to make everything more difficult on the Little Western, the Sodor Bus Company, which ran services to Harwick and Ballaswein in the far north of the Island, began “double loading” their routes, meaning that the “guaranteed connection” bus service to Arlesburgh station would now be two normal sized buses, or one double decker. And then, as a final cherry on top of the whole situation, the Small Railway began running their passenger trains with as many coaches as possible. 

This all meant that when Duck’s first train left the station on Monday morning, it was full to bursting with passengers - to the point where anyone who boarded at Haultraugh had to stand!

Oliver’s train was in a similar state, but because he left before the next bus arrival, his train was merely full, instead of packed. “Ladies, I hope you’re comfortable with this,” He groused to his coaches as he left Haultraugh. “Because this is the emptiest it will be for the next two weeks.”

Isobel said something not suitable for print, and Dulcie sighed. Why do people like Christmas so much? She thought to herself. 

About the only train that morning not packed to the roof was Bear’s new morning train. Running as a timetabled, but not advertised, train, it was collecting all the passengers who would’ve been waiting for Duck and Oliver, and had no guaranteed connections of any sort. As a result, when it rolled into Arlesburgh, it was a lighter crowd that spilled out onto the platform, and the new passengers that boarded wondered why in the world there was a five car train waiting for them, complete with a Mini-Buffet coach. 

Bear had no such wonderment, though, and glared at the brass-topped funnel slowly shunting a pair of vans across the yard. He left quickly, not at all enjoying the thought of his return trip. 

-

Across the yard, someone watched him leave. They listened very closely to the way in which his engine revved and shifted into next gear, and they paid close attention to how the train moved during that moment in time. 

-

Later

The gloom had most thoroughly set in by half past eleven. Bear thought it was a most appropriate accompaniment to his mood, and growled moodily underneath the glass canopy at the big station. 

“Be quiet!” Truro hissed at him from the front. Tourists were out in force today, and there was a small crowd gathering around them on the platform. It was quite obvious that Truro wanted the resultant photographs to be of him and him alone. 

“What’s this?” Gordon blustered into the station with the force of a hurricane. “A photo session without me?”

Wordlessly, he pulled to a stop next to Truro, and proceeded to make such a spectacle of himself that the photographers stopped paying any attention to Truro whatsoever. 

“I say,” Gordon remarked at the other engine’s palpable rage. “It’s not my fault that I’m a beloved children’s book star. You were in a book too, if I recall.”

“I’m in several.” Truro snapped, each word clipped and sharp. “Most of them record books.” 

“Pish Posh!” Gordon retorted, a camera ready smile never leaving his face. Judging by his tone, Bear could tell that this was probably the highlight of the big engine’s day. “Children don’t read those! And besides, any reputable record book will show that my brother is the rightful holder of that record, not you.”

Bear’s shocked laugh was mostly covered by the demonic noise that escaped Truro’s whistle. 

Gordon winced. “I see that I’ve struck a nerve. Such a shame - if someone said something like that to me, I’d just go prove them wrong.” He looked Truro up and down disapprovingly. “But I suppose that my superior design and refined demeanor allows me to. Such a shame that you won’t. Or perhaps can’t.”

Truro went redder than a tomato and began spluttering something about lost domes, causing Gordon to laugh grandly. “Aha, personal attacks! The true sign that an argument has been lost! I do so enjoy these discussions Truro. Perhaps we can continue it later!” 

He puffed away in a most regal fashion. “And if you fine people would like another subject for your photos,” He called to the photographers, who had retreated from Truro once he’d nearly blown their ears out. “My good friend Bear is a quite rare engine indeed. The only one in regular service anywhere!”

The crowd turned to Bear, who smiled in slight fear at the unexpected attention. Meanwhile, Truro’s driver yelped as the steam pressure needle swung wildly into the red. 

-

Stephen Hatt watched Gordon roll off towards the sheds. “I do wish he’d stop doing that.”

“And his driver is completely blameless?” Charles asked, raising an eyebrow at him from across the table at the station cafe.

“One disobeys Gordon at his own risk.” Stephen mused, taking a sip of his coffee. “If he had even the slightest hint of interest I’d be trying to offer him my job come January.”

The look that his father shot him was not insignificant. “Really? Gordon? Management?”

“He knows more about this railway than the both of us put together. And he cares about the other engines. See what he just did?” 

“For once, I am completely in the dark.”

“After winding Truro up - which I don’t appreciate, by the way - he made sure to send positive attention Bear’s way. Poor chap’s had a cloud over his head for two weeks, I think being second fiddle to a famous engine like that is getting to him, even if he doesn’t say it.”

“Really?” Charles looked at the gaggle on the platform. “You think he’s not taking it well?” 

“I think that Truro is wound slightly too tight from being stuck in a museum for so long, and our little “Truro Train” promotion isn’t humbling him. Bear is inches from the limelight, but it almost curves around him to shine only on Truro.” He arched his fingers contemplatively. “It would get to anyone - in fact I’d say it's a good thing that it’s him and not someone else, because he’s willing to hide it for the time being.”

“Hmm. What do you suppose we do?”

“Right now? Nothing. We’re short a few too many engines as it is. I’ll give him some reward once Truro can run on his own, but unless we can find another engine, he’s pretty well stuck there.” He glared across the table. “And the Midland Region hasn’t exactly been playing nice on that front ever since you told… what did you tell them again? When we got Delta?”

“I threatened to beat Lachlan Macready to death with an adze if he tried to thwart me.”

A sugar cube plunked into Stephen’s coffee. “I suppose that would explain our inability to find good locomotives.”

“I deeply regret not being able to prise a Deltic out of the Eastern Region.” 

“What would we have done with a Deltic?”

“Whatever was needed. I don’t recall having to try very hard to get Wendell situated.”

“You would try to haul freight using an HST set, wouldn’t you?” 

“Now there’s an idea… maybe we could run the Kipper-”

“No. We don’t need a flashy engine, we just need a good hard worker who’s willing to do the dirty work sometimes.”

“Mmhm. Have you any good candidates?”

“No. I’m to the point where it makes sense for me to go into random yards and start questioning class 37s to see if there’s any that aren’t complete monsters.”

Charles snorted, hiding his expression behind a mug of tea. “You see my dilemma.”

“I live it.” Stephen said, stirring his coffee idly. 

There was a momentary lull in the conversation, which was broken by the sound of clattering and banging coming from the area of the bandstand. “Speaking of a lack of acceptable candidates, did I tell you that the Island Council found us another band?”

“No.”

Charles smiled self-defeatingly. “Yes. And they heard my instructions Loud and Clear. Nothing unusual, strange, or non-traditional.”

“Oh wonderful.” Stephen could relax a little. “Who is it?” 

“A German Industrial Music Collective that calls itself ‘Zusammenbruch’, or at least that's how I think it’s pronounced.” 

Stephen’s relaxation ended as swiftly as it began. “A what from where?”

Charles didn’t react. “Evidently my instructions were neither loud nor clear.”

“I don’t understand. What kind of music are they?”

“Have you ever heard of Kraft-werk? They sound like that.”

Stephen actually had to stop and think for a moment. “Is that the band that sounds like a broken car radio?”

“I believe so.”

“But that’s not Christmas m-”

“I have been assured that they are attempting to “branch out” from their usual repertoire. 

Stephen began patting his pockets suddenly. 

“Did you forget something?”

A small silver flask was produced, and a measure of brown liquid went into the coffee cup. “Not at all.”

Charles watched with an implacable expression. “So early in the day?”

“I feel like I’m going to need it.”

“Is there enough to share?”

----

Truro remained in a furious state as the packed train rolled out of Tidmouth. With five full coaches, it was a heavy load, and Bear could feel the weight on his couplings. 

The Little Western cut a winding, narrow profile along Sodor’s northwest coast. Running through central Tidmouth in below-ground cuttings and trenches, the tracks and the city eventually ran level in the northernmost neighborhoods. From there, the ground sloped upwards to follow the hillsides that make up part of the River Tid Valley. The line briefly follows the ground, before entering a tunnel, which continues the upward slope at a slighter angle for about five hundred feet, before turning into a long continuous downgrade that continues until trains burst out into the open air near Bulgy’s Bridge. 

Trains need to keep a sharp lookout in the tunnel - if going too slow while headed south, they could stall out in the tunnel, and the fumes could choke the crew or the passengers. This is a very serious issue, and so the rest of the line from Haultraugh is built to allow for a sufficient runup. 

Most engines don’t consider the downgrade section to be challenging, but that’s due to the fact that most trains going north to Arlesburgh are either passenger trains or empty goods trains - as an example, the heavy stone trains from the Small Railway only go south, not north.

A less cautious engine would therefore have rolled into the tunnel with a full northbound train and assumed that everything would be fine, but Bear and Truro had hauled these heavy rakes up the hill many times in the last week, and so the train slowly and carefully chugged its way out of Tidmouth’s city limits and neared the tunnel at a slow pace. 

Bear grimaced as they did so. The train was moving a little slower than it strictly needed to, and his transmission was not happy about it. 

Unlike a diesel electric locomotive, which uses electricity generated by the engine to power traction motors on each axle, Bear has what is known as a Hydraulic Transmission. His engine connects to a driveshaft, which feeds into a torque converter. The torque converter is a large fluid filled device that has two propellers inside of it. One is connected to Bear’s engine, and the other to his transmission, and the fluid inside allows the two to spin at different speeds, meaning that Bear’s engine can produce more torque (a measurement of how much he can pull) while spinning slower. 

From the torque converter, a separate driveshaft feeds into the transmission, which changes gears to allow his engine to put as much power as possible to the wheels, similar to how a car transmission works. From there, the driveline connects to both bogies, and powers all of Bear’s wheels, like an all-wheel-drive car. 

What’s unlike a car is that Bear’s transmission doesn’t change gears depending on load - as in, how hard his engine is working - but rather on speed. What this means is that as he approaches a set speed, his transmission will automatically change into the next gear. 99% of the time, it  operates normally, but in certain situations, the last one percent can rear its ugly head at the worst possible time. 

One such situation was currently presenting itself as Bear and Truro climbed the grade out of Tidmouth towards the tunnel entrance. The slightly-too-slow speed of the train meant that every minute or so, Bear’s transmission would shift up into the next gear. This meant that for a moment, Bear was in neutral - producing no power - and so the entire train fell onto Truro, who was pulled back by the sudden weight of the train, which meant that the train slowed down. By this point Bear had gone back into gear, but now that he was going slower, the transmission would automatically shift down into the gear it had just been in. Once that happened, Bear would start pushing again, and the train would go faster, thus starting the cycle over again. 

Now, this was bad enough - it was terribly uncomfortable for Bear, and his torque converter was starting to heat up - but to make matters worse, Truro didn’t seem to know when this was going to happen, seemingly warned only by the change in Bear’s engine noise; what followed was that every time that Bear shifted into or out of gear, the entire train would jerk roughly. This meant that there was an exceptional amount of strain being put on the gears inside Bear’s transmission, and so by the time they jerked their way into the tunnel, there was a sharp stab of pain accompanying every downshift. 

“Come - on - get - moving - you!” Finally, making everything worse, Truro was jerking on the coupling every time this happened, causing Bear’s gears to grind on each other during every upshift. Thick black smoke billowed from Truro's funnel as he put more and more power into each chuff, which echoed off the stone tunnel walls like artillery blasts. Bear was trying very hard to not break anything important, and decided that he would rather speed up and then ride his brakes all the way down the other side of the tunnel if it meant no more jerking, but Truro’s massive clouds of exhaust were making it hard to breathe.

“I -can’t - something’s - wrong - with-my” Bear gasped for breaths that he couldn’t take in.

“I - DON’T - CARE!” Truro bellowed, and with a mighty heave, he yanked the train up and over the summit of the tunnel, and began coasting down the other side. 

Bear’s transmission shifted into a higher gear and mercifully stayed there, but the gears themselves felt worse and worse as the train rattled down the grade and out the end of the tunnel. Bear hoped they could stop soon - in addition to everything else, his torque converter was getting so hot it felt like it was boiling. They crossed Bulgy’s bridge, and slowed down by a few miles per hour as they climbed a slight rise in the terrain near Haultraugh.

Then there was trouble. 

Bear’s transmission automatically shifted down into a lower gear, and Truro didn’t react at all. 

BANG

The slack in the couplings was yanked tight as Truro accelerated while Bear didn’t. 

WHUMP

Truro was dragged back to a slower speed by the dead weight of Bear, while all the coaches abruptly came together, before slamming into Bear’s back buffers.

BANG

Bear’s transmission had just shifted into the lower gear, and the coaches hit Bear a moment after the shift ended. Bear shot forward into Truro, crossed the threshold into the next gear, and his transmission shifted again. 

CRACK

Truro was now going slower, so the Bear hit Truro, the coaches hit Bear, and something deep in Bear’s transmission gave way. 

Bear yelled inarticulately as his entire drivetrain shut down. His torque converter felt like it was on fire, and there was a sharp, stabbing pain in his gears. His diver applied the brakes, and the whole train slithered to a stop about a half mile from Haltraugh station. 

--

Later

Once it was determined that Bear could at least be moved, the train was pulled (by Truro) into the station at Haultraugh. Duck was there, fuming at the delay. 

“Half a bloody hour.” He said as the train rolled in. “You picked a whopper of a day to do it, didn’t you? Lucky that Truro can haul you out of this mess.” 

Bear thought about how Duck probably had no idea about what had happened, and that he probably would’ve been nicer if he’d known exactly how much pain Bear was in. 

However, Bear was in a significant amount of pain, and so he growled at him menacingly. 

Duck jumped, startled, and didn’t say another word until he was long gone from the station. 

Truro murmured something along the lines of “That wasn’t very nice,” but amazingly, kept that comment to himself. 

After some more looking over, it was decided that Bear could be towed along with the train to Arlesburgh, and after a few more minutes, the train departed under Truro’s sole command. 

Bear didn’t see it, but the steam engine was beaming as he pulled the train towards Arlesburgh. 

--

At Arlesburgh, Oliver was much more sympathetic. “Sorry mate, that’s not ideal.”

“Tell me about it…” Bear murmured as workmen and inspectors clambered over him. 

“Look, when I get back from the big station, we’ll see how I can help, alright?” Oliver looked shockingly genuine. 

“You mean that?” Bear didn’t think that anyone on this branch line gave a toss about him.

“‘Course I do.” Oliver said with a smile. “Westerners stick together, right?”

He set off for Tidmouth a moment later, and Bear was left alone with Truro, who was already trying to convince some of the railway managers who had responded to Bear’s failure that He, City of Truro, was capable of running trains On His Own, and Did Not Need To Be Yoked To That All Day. 

“Westerners stick together… if they’re steam engines.” Bear muttered glumly. 

Across the station, Truro’s continued pleadings were cut off by the stationmaster. “Oi! You can’t leave yet, not till the surprise has happened!”

“Surprise?” Truro asked.

Of course Truro gets the surprise. Bear thought.

A look at the station clock revealed that the mystery noon train from Knapford, now heavily delayed, was due next into the station. 

I hope it’s Gordon. Bear thought, hopefully. Truro might fracture his crown sheet in shock.

Peep Peep!

Bear’s face fell.

It was not Gordon. 

It was, in fact, about as opposite of Gordon as one could get. 

“Well, well, well!” Thomas the Tank Engine crowed as he eased into the station. “So this is what Arlesburgh is like!”

--

Thomas and Truro were, to put it bluntly, besieged by photographers and enthusiasts, and it took almost twenty minutes before Thomas could run to the water tower and get a drink. It was at this point that he noticed Bear. “Hullo Bear,”

Bear had very little motivation left, and mumbled a halfhearted greeting. 

Thomas raised an eyebrow as his fireman lined up the hose. “Forgive me for saying this, but you look terrible.”

“I feel terrible, so it matches.” 

Any annoyance vanished as the water thundered into Thomas’ tanks. “Is it that bad? They only said you failed.”

“They think I shattered at least one gear, and came close to melting my torque converter.”

“Fuck me…” Thomas said, under his breath. 

“I appreciate the sentiment.” Bear had never heard Thomas swear before. 

“Sorry.” There was a hint of a blush, before the concern came back. “Is there anything I can do for you? Do you need to go to the works?” 

“They don’t know yet.” Bear said, watching as grease-covered workers pulled shards of metal out of a bin. “Probably.”

“Is there anything else I can do here then?” Like Oliver, Thomas meant it, and Bear felt extremely strange to have someone care about him after two weeks with Truro. 

Hmmm… Truro… Bear thought for a moment. “Could you… take Truro with you?”

Thomas’ eyebrows raised. “Take him with me? Where?”

Anywhere but here. “He… we… He and I don’t get along very well. I’d rather not have him sitting around the yard bored while I’m over here broken.”

Thomas looked at Truro, and then looked at Bear, and then did it again. “Are you serious? What happened to that “Western Camaradiere” I’ve heard so much about?”

“Ask Truro.” Bear said, not wanting to go further into the issue. 

The water cut off, and Thomas frowned. He was going to try and get to the bottom of it. 

A few minutes later, he was backing down on Annie and Clarabel, and Truro was sidling up next to him. “I say, whatever did that diesel say to you? Hopefully it wasn’t anything too untrue - you know how those things have a way of twisting everything.”

Thomas looked at Truro in a way he could scarcely recall doing. “No, I’m just a little upset that my friend Bear is in such a bad way.” 

Truro missed all the subtext. “Oh, please - they can probably replace whatever is wrong in an hour - their kind comes apart at the seams like a motorcar. Don’t worry yourself over that.” 

“Alright…” Thomas said, suddenly viewing the engine in a new light. “Say, would you like to come with me on my next train? I understand that you can’t go anywhere yourself.”

Truro’s delighted whistle echoed across the yard.

-

About ten minutes later, Truro and Thomas vanished into the distance, and Bear closed his eyes. Peace at last. Thank you Thomas.

-

Later that same day

Bear slept fitfully. The cold sea breeze was blocked by the sheds, and so the cold air itself felt rather soothing on his overheated and shattered parts. Every hour or so he’d wake up for a bit, and finding the yard empty, he’d go back to sleep again. 

As the sun began to set, and men from the works began arriving with boxes of tools and spare parts, Donald slunk into the yard between passenger trains. Bear opened his eyes to see him staring at the goods yard in total bafflement. “Aye, Bear…”

“Yeah? Wuzzup?”

“Do ye knoo how in the blazes they keep anything here? We canno’ find the spare mail trucks anywhere.” Donald clearly had been looking for some time, if the irritated puffs of steam from his funnel were any indication.

“Spare mail..?” Bear opened both eyes. “Oh you mean the Siphons. They’re the big bogie wagons behind the carriage shed.” 

“The what? How could ye know that? They didn’t say bogie vans.” 

“They’re old milk vans, got converted after the war.”

“Why are they behind the carriage sheds?”

“Great Western Shunting System.”

“Aye?”

Bear paused, and decided he was too tired to explain fully. “It’s how the Westerners do things. Did you not have one up north?”

“Nae?”

Bear sighed. “There is a very long and very involved rhyming… couplet… thing that explains the entire system.”

“Aye? Rhyming?” 

“This was going nowhere. “Oh yes. If you ever want to make Duck look like a fool willingly, ask him to tell you about it. He knows every line, and it takes two hours to recite fully.”

“Aye?” 

Bear smiled, shrewdly. I hope I’m around when he asks Duck. “Mhmm.” He murmured, closing his eyes. “I’m going back to sleep. Have fun with the Siphons.”

Donald left a moment later, marveling at the interaction he’d just had. 

Steaming behind the carriage sheds, he found that yes indeed, there were three bogie vans about the size of a Mark 1 coach. In front of those were two smaller and older vans that had three axles - one on each end and one in the middle. 

“Oi,” He said, rousing the sleeping vans. “Which ones of ye are the siphons?” 

“We’re all Siphons.” Yawned the first of the big vans. “I am a type G, as are my brothers. My sisters before me are both type E.”

“Oh-kay…” Bear hadn’t mentioned that there were different types. Did it matter that some don’t have bogies? “Well, we’ve got to take ye all up to the big station. It’s that time o’ year again.”

“How wonderful,” said one of the type Es. “We will have been moved twice today! Truly the prophet Truro shines down upon us.”

“And we have been visited by him as well!” The second one extolled. 

“You must forgive them.” The big type G said. “They believe us to have been visited by The City of Truro, and little can be done to dissuade them.”

“You were asleep!” “You dozed through the appearance of our exalted!” The two type Es said as one, and Donald felt very much like a stranger in a strange land. 

“Eh, not to… be speakin’ out o’ turn, but Truro has been here fer almost two weeks noo,” He said. “Ye’ll pro’lly meet ‘im once we get to the big station.”

The type G looked like he’d been told that Jesus Christ had come again (and considering everything, that probably wasn’t an inaccurate description), and Donald soon found himself pulling a train of religious pilgrims to the promised land. 

“Why can’t that railway jus’ be normal?” He muttered under his breath as his driver turned him on the turntable, the Siphons chanting what he hoped wasn’t some kind of psalm. “They’re acting like Finn McCool were gonna come skippin’ his way across the Giant’s Causeway from Ireland! This is the last time I do Ollie’s work fer him, mark my words…”

A few minutes later, the very excited train, trailing behind an increasingly discomfited engine, rolled south out of Arlesburgh. 

“Huh,” said the signalman, as he belled the train out to the Haultraugh signal box. “That’s strange.”

“What’s strange?” Said the stationmaster, who was using the pretext of a staff meeting to hide himself from the passengers swarming the station between trains. 

“They had those old three axle milk vans on the train. I thought we were using them for storage.”

“We are using them for storage.”

“Not anymore it seems.” The train vanished into the distance, only a puff of smoke visible. 

The stationmaster swore thoroughly and profusely, and left the signal box to see if the yard master had done something and not told him. 

“Want me to stop them at Haultraugh?” The signalman called, picking up his desk phone. 

“And do what? Have them brought back? There’s barely room in the schedule for them to leave.” The stationmaster called as he descended the stairs.

Then he stopped, and bounded back up the stairs quickly. “Actually, do me a kindness. Call Tidmouth and tell them what’s happening. We’ll have whichever engine they send down for Bear bring them back tonight.”

“Okay...” The signalman said, dialing the phone. 

--

Donald got held up at the distant signal for Haultraugh station, waiting for Oliver to clear the section with his passenger train. (He should have been gone almost twenty minutes prior, but knowing him, this was practically on time.) There were no other trains coming, so his driver didn’t bother to move him beyond the distant signal once Oliver steamed out of the station. It was a rather lengthy wait, as the next signal beyond Haultraugh was at the Tidmouth end of the tunnel, where the double track line to the big station began, and the incessant chattering of the milk-vans-turned-mail-cars was starting to wear on him. When the signal finally dropped, he set off with haste, and the empty train allowed him to make the better part of forty miles per hour by the time he clattered past the platforms. 

“What’s that burning smell?” a porter asked, sniffing the air as the train passed. 

Many passengers turned to point accusingly at a man smoking a particularly fragrant cigar, and almost everyone was satisfied. 

Except for the stationmaster, who sniffed the air with disapproval. “Where have I smelled that before?” he asked himself, watching Donald get further and further into the distance. 

Wait. 

Donald. 

Didn’t his train have a hot axlebox a few days ago?

Isn’t that what it smelled like?

“Oi!” He sprung to his feet and barreled to the signal box. “Stop that train! It’s got a hotbox!”

-

The type E Siphon vans had been retired for many years - so many in fact that the circumstances of their arrival at Arlesburgh was a complete mystery, albeit an uninteresting one. They had been stuck in the back of the yard at some point long ago, and there they stayed, not moving from that spot in almost fifty years. 

After The War, the station staff had begun using them as storage sheds, and their interiors were filled with all the mess and detritus that a railyard accumulates: Spare parts, groundskeeping tools, leftover fabric for the station awnings, bricks, brake shoes, train wheels, welding equipment, barrels of oil, and a few boxes of flares, among other things. 

They had seen almost no repairs since they arrived on the island, and it was a minor miracle that the journey up to this point had been problem free. The vans had attributed it to the miraculous appearance of their oft-worshipped Truro, by whose divine intervention they were now allowed to run free again. Donald and his crew - who usually handed off their trains to Duck or Oliver to be shunted - had never even seen these vans before, and so had assumed that they were movable.

What this all meant was that shortly after setting off from the Haultraugh home signal, the ancient oil packed into the friction bearing of the center-left axlebox of the first Siphon E van started to heat up. It was contaminated with decades of dust and dirt and animal droppings, and soon it began to burn. This is what the stationmaster at Haultraugh smelt, but as the axlebox cover was not only shut but rusted shut, there was no way for the fire and smoke to escape the axlebox and be seen. 

Of course, the wagon herself had noticed this immediately, but as she had accredited her new lease on life to the Worshipful Truro, she ignored the building pain. Pain, after all, was something that only afflicted those without God's love, and as she had been visited by God (Truro) she clearly should be able to ignore that pain. 

And, to her credit, she did. The lubricant soon burned away completely, all while she made nary a peep about her discomfort. 

Unfortunately, physics did not ignore this, and as her axle was now running without any lubricant at all, it rapidly heated up. 

Metal, when heated, begins to lose its shape and strength. 

As the train clattered its way down the slight grade towards Bulgy’s Bridge and the tunnel beyond, the axle got hotter and hotter, and softer and softer. 

When Bear and Truro came to a stop earlier that morning, the suddenness of the stop had put small grooves in the rails, which were then exacerbated by Truro slipping as he got the train moving on his own. It had caused bumpy rides for every train that day, and it would’ve been eventually noticed and replaced by inspectors, but… they hadn’t found out about it yet. 

The train bumped and bounced over the grooves at almost fifty miles per hour, and the center axle of the lead wagon snapped off at the left axlebox. 

For a moment, everything was fine. Both wheels on the axle remained on the rail, still attached on the other side of the car, and both continued spinning. 

Then everything went out of control. As the train neared Bulgy’s Bridge, the leaf spring connecting the center left axlebox to the van frame, now unconnected, began to sag noticeably. The many supplies inside the van began to shake back and forth from the new motion, and the shift in center of gravity caused the left wheel to fall off the rail. Bumping along the sleepers, it quickly tore off the van completely, falling to the ground where it was immediately hit by the rear axle. 

The rear axle of the van took the hit poorly, and like a stick it snapped in twain within a few feet of the impact. The van was now suspended only by the front axle and the rear coupling chain, and she swung drunkenly from the chain as the train passed over Bulgy’s bridge. 

The broken axles fell to the rails below, and were swiftly run over by the next van. There the damage was equally severe - one axle smashed up through the floor, sending boxes and barrels flying, while the other was caught between the suspension and the van body, and began dragging along the ground, tearing up sleepers as it went. There was an inarticulate cry of pain from the second van - the first sign that anything had gone wrong.

Donald’s crew heard the commotion, and applied the brakes as soon as they saw the huge cloud of dust behind them. This went badly, as it caused the three much bigger Type G vans to surge forwards, hitting the Type Es. Both Es derailed at this point, sliding along the sleepers and the ballast, propelled only by the coupling chain connecting them to Donald. 

Donald, meanwhile, was watching the tunnel mouth approach with increasing horror. They weren’t going to be able to stop before it. 

The Type G vans shoved the Type Es against each other, and in turn they smacked into Donald’s tender. Whether the coupling chain snapped or fell off at that point is irrelevant - all that matters is that as Donald steamed away without the train, the Type E vans turned sideways, sliding along the line as the Type Gs pushed them towards the tunnel. There was a snapping hiss as the brake lines separated fully, and Donald’s driver turned, seeing what was going to happen; he opened the regulator fully and shut his eyes. 

Donald stormed into the tunnel like his life depended on it. Just behind him, the sideways Type E vans slammed into the sides of the tunnel mouth. The Type G vans smashed through them, turning both to kindling, before sliding to a stop most of the way into the tunnel. 

Within seconds, the contents of the Type E vans, now strewn about the line, caught fire.

Duck, waiting at the mouth of the tunnel with his next passenger train, blinked in confusion as Donald flew out of the tunnel alone, looking like he was being chased by the devil himself. 

Donald’s smoke, thick and black from a hard run up the hill, wafted out of the tunnel… and then suddenly redoubled a moment later. 

And then redoubled again. 

And again. 

Duck eventually had to back away from the tunnel as thick clouds of black smoke poured out of it. 

---

The Fat Controller stared in displeasure at the burned out wreckage. “This is not ideal.”

“That’s an understatement,” Ted Thompson, his chief of the Permanent Way, muttered. 

Carnage was about the only word capable of describing the wreck site. The five vans had burned almost completely to ashes - only the last of the bogie vans was still recognizable, a charred and warped frame missing its coachwork entirely. The track was destroyed for over a thousand feet, a trail of broken sleepers starting at Bulgy’s Bridge that turned into a completely decimated roadbed the closer it got to the tunnel. 

And lord have mercy, the tunnel. 

The locally mined stone, usually a light gray color, was black on all sides. Bits of rock had fractured from the heat, chips and chunks spalling off all the way around the portal. The train had come to rest perfectly inside the tunnel mouth, and the heat from the fire had been directed straight up into the delicate stonework of the entrance, as opposed to the much hardier rock and brick that made up the bore itself. It was, as the first inspector on the scene had put it, “one of the worst fucking places to have a crash.”

“Do you think it can be fixed?” 

“Depends on the damage.” The man snorted, rubbing his moustache in a pondering way. “Could just be the portal and the ornamentation. Could have fractured brick all the way up. Wood don’t burn that hot, but the tunnel’d turn it into a furnace real easy.”

“How long until you can start the inspection?”

“Got some navvies up there now.” He took a big draw from his pipe. “From the other end. Heat’s died down enough by now, which is a good sign.” 

This was followed by a cloud of pipe smoke, and Charles looked up, acutely aware that both of them were dressed like it was still the Victorian era. “How long to repair the p-way?”

“Couple days, maybe a week.”

An eyebrow raised. “A week? Is this the same crew who relaid an entire section of the main line in a weekend?” 

“We had trains then.”

“And we don’t now?”

A big puff of smoke followed. “Everything is on that side of the tunnel.” Ted gestured with his pipe. “Engines, rails, cranes, sleepers, everything except ballast. We’re gonna have to bring it round on lorries, so no welded rail segments.”

Charles now understood. “And you’re going to do this on the only road into town, which is now replacing an entire rail line, two weeks before Christmas.”

“Precisely.” The pipe flared up again. “And if we’ve gotta fix the tunnel, well, let’s talk about next Christmas, aye? We’d ‘ave to go through it brick by brick almost, unless we wanna risk bringing it down on someone’s ‘ead.”

“I see…” Charles trailed off. “I want to know the instant your inspection of the tunnel is done.”

“Yessir.” With a step, Ted was off, barking orders at his work crews, his great coat blowing behind him in the cold December wind. 

A moment later, a messenger appeared. “Sir, a phone call from Mister Hatt. He reports that a bus replacement service is being organized, however it will be quote “spotty” at times due to existing commitments. More buses are being sourced from the mainland, but that will take time.”

“Thank you,” Charles dismissed the man. “Tell him that we need to speak as soon as possible.”

London may have been in one of the most generous moods recent memory could allow, but they also weren’t stupid. On the eve of his retirement, with his son waiting to take over - there was a very real chance that some limp-wristed pencil pusher with an axe to grind could choose to enact “vengeance,” and declare the tunnel a total loss. 

All the money in the world would not convince them to cut another one.

[edwards-exploit]

blame the discord for this one

[edwards-exploit]

Christmas Story

Two days later - Saturday, December 8th

Mercifully, Bear had a scheduled inspection on Friday, and was spared a full day of peak services with an engine that very clearly played favorites. 

Unfortunately, he was not spared the ensuing tirade from Delta, who had been lashed to Truro all day, and had been about ready to feed his buffers to him by lunchtime. “See, this is why we don’t have any hero worship in the Midland region, Bear.” She said seriously. “Because when the Coronations acted like that, you could just bump some manners into them! And they’d thank you for it later! That engine though…” She trailed off menacingly. 

“He’ll come around, eventually.” Bear said, trying to achieve a state of calm. 

“I don’t think he will.”

“He will,” Bear gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. “Because if he doesn’t, something unfortunate is going to happen - whether it’s to him or us is the issue.”

-

Bright and early on Saturday morning, Bear collected his coaches and waited at the big station for his departure time. He noted with some interest that the bandstand, which was usually littered with instruments from the American band, was empty. 

“Ah, Bear!” Stephen Hatt, the Fat-Controller-to-be, exited the station cafe. “Have you noticed the peace and quiet yet?”

“I have sir.” He said quietly. “Where did the band go?”

Stephen gave a slight grin. “Even my father, with his nigh-infinite amount of patience, grew tired of them. They’re on their way back to… wherever it was they came from, courtesy of a grateful island.”

“Grateful for their music, or..?”

“Grateful, and let’s leave it at that.”

“Of course sir.”

There was a lull in the conversation at this point, and Bear was about to bring up his issues with Truro, when the Fat Controller himself came walking down the platform. “Well, I see someone commiserating the loss of our band!”

Stephen pulled a face. “No, that is not what we were doing.”

Charles turned to face Bear. “What about you then, Bear? Is there a hole in your heart from the loss of the music?”

“Sir, I don’t feel comfortable lying to you.”

Both men laughed at that, and then the Fat Controller continued. “Well, I suppose that not every experiment can be successful. That group was quite rubbish, and I sent them on their way.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“Oh, don’t thank me yet.” He wrung his hands. “The Island Council is very keen on this going well, so they’re finding us a new group to perform.”

“Oh, sir…”

“I know, I know.” He held his hands out placatingly. “I have… informed them that it must be a better group. Perhaps a more… traditional one.”

There was a lot of coughing from Stephen at that, but he said nothing. 

“But,” Charles glared at him. “In the meantime, I suppose it is kind of quiet here, so I’ve arranged to have Radio 2 played over the Tannoy until the new group arrives.”

“Do we know who it is yet?” Stephen asked, pointedly. 

“No, but if it makes you feel better, I insisted that they provide us bands that are well-known in their home countries.”

“That doesn’t, actually.”

This back-and-forth went on for some time, and when his departure time finally came around, Bear was actually in a good mood. 

-

It lasted all the way to Haultraugh station. 

Oliver was there with his morning commuter train, and he was fuming. “Show me proof that anything going on here is my fault! I want to know! If it was me, which it wasn’t, I’ll take the blame!” 

The stationmaster, guard, driver, fireman, and two porters were arguing with each other. It was quite incoherent, but seemed to center around a trolley of luggage with no owner. 

At first, Bear didn’t think that this affected him, but as his departure time neared, he realized with some annoyance that the luggage compartment on his train hadn’t been tended to yet, and several passengers were waiting for their bags!

“Excuse me!” He called over to the confusion of employees. “But there is another train here!”

That caused everyone to spring into action, and while his train was tended to, Oliver tried and failed to explain. 

“I don’t know what’s going on,” He began, “But strange things keep happening. I mean, someone says that this luggage was supposed to be stored here, but there’s no-”

“My trunks!” A voice squealed, and everyone turned to look at a young woman leaning out of Bear’s train. “I thought I’d lost those!” 

It was very quickly discovered that she’d lost her luggage some time ago, never realizing that it was in the Haultraugh lost property office. A very quick reunion was staged, before the trunks and their happy owner were bustled back into Bear’s train. 

Bear watched this happen around him, not entirely sure what to do or where to look, but as Oliver’s train vanished into the distance, he realized that he was well and truly late. 

“Soot and Oil.”

-

Arriving at Arlesburgh fifteen minutes behind time, Bear tried and failed to act like nothing was wrong - or at least that he was blameless for it, but he’d reckoned without the small railway. 

“Oi oi oi!” Mike hooted from the platform. “What’s this? A quarter hour late? Did you stop to hibernate?”

Bear growled at him, his mood souring dramatically. 

“Oi!” The little red pipsqueak yelped. “‘S only a joke!” 

“Oh, pay it no mind,” a regal voice called out. 

City of Truro rolled elegantly out of the shed in a cloud of steam, paint and brass polished to a mirror finish. “That sort doesn’t understand humor. It probably thinks you to be serious.”

Bear’s oil pressure shot up, and his motor began revving in a threatening way. Mike’s eyes widened, and he shut up immediately. 

“Truro,” Bear said, a metallic grinding sound underpinning his voice. “Are you ready for today?”

“I have been ready for almost twenty minutes.” Truro said as he flounced past. “And you would know that if you could do the bare minimum and keep to time.”

There was a sound of scraping metal and shattering glass, and one of the classification lamps located near Bear’s chin fell to the ground. He’d scowled so hard that it had snapped off. 

Bear looked down at it, quietly but visibly furious, and then looked straight ahead. He didn’t acknowledge Mike, he didn’t acknowledge the coaches, and he didn’t acknowledge his driver until it was time for him to reverse around the train and couple between Truro and the coaches. 

As he rolled away, Mike released a breath that he didn’t realize that he was holding, and looked across the yard. There, by the goods depot, was a line of trucks who had heard and seen everything. They looked as equally frightened as he felt, and they locked eyes with each other.

This is not going to end well.

---

And yet, for the entirety of that weekend, it seemingly did. 

Bear’s heightened temper aside, the special “Truro” services went without incident - every train was packed to the gills with commuters, Christmas travelers, and enthusiasts alike. They ran to time, mostly, and any incidents were one that could happen to any engine or train. (Not that it stopped Truro from blaming Bear anyways…)

In fact, the biggest issue was,

Last Christmas I gave you my heart

That every time the train pulled into the big station,

But the very next day you gave it away

The same song was playing on the radio.

This year, to save me from tears

No matter what Bear did,

I'll give it to someone special

It would keep. Playing.

Last Christmas I gave you my heart

“I hate this song…” He murmured when they pulled into the station for the last time on Saturday night.

But the very next day you gave it away

It reminded Bear of how lonely he felt

I'll give it to someone special

The next morning, Truro was whistling the tune. 

Once bitten and twice shy

He thought about mentioning why, but figured that Truro would be needlessly cruel about it.

I keep my distance, but you still catch my eye

The only comfort during this period was, strangely, Gordon.

Tell me baby, do you recognize me?

“I say!” He’d bellow as soon as the song came on. “Turn off this racket!”

Well, it's been a year, it doesn't surprise me

“Oh, do be an adult!” Truro scoffed. “This is a wonderful song!”

Happy Christmas, I wrapped it up and sent it

“Perhaps for you bilgewater-drinking Westerners,” Gordon sniffed, looking at Truro out the side of his eye. “But proper engines do not enjoy… tunes such as this.”

With a note saying "I love you", I meant it

“Bilgewater! How dare you! I’m more proper of an engine than you could ever hope to be!”

Now I know what a fool I've been

“Puh!” Gordon sniffed. “I see now why you have Bear as your minder. He has to balance out your preposterousness!”

But if you kissed me now, I know you'd fool me again

“You dare lump me in with that?”

Last Christmas I gave you my heart

“Only by circumstance! Bear hates this song as much as I do, and I wouldn’t associate a proper engine like him with the likes of you unless there wasn’t a choice!”

This year, to save me from tears

Gordon steamed away before Truro could say anything, and did so with such bombastic clouds of steam that nobody could see Bear smiling buffer to buffer at Truro’s fury. 

I'll give it to someone special...

----

That had been the last train of Sunday, and Truro was still smarting over it when Bear left him at Arlesburgh that night. 

He was in such a state that his crew found it quite difficult to move him, let alone do anything complicated like center him on the turntable, and so when Duck and Oliver arrived back in the sheds a few hours later, they found him facing the back wall. 

“Turntable broken?” Oliver asked, nonplussed at the sight. 

Truro said nothing, and Oliver took his irritation to be from a different source. “Eh, it happens sometimes. I mean, it's easier for us ‘cause we’ve only got bunkers, but still, facing the wrong way the whole time isn’t exactly fun.”

Truro unclenched his jaw long enough to say “Thank you”, without showing off how furious he really was, and then Duck bustled in. 

“My goodness Truro. What on earth are you doing facing the wrong way?” He immediately began fretting. 

“Dunno.” Oliver said. “I think the table might be broken.”

“It can’t be, I just used it.”

“Search me then. Fancy a change of scenery, Truro?”

“... My driver has issues with his competencies.” Truro managed to grind out. 

Oliver’s eyebrows shot up. “He couldn’t center you on the table?! Well, paint me blue and call me an easterner!” 

Duck looked horrified. “Oliver! He must be so embarrassed!”

“Only if you make a huge fuss, so stop quacking on about it!”

“Quacking on - oh for heaven’s sake!” At Duck’s urging, his driver reversed him out of the shed, and he was coupled up to Truro in no time at all.

“What on earth are you doing?” The bigger engine asked, not sure if he should be confused or angry or both.

“I’ve turned round King classes before,” Duck soothed as he pulled Truro out of the shed. “I’ll have you the right way round in a jiffy!”

Oliver rolled his eyes and watched through the door as Duck shunted Truro around the yard. If he wasn’t so tired from the day’s nonsense, he’d be laughing at Truro’s halfhearted protests, but instead he sat back and watched while his crew tamped down his fire for the night. 

By the time everyone was (back) in the shed, Truro was dizzy, offended, and still quite cross about his earlier encounter with Gordon. However, he took pains not to show it, which turned out to be to his detriment…

“Oh don’t mind him,” Oliver chuckled. “He mothers engines he really likes.”

“I do not!”

“Do too.”

“When have I done that?”

“Well…”

This went on well into the night, and nobody got any rest until well after midnight, when Duck finally fell asleep. 

“At long last…” Truro muttered to himself, trying to fall asleep.

“Hey,” Oliver whispered. “Not to keep either of us up, but do you have a second?”

“Whatever for?” Truro opened one eye warily. 

“When you’ve been doing the shunting, have you… noticed anything strange happening? Or heard any unusual talk from the trucks?” 

Truro’s second eye opened. “Such as?”

“I don’t know, that’s the thing.” Oliver said, quite perplexed. “Odd things have been going on with me recently. Stopping at request stops with no one there, waiting for luggage that got lost. I get more trucks than I was supposed to take, or sometimes less. And I’ve been late three times just this weekend from silly nonsense! Nobody knows what’s going on - even the trucks are getting confused!”

Truro raised an eyebrow. “I haven’t heard anything, but I will admit that I haven’t been listening too closely. One usually does not associate themselves too closely with the trucks, but I will keep my ears open, as the saying goes.”

“Thanks,” Oliver murmured. “Hopefully we can get to the bottom of this.”

He then closed his eyes, and was asleep after a few minutes. 

“Yes,” Truro said quietly, to no one. “Hopefully we will.”

He stayed up most of the night, thinking…

[edwards-exploit]

I'VE GOT COMMISSIONS OPEN BTW

[edwards-exploit]

Christmas Story

This chapter has aged me considerably, because today is my birthday. That's how this works, right?

The next morning bloomed cold and crisp. The temperatures had dropped to almost freezing, and while it seemed like a welcome change, to ring in the cold seasonal time of the year, nobody seemed that thrilled about it…

“It’s not even snowing!” Duck harrumphed to Oliver as they organized their coaches. “How can it be this cold and not snow?”

“I dunno.” Oliver replied, his mind far away from anything his friend was really saying. He was still mulling over yesterday. Truro really had started to call Bear a “brute”, before Oliver had accidentally cut him off. That was… well it wasn’t just out of character, but it was against type. He might not have believed Truro to be the source of all joy in the world like Duck did, but any Westerner could tell you with great reliability that Truro really was the Greatest of the Great Westerners. For him to even speak ill of Bear implied that he felt very poorly about the diesel, and, well, Oliver might believe in Truro, but he knew Bear.

“I just can’t believe he’s doing our shunting work!” Duck gushed, bringing Oliver back to reality. 

Truro had grown very bored, as his mainline running restriction had forced him to only run on the peak services when Bear was available. Last night, he’d offered to shunt the trucks in the yard, just to give himself something to do. Oliver had been pleasantly surprised to see a tender engine willing to shunt, and since they kept the yard organized in the traditional Great Western Style, it was no paint off his buffers who did the organizing. 

One need not guess how Duck felt on the matter. Truro could have offered to sort the trucks by colour and he would’ve agreed wholeheartedly. 

“Oliver, you there?” Duck asked, and Oliver realized he hadn’t actually said anything. “What? Oh, yes, how magnanimous of him.” 

Duck frowned, an uncommon expression for the past few weeks. “You alright?” 

“Yes, of course.” He lied. “I just didn’t rest very well. I’ll be fine once I wake up.”

Duck didn’t examine this too closely, and rolled away to the platforms with Alice and Mirabel. 

Oliver remained conflicted.

-

Later in the morning, Oliver was on his way to the big station with his first train of the day. There had been some delay setting out from the station, as a wagon Truro was shunting had derailed inside the station throat, but after only a few minutes delay, the wagon had been levered back onto the rails, and Oliver left. 

On the line north of Haultraugh, the line ran near the sea. It didn’t go along the shoreline, but it was close enough that passengers could see the beach from the train. This had proved to be a somewhat effective marketing tactic for that particular stretch of beach, and many years ago the railway had begun allowing for “request stops”, where passengers could ask for the train to let them off near the shore. This was quite popular in the summer - a few vacation cottages had even been built - but people usually stopped asking by October. In December, it was virtually unheard of, unless someone was staying at a cottage for the holidays. 

With this in mind, Oliver was quite surprised to find the train slowing down as they neared the general area of the cottages. “Is there someone staying at the cottages?” He asked Isobel, who was in front. “Surely not now!”

“Hold on,” She replied, sounding confused. “But you were the one who said we have to stop here!” 

“What? No I didn’t!”

“Yes you did!” She retorted. “Stationmaster said that someone had mentioned it to you yesterday.” 

“Not at all!” Oliver was now thoroughly confused, but by this point the train had come to a complete stop. 

“Right,” The guard now interjected himself into the nonsense, by opening up Isobel’s back window and speaking to Oliver directly. “Where are these people? Nobody in here needs to get out.” 

“I didn’t say anything to anyone!” Oliver was baffled. “Why wouldn’t I have said something before now?”

“Hmm,” Dulcie murmured from behind him. “You’d think that they’d have spoken to the guard or someone. I mean, how could they know that Ollie was even going to be the one taking the train? Could’ve been Duckie this morn’ or maybe Bear and Truro?”

That gave everyone pause. “Y’know, that’s pro’lly the right answer,” The guard said after a moment of chin stroking. “They might’ve taken the first train of the day.” 

“So then we stopped here for nothing?” Oliver was just starting to understand what had happened. 

“Yeah, but it happens.” Shrugged the guard. 

“Hey! Hey! Wait!” A voice called out, and everyone turned to look towards the beach. A man and a woman were scrambling up the beach towards the train. “Don’t leave yet!”

Oliver was speechless, and waited in silence as the couple ran up to the train. “Damn cottage doesn’t have a clock!” The man said as he got closer to the train. “I didn’t think you’d be here!”

“Are you staying at the cottages here?” The guard asked, pulling open Isobel’s door and extending the steps. 

“Yeah! It’s cheap in the off-season.” the man replied, ignoring his wife’s eye roll. 

“I’d imagine so!” The guard chuckled, as he sold them a pair of tickets to the big station. “And you two are very lucky you said something to the stationmaster yesterday, or we’d have kept right on going!” 

“What?” The man blinked. 

His wife grimaced. “We’re not big on advance planning.”

“Then you didn’t speak to the stationmaster at Arlesburgh?” The conductor sounded more confused than ever. 

“No! We’re from Tidmouth!”

Oliver, Isobel, and Dulcie marveled. “Then who were we supposed to stop for?”

“Nobody, I think?”

Shortly thereafter, the guard decided that they’d waited enough, and the train set off again. They all remained thoroughly confused, all the way to the big station. 

--

Later

Around mid-day, passenger traffic had died down, and Duck was able to handle the trains on his own for a few hours. Oliver was therefore tasked with a short goods train, going from Arlesburgh up to the big station. The train was mostly hopper wagons and flatbeds, carrying goods from the small harbor at Arlesburgh, but a few wagons on the end were empty, waiting to be loaded with cargo from the station at Haultraugh. (The island still did brisk business on short-haul freight, unlike the mainland, something the engines and Fat Controller were proud of.)

Truro had arranged the trucks earlier in the day, before retiring to the sheds to get cleaned and polished before his peak hour trains, so Oliver only had to connect to the train, pull a vacuum in the brakes, and leave once the signal dropped.

“Excuse me, Oliver.” The lead truck quietly said as they left the yard. Ever since his “run-in” with Scruffey, the engines and trucks of the Little Western were on much more amicable terms, and as the 1980s had ground on, some trucks had even begun to give Oliver a grudging amount of respect. “I have a question.”

“Yeah?”

“What’re ‘Crickets and Melons,’ and why would someone call us them?”

Oliver stopped to consider that for a moment, before he burst out laughing. “Ha! My goodness, who called you that?” 

The trucks chattered with irritation. 

“I told ya it was rude!”

“‘Ow can we know it’s rude iff’n he’s not said what it means yet?”

“‘O course it’s rude! Can’t ye tell it’s supposed to be an insult?”

“Mighty poor insult if none of us know what the blazes it means…”

“Ah shaddup. You got bent out o’ shape, didn’t ye?”

“So what’s it mean, Oliver?”

Oliver composed himself. “It’s an old term from the Great Western. Back in the day every kind of truck and coach had its own code name for the telegram. Melons were third class brake carriages, and Crickets were bogie coaches.”

“So what’s that got to do wit’ us?” A voice piped up from further down the train. 

“Trucks used to call each other that because they thought coaches were sensitive and soft, so if they acted sensitive they were being Crickets and Melons.” He paused for a moment. “I will admit, I don’t quite “get” that, being an engine and all, but I suppose it must mean something to you lot.”

It did, and the trucks grumbled to themselves angrily. 

“The nerve!”

“The bearings…”

“To say such things to us.”

“And not tell us what it meant!”

“We could have been using that all morning!”

Oliver rolled his eyes. “Who even told you that?” 

“We don’t know!” Piped up a flatbed from further back in the train. “It’s been bouncing around the yard all day.”

“Somebody said that you were calling us that, but that’s cobblers.” one of the hoppers chimed in. “Why would you tell us what it meant?”

“And when would he have the time?” Toad the brakevan, riding all the way in the back of the train, added. “He’s been running his wheels off since before Truro got here.”

Oliver blew off steam contemplatively. “Search me. I certainly wouldn’t have called you lot that, not unless I’d gone soft in the smokebox first. It’s not 1950 anymore - we’ve invented better insults!”

Everyone got a merry laugh out of that, and the train continued to Haultraugh without incident. 

-

The cargo in Haultraugh was a consignment of fabric bound for Barrow-in-Furness, and while the porters busily loaded one of the empty vans, the stationmaster and the guard conferred with Oliver and his driver. 

“Why’ve you got another van?” the stationmaster pointed down the train. 

“Another?” The driver’s brow furrowed.

“Yeah. We only requested one, and you’ve brought us two.”

“Is there some kind of mistake?” Oliver asked, not used to the idea of having too many trucks. 

“No…” Said the guard, paging through his manifest. “We’re only supposed to have nine. That last one is an extra.”

-

“Look,” The van said when he was questioned by the train crew. “I haven’t a bit of input where I go. Wherever the green engines put me, that’s where I end up.”

“Did anyone say anything to you?” The guard asked.

“Nope.” The van looked uncomfortable from the attention he was getting. “To be quite honest, I’m surprised you wanted me. I thought us unfitted trucks weren’t allowed on fitted trains.”

Everyone looked down at the coupling, and sure enough, the van in front had an air brake hose, while this extra van did not. 

“Excuse me sirs,” Toad said. “But I did question Mister Truro when he assembled this train, and he said that Mister Oliver needed two vans. I’m only present because this is a partially fitted train, and I’m sorry to say that I should have questioned further to see if there was another fitted truck available.”

The guard and driver comforted him. “It’s not your fault, Toad.”

-

“Well bless my boiler!” Oliver exclaimed when the crew returned to the front of the train. “Is there anything else I’ve ordered done? Am I to take the Flying Kipper next? Or the express?”

The driver rubbed his head in confusion. “I don’t know, Oliver. There’s got to be something - or someone behind this, but I’ll be damned if I know what.”

“Maybe there’s someone new on the station staff whose name is Oliver!” The guard joked, and then grew quite concerned when everyone else started giving it a bit of thought. 

Even the trucks were starting to get involved. “Maybe it was one of us, playing games.” The lead hopper said with uncharacteristic seriousness. “We get so many in from beyond the big station - even the mainland - and sometimes they just don’t know the right way to act.”

“Mercy’s sake,” blasphemed the Guard. “Even the trucks are getting serious.”

Oliver’s driver didn’t say anything, but hoped against hope that nothing new would happen once they got the clear signal… which should be any time, really. “It’s a Christmas miracle. Where is the next train? Surely they should be here by now.”

A short radio call revealed that one of Donald’s stone trucks had developed a hot axlebox, and they were on their way after mending it. 

Presently, a plume of smoke appeared over the horizon, and Donald lumbered into view, two dozen empty stone hoppers clattering behind him. Already late, and trying to gingerly keep the damaged truck upright and on the rails, he wheeshed to a stop at the end of the platform. His crew hopped out, and began inspecting the axle on the truck that had overheated. Oliver’s trucks, being the kind and gentle souls that they were, immediately began calling the hoppers Crickets and Melons. 

Oliver sighed deeply. Donald’s trucks did not fit inside the passing loop, and he was stuck there until they left.

Explanations and insults flew back and forth until both lines of trucks were cackling with laughter, and ten minutes passed before Donald’s guard deemed the train safe to depart. Eagerly, Oliver’s driver advanced the train right up to the edge of the signal, waiting for the arm to drop, but as Donald’s train rolled away, the signal stayed up. “Oh what now?!”

“Sorry!” The signalman called from his box. “Duck is on his way down. You’re just going to have to wait.”

Everyone sighed, and silence fell over the station for just a moment. “Excuse me, Mister Oliver?” 

“Yes Toad?” 

“In the future, can we please note that ten wagons, an engine, and a van is the maximum length a train can be in this siding?” Toad sounded more than a little frightened. “If you hadn’t pulled up to the signal, Mister Donald would have taken my buffers off when he passed us.”

“Sorry!” Oliver called, glad that nothing had actually occurred - that would have been all they needed!

-

It took another ten minutes for Duck’s train to come into view. 

“You’re running behind, aren’t you?” He asked as he pulled in. 

“Tell me about it.” Oliver scoffed. “Hey, do me a favour and keep your ears open. Someone is telling lies and insults in the yard.”

“Really?” 

“Yeah.” The signal dropped. “Haven’t time to explain, but this has been a strange day!” 

Oliver puffed out of the station, leaving a confused Duck behind him. 

-

The train finally arrived at the big station almost an hour late. Oliver shunted the train into the freight platforms. Almost before they could get uncoupled, the railfreight manager came out to see him. “That van on the end, is it empty? I heard it was.” 

“Yes, it is, actually.” Oliver’s driver began. “Just a-”

“Minor miracle, that’s what it is.” The man cut him off. “Get to platform three for a pickup.”

Oliver blinked as the man retreated into his office, before running around the train and getting Toad and the empty van. “Guess you’re going back with us.” He said as he moved them to platform three. 

Platform three was one of the platforms that main line trains used, and so Oliver ended up stopping right next to Gordon and the midday express. 

“Well this is a surprise…” Gordon said. “What are you doing here?” 

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Oliver said. “There’s something being loaded here.”

“Here?” Gordon’s eyebrow raised. “Well, I suppose there’s a first time for everything.”

After another minute or so, a group of porters arrived, pushing a load of furniture on a luggage trolley. “Someone’s Christmas shopping got the better of them!” They chortled. “They thought they could take this on Duck’s train!”

Oliver raised an eyebrow, but Gordon outright snorted at that. 

After a few minutes, the furniture had been loaded and strapped down, and Oliver’s guard went off to get the paperwork.

As he left, the sound of tuning instruments started up. 

“Oh,” Gordon said through gritted teeth, and the most pained smile Oliver had ever seen. “Goody. The band is starting.” 

There was a brass section now. They had a tuba.

You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch,

You really are a heel!

Gordon looked like he was going to burst into tears.

You're as cuddly as a cactus,

You're as charming as an eel, Mr. Grinch.

Oliver read him like a book. “Gordon,” He whispered. “I won’t tell Truro that you hate this as much as he does if you don’t want me to.” Gordon’s faux smile collapsed like a building demolition. “Thank you!”

[edwards-exploit]

“Edward scolded the twins severely, but told Gordon it served him right” and “Later that day, Donald and Douglas spoke pungently in Scots” both sound like events that I would love to hear described in full detail (although maybe it’s for the best that they weren’t

[edwards-exploit]

Christmas Story

December 3 -  A few days later

The class 37 sniffed dismissively as Bear collected the train from him at Barrow. “Dunno why you need ta take this lot, I’s be good ‘nuff for ta job.”

Behind Bear, the trucks immediately began grumbling. 

“Good enough for what? A demolition derby?”

“He’s a brute!”

“We want a real engine! Not some bulldozer with bogies!”

“Oh, now he thinks he’s going to do a good job?”

“I feel like he broke something. I pity his next train!”

Both engines sighed deeply, and the 37 looked relieved. “Actually, I think the rotters are your problem now - take ‘em to someplace where they might be needed, like the scrapheap! Ha!”

He laughed heartily, only stopping when he realized Bear wasn’t laughing along with him. “What?” 

“I don’t get the joke.” 

“You- what?” The engine looked at him. “They’s trucks mate.”

“And?”

“They’s difficult. Jus’ make sure to biff ‘em around a bit.” 

“Why? That won’t make them stop.” 

Bear continued to look like he had no idea what the other diesel was talking about, and the 37 rolled his eyes. “Yannow what? Fine. Keep em’, I don’ care.” And with that, he growled off to the fuel pumps, muttering under his breath about “soft engines that deserved to be withdrawn.” 

The trucks sighed once the other engine had gone away, and Bear found that they gave him no trouble as he left the yard. 

“He was terrible!” One of them shouted as they crossed the bridge onto Sodor proper. 

“Awful!” chimed in another. 

“A right menace!” called a third. 

“We’re glad to be on the island again,” a fourth said. “At least you lot aren’t trying to hurt us!”

“That bad?” Bear asked with a raised eyebrow, mentally making a note of the engine’s number. 

“Worse!” chorused several voices, and The Many Detailed Accounts Of The Awful Class 37 continued all the way to Crovan’s Gate. There, he left most of the train in the goods siding, and went into the works yard to drop off a few trucks, and collect the rest of his train. 

He was expecting to find a few freshly-overhauled trucks, and maybe a coach going back to the big station, so it was a surprise to be sent down a line that led to the work’s small engine shed. 

Where am I going? He thought to himself. Looking towards the main shops building revealed that the same set of green-painted wheels were still propped up against a wall, just like the last time he’d checked them - so it wasn’t the engine he knew was there…

Further confusing the issue was a crowd of people around the turntable - the Fat Controller and his son being among them. “Sir?” he called, unsure of what was going on. “Am I in the wrong place?”

The Fat Controller turned around, not having heard him arrive. “Ah, Bear, exactly the engine I was looking for.” He turned to the other men, most of whom were wearing tweed suits with elbow patches. “As my son was saying, we certainly have enough Western Region equipment to hand! In fact, I dare say that we have more GWR equipment than you do!”

One of the men, who was wearing less tweed than the rest, smiled slightly. “If this all goes well you most definitely will, Charles.”

The other men chuckled to themselves, while Bear looked on in confusion. “Sir? Am I taking an engine with me?”

The Fat Controller’s son, Stephen - who would soon become the new Fat Controller - stepped forward. “Yes, indeed you are. As you may have noticed, the increase in traffic has left the Little Western wanting another engine, and while you have served admirably,” He waved a hand around the facilities. “You are often called away for other duties. So, with that in mind, we’ve managed to temporarily source another engine. If he does well, he will be working the line full-time with Duck and Oliver.”

“Does that mean I’m to be replaced by a steam engine, sir?” Bear asked, suddenly struck by a burst of mirth at the situation. 

The rest of the men laughed much louder than they had before, and the Fat Controller smiled. “Yes, as a matter of fact, you are.” He said jovially. 

Presently, a steam whistle sounded from inside the shed, and dark green tender emerged from inside one of the bays, wreathed in a cloud of steam. 

---

Arlesburgh

"You'd think the Queen was coming…" Rex murmured to nobody in particular.

"Nah," Bert replied. "He'd be calmer if she was."

The small engines watched the chaos of the standard gauge engines:

Duck was barking orders at workmen like an engine possessed. Everything in sight of the pannier tank engine (including himself) had been cleaned or polished to an almost mirror finish, and it looked like he was on the verge of critiquing the wardrobes of passersby. 

Someone had produced a roll of bunting, and despite its “ruddy anemic flag count”, it was being strung along the handrails of the pedestrian overbridge. 

Across the yard, Oliver and the coaches were red with embarrassment, and looked anywhere but in their friend’s direction as the workmen crawled over them with rags and polish. 

At the coaling stage, a grime-coated Donald glared daggers at several members of staff who were wielding a hose and brushes in a vaguely threatening manner. 

“What are they doing?” Mike asked, watching as Donald’s driver aimed the in-cab hose at the cleaners in retaliation. 

“Search me.” Bert replied. “Duck’s got some bee up his bonnet and is making it everyone else’s problem. Dunno why though.”

“Something about Cornwall, I think he said.” Rex put in. 

“Cornwall?”

“I think. He definitely mentioned Truro.”

“Why would they be spiffing up the place for a city? And why Truro?”

A moment passed.

The three small engines blinked in unison. “Oh no…”

-----

The train swept into the station with far more fanfare than it usually would have. City of Truro took one look at the celebratory atmosphere and sighed good-naturedly. “It would seem that I was anticipated.” 

Bear rolled his eyes at the spectacle and its hasty decorations. A limp bit of bunting drooped from the pedestrian bridge, bobbing up and down in the heat from his exhaust. “You’re lucky we were quick. I think they’d have gotten the brass band in another hour.”

“Hmm.” Truro murmured. The steam engine had been quiet almost the entire journey, quite opposite to the numerous stories that the other engines had told from his previous visit. 

Bear rolled his eyes. This entire journey had been an exercise in being ignored, and at this point he was used to it. Truro, either through tiredness or some late-onset pompousness, had scarcely said one word to him the entire journey, while every engine, coach, and quite a lot of the passengers they’d come across had needed to recover their composure after seeing that City of Truro was coupled behind Bear, at which point they immediately began directing all comments to Truro, and none to Bear. Truro had of course gone from quiet to chatty like flipping a switch, which left the diesel feeling rather put out, even if he couldn’t quite articulate why.

His only real comfort was that Gordon or James probably would have imploded by now, the glory hounds. 

There was a half-strangled peep from the yards, and he could see Duck looking as though he’d just witnessed the reincarnation of Christ. Ah, wonderful. He thought to himself. More well wishers for engines not named Bear. 

About the only thing stopping Duck from making a beeline for the train (aside from his driver) was the signal leading out of the yard, which was set for Donald’s stone train to leave. 

The steam engine did so, slowly, deliberately clanking his way through the station at a snail’s pace, drawing comments from Duck that somehow were both rapturous and ire-laden at the same time. 

“I’d be gettin’ while ye still can.” Donald whispered as he crawled through the station. “Lest you have to participate in this muckle circus too!” 

“You might be right…” Bear trailed off thoughtfully as his driver uncoupled him from Truro. Keeping in character, the “Greatest of all Westerners” didn’t say a word as the links were disconnected, and Bear let his crew drive him into the yard and out of sight, feeling like he was also very much ‘out of mind’. 

-----

Unfortunately, things did not get any better after that. 

Bear wasn’t party to the discussion, (being ignored again, perhaps?) but apparently some men from London had insisted that Truro - a “foreign engine, of unknown mechanical provenance” - required a support engine at all times, in case he were to fail while on a journey. 

Duck had been nearly apoplectic on Truro’s behalf, but the big engine was equally furious. The two of them made such a racket that Bear managed to stay informed on the situation despite being in a different shed, and so he was not surprised when an inspector woke him up in the morning and told him to ride on the tail of Truro’s first commuter train. 

The morning passed in the now usual manner of Truro not even acknowledging that there was another engine on the train, but somehow managing to find the energy to chat with seemingly everyone else. 

Bear was beginning to feel well and truly slighted, and mentioned it to his driver as they pulled out of Haultraugh. 

“To be honest,” his driver said carefully. “He’s probably an introvert.”

“A what?”

“Introvert. It means that he doesn’t like talking to people much, or being in groups.”

Bear made a noise. 

“No, hear me out.” The driver rolled his eyes. “He probably doesn’t like it, but he’s famous enough that he’s got to talk to everyone so he doesn’t come off as a right bellend by not saying anything to them.”

“So he can act like that to me?”

“Have you shown one bit of interest in him as a famous engine?”

“… When you put it that way, no.”

“There you go, then. You haven’t tried being a screaming fan like Duck, so he thinks you’re not interested.” He paused for a moment, thinking something over. “Heck, he’s probably grateful for the peace and quiet, ha!”

With that, Bear felt a bit better about the whole situation. Maybe Truro was just shy, and nobody ever let him have a moment to himself. Maybe, he was just over-reacting. It was the early days of the Christmas rush, after all. Everyone was already busy, so Truro probably had a lot on his mind.

With that matter settled, Bear paid it no mind, and the rest of the morning went very well indeed.

Then came noontime.

-

The mid-day trains were always more crowded than the morning ones, as shoppers flocked to the stores and markets of the big city. Additionally, news of Truro’s arrival had spread by word of mouth, and more than a few people boarded the train just to say that they had rode behind a “famous engine.”

This meant that the train soon gained not one extra coach, but two, now stretching out to five carriages, plus two engines. It was a long and heavy train, and Bear soon found that he was having to help push, especially on the uphill section between Haultraugh and Arlesburgh West. 

This seemed to cause some amount of upset to Truro, whose chuffing got rougher and crosser sounding as they went along the line - although if he was actually upset, he didn’t say it loud enough for Bear to hear.

Oh, Bear thought to himself. I hope he’s not berating himself for getting old or anything. It’s really not his fault; These new coaches just aren’t as light as the ones from his day. 

This continued as they went up and down the line, until eventually, a huge lump of flaming cinders shot out of Truro’s funnel and splashed into a pond along the lineside!

“I hope that was only bad coal…” Bear said as the smoke from the clinker dissipated in the wind. “Otherwise there’s something wrong with Truro.”

He wasn’t the only one who thought that, and at Haultraugh, Truro’s driver stopped the train and began looking the engine over thoroughly. Engine and driver seemed to exchange some harsh words, but they were quiet, and nothing made it down the train. 

“Um, excuse me, Bear?” A voice said from alongside him. It was Isobel, one of Oliver’s autocoaches. “But we need to keep to schedule. Are you going to move?”

“Ah…” Bear suddenly realized the situation he was in: 

With three coaches, he and Truro could very easily fit within the confines of Haultraugh station’s platform. 

With four coaches, each engine would overhang the edges of the platform slightly, but it shouldn't cause an issue for passing trains. 

But with five, the coaches barely fit within the length of the platform, and both engines were well beyond the edge. In fact, they stuck out so far that they were fouling the points controlling the single track line at either end of the station. This meant that Oliver and his train were effectively trapped inside the station until Bear and Truro left. 

And considering how closely Truro’s driver was looking him over, that might take some time…

----

The Fat Controller met the train at the big station. “I will admit, this was not a problem I anticipated.” He began. “But there will be a solution by tomorrow, I assure you.”

“Sir,” a voice began, and it took Bear a long moment to realize that it was Truro - he’d almost forgotten what the engine sounded like. “Could the solution possibly be that I handle this by myself?”

“Unfortunately no,” the Fat Controller said gently. “While nothing that’s happened today is in any way your fault, Truro, it did have the unfortunate effect of proving, ahem, certain people, right. For the moment, you will have to run with another engine, and seeing as how Duck and Oliver are the only engines on the branch who can run with auto-coaches, Bear will have to remain with you.”

Bear couldn’t see, but Truro must have made some kind of face, because then: “And if Bear were to… become unavailable, I would have to substitute in whomever is available, like Delta, or Wendell.”

Bear rolled his eyes. Wendell and Delta were both significantly longer and heavier than he was, and he wasn’t sure if he should be flattered or insulted that this was being used as an incitement to behave. 

--

That night, the evening rush was calm enough that the train was able to go to four coaches, and there were no more issues at Haultraugh, although Bear did notice some inspectors measuring various parts of the station’s infrastructure as night fell. 

Truro continued staying mum, and while it did seem like he was just “an introvert”, something still niggled at the back of Bear’s mind. 

Whatever it was, it stayed there all night, and while Truro joked and laughed with Oliver and Duck well into the early morning, it took Bear a long time to fall asleep. 

---

The next morning, the Fat Controller’s “solution” was simply to put Bear and Truro at the same end of the train. Neither engine seemed to understand how this was any better, but the inspectors assured them. 

“It means we know which end of the train we can dangle off the platform,” said one. “You’re not carrying any passengers.”

“If we time it right, there won’t be any delays.” Said another. “We can have oncoming trains come in a minute earlier or later so the long end doesn’t block them.” 

“We’re doing this so that we don’t have to de-board only the first few carriages.” Said a third. “While still making sure that we have one end of the loop open.”

“This is called a saw-by maneuver.” Said a fourth “We’ll just have to be careful not to schedule any other long trains, lest we have to do a double!”

To put it bluntly, the engines did not understand the men’s reasoning, but indeed, when they reached Haultraugh with their five coach train, Duck was able to depart easily while they waited at the platform. 

“Well,” said Truro to no-one in particular. “I suppose they were right.”

“I worry what would happen if we run against a goods train, though.” Bear said, trying to remember how long the stone trains got. 

“Must you bring such negative twaddle into this?” Truro snapped. “The last thing we need to hear is things such as that from you.”

Bear was speechless, and when the signal dropped a moment later, he was roughly jerked into motion by Truro setting off as quickly as he could. 

--

They arrived at the big station without another word being spoken. As the passengers streamed out, Truro was uncoupled from Bear, and rolled off to the coaling stage. Bear, having a quite large diesel tank, wouldn’t need fuel for a while, and was timetabled to run the next train to Arlesburgh and back by himself. 

This duty (and its sudden lack of City of Truro) pleased him greatly, and he was practically in a good mood as he rolled into Haultraugh. 

“Mummy, where’s the steam engine?” a little boy on the platform asked, loudly, and Bear’s face fell so quickly that it could have qualified for a speed record of its own. 

To make matters worse, Bear hadn’t even pulled into the station yet, and so multiple people on the platform saw this happen. 

And felt sorry for him. 

Bear knew that they felt sorry for him because they came up to him and told him so. 

And then the opposing train was late, which meant that other people, including the child’s mother, thought that he had been so greatly offended that he wasn’t going to leave with the train until they said they were sorry. 

So they came and apologized to him as well. 

“I really am sorry,” Said the mother, after her son had apologized in a way that implied he had no idea that he’d caused offence. “He’s just really excited by-”

“Steam train!” The little boy shouted, as Duck’s train appeared around the bend. 

“Steam trains.” The mother finished, lamely. 

The boy was beside himself as Duck arrived, but his excitement quickly waned as he realized that it wasn’t the “right steam train.” Which of course meant Truro. 

“Oh don’t worry,” Duck said, as the woman gave up on not causing offence, and instead carried her child into the nearest coach. “Everyone has got a favorite.” 

“I can tell.” Bear just about kept a tone from his voice, which immediately proved to be the wrong decision, as it encouraged Duck to keep talking. 

“I mean, we can’t all be the City of Truro, right?” Duck was pushing his coaches from the back, and looked round to see where his favorite-est engine in the whole wide world was. “Where is he, by the way? He at the other end?”

“He needed coal.” Bear was almost surly, not that Duck noticed. 

“Oh! So he’s at the big shed, is he?” Duck looked thrilled. 

“Yes. Perhaps you can run with him for a bit.”

Duck’s eyes lit up just as the signal dropped, and Bear left in a hurry, before he could say anything unkind. 

----

The Big Station

“Do I even want to know?” Stephen asked, looking out of the office windows. There was a crew of men assembling a stage right next to the ticket windows. 

“Blame your sister.” Was all his father said, proving that he had something to do with this. 

“Bridget lives and works in London. How could she have anything to do with this?”

“Bridget,” His father was really trying to pretend like this wasn’t his idea. “Has made many friends in London. Friends in embassies, foreign countries, various charities and businesses… the list truly goes on.”

“And?”

“And,” Oh stop being so coy you infuriating old man. “Some of those people represent organizations that could bring money to the island.”

“Did you involve the tourism council in this?” He involved the island’s tourism council in this. 

“I did.” Oh joy, he admitted it, which means he has another scheme brewing underneath this plan. 

“Which means…?”

“Don’t you want to figure it out for yourself?” 

“No. No I don’t. I cannot think of anything I’d rather do less.” 

“Anything? What about a root canal?”

“They have anesthetic, and talking to you is like extracting teeth. Please don’t make every little detail into a teaching moment, I beg you.”

The twinkle was still there, and Stephen had a brief moment of horror at the idea that someday he would be doing that. 

“Well, if you insist,” His father went on. “The Island Council has been trying to attract foreign investment, and it would seem that they have been having some luck with it, although even I don’t know the full specifics.”

“Dad, is that stage going to be for some American huckster to hawk timeshares-”

“No, no, nothing of the sort!” Charles placated. “The stage is there for musical appearances.”

“What?”

“It’s a hearts and minds campaign. Advertising! But on a much more… subdued and charismatic scale. There won’t be any products, or grandstanding, just soothing Christmas music from around the world.”

Stephen could now (mostly) wrap his head around the idea, and approved of it (for now), but he could still feel one or two shoes getting ready to drop. “And who is going to sing this? The church choir? They can’t get through Good King Wenceslas without drifting several octaves.”

“Oh, good heavens no! That’s where your sister has come in; She knows a good number of foreign relations organizations who help organize things like this. They’ve lined up several bands with the help of their respective embassies.”

Aha, here is the bit that will give him a migraine. “So you’re telling me that we’re going to have a rotating bunch of… well it sounds crass to say it like this, but, foreigners, standing on the station platform, bellowing Christmas songs at our passengers for the next week?”

His father smiled, which was usually a bad sign. “A week? Oh no Stephen, they’re going to be here all month!” 

----

Later, Bear rumbled back into the big station. It had been a veritable cavalcade of small delays that meant he got later and later the further along he got. By the time he arrived, it was almost time to leave on the return journey, and he’d spent so much time idling in stations that his fuel tanks were almost empty. 

Fortunately, the station staff had prepared for this, and he was uncoupled from the train as soon as he arrived. He expected to be pulled out to the sheds, but his driver instead dashed away, mumbling something about the toilets. His second man rolled his eyes, and retired to the station pub for a cup of tea. Now left alone, Bear was very surprised to see BoCo of all engines roll past him with a quiet honk.

Less surprising was the irritated hiss of steam from Truro, who was behind BoCo and facing the wrong direction.    

In just a few short minutes the two engines were coupled to the train, and once the passengers boarded it was off, disappearing into the distance and leaving the station quiet. 

Or, rather it would have been quiet, if there hadn’t been a number of people tuning instruments next to a bandstand that definitely hadn’t been there an hour ago. 

“Who are you people?” He asked, more than slightly confused. There were at least a dozen of them, somehow. 

One of them, who had just finished pinning up a large… American flag? behind him perked up and did a melodramatic bow. “We’re the band!” 

“Band for… what, exactly?” 

“Christmas music!” He exclaimed, just as someone else finished writing on a large signboard. It read: 

TOMMY GERMAN & THE DANKE SCHON-DELLS 

PRESENT

AMERICA’S CHRISTMAS HITS

(sponsored by the US Embassy, London)

This made… well it made no sense, actually, but Bear had no idea of what to do other than to say “Alright.” in as neutral a tone as he could, and wait for his driver to return from the toilets. After it was clear that they didn’t have a receptive audience, the band continued turning their instruments (and goodness there were a lot of them), before deciding “Do we want to rehearse any?”

They did, and soon a woman was stood in front of a microphone, while everyone else picked up instruments that seemed like they’d be of more use to a marching band. 

Bear suddenly had a very bad feeling in the pit of his fuel tanks. I don’t think this is going to be I Saw Three Ships…

A very loud trumpet chorus reverberated through the station, followed by a much deeper instrument. 

Then… 

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas

Only a hippopotamus will do…

“what?”

[edwards-exploit]

I saw this idea and thought it looked brilliant. I'm hoping to get a few more done, hopefully one a week, but I knew I had to draw Henry first in case I ran out of time.

Henry's theme of course is flowers and nature, featuring Robins, Roses, Holly and Poinsettias. I think the flying robin on the front of his boiler is my favorite light in this drawing.

Putting green lights on a green engine perhaps wasn't the best moment of genius, but after much reworking, I managed to get the holly and leaves to stand out.

I found this LMS Pacific book in a charity shop and it is full of photos of Black Fives I can use for Henry base references. I look forward to drawing many more Henry's from it in the future. The book \/

[edwards-exploit]

Sodor Light Show

Ffarquhar 

1989

Other Stories

Other Chapters

A blur of blue, tan, and green paint, steam, and shining lights raced by in the night, a whistle piercing the cold night air. In the distance Toby tilted his head listening.

“That’ll be them,” he said lazily, stretching.

Percy scowled, “they're not supposed to be here for another ten minutes.”

Linda snorted, “They were given a clear line and told to hurry. You should have known better than to bet against the old birdbox.”

Percy sighed as Toby chuckled.

The whistle sounded, closer this time, Daisy’s horn sounding with it. The distant end of the Hackenbeck tunnel shone with light as the train raced through. The engines at the station could just make out the sound of laughter from the tank engine at the head as he raced ahead. The reason for the laughter soon became apparent as a red shape crested the hill, too far away for the engines to hear, but clearly cursing. Daisy taunting the bus could be faintly heard from the end of the train.

“Didn't Bertie leave before them?” Mavis asked, amused. 

“He did.” Diesel chuckled, “and he knows Thomas won't ever let him live it down.”

Thomas finally slowed, panting happily as he pulled into the town and turned into a tramway as the rail line ran along the street. Even among the streetlights the train seemed to glow with the number of lights strung along it, a long line of flashing colours and light. The children on the platform began cheering as they heard the tank engines bell ring out as he ran through the town. 

Finally the train rounded the bend before the station, the children's cheering from the platform reaching a fever pitch as the tank engine came into view whistling cheerfully, only matched by the cheering coming from the children in the coaches. Thomas sailed gently into the station, snow being pushed to the side by his plow as he filled the only empty line.

The tank engine stopped smoothly with a triumphant whistle, a full seven minutes early, smirking from buffer to buffer.

“You couldn't let me win this could you?” Percy said, faking upset.

“Pardon?” Thomas asked, clearly confused.

“He didn't know!” Mavis cackled, Percy blushing furiously.

“In his infinite wisdom,” Diesel explained silkily, “our saddle tank bet against Toby saying that you would be more than five minutes early.”

Thomas’s smirk returned full force as Daisy’s laughter could be heard from the other engine of the train. 

Before either could respond, Bertie pulled in, panting tiredly. “I thought she was slower than you?!” He accused.

“But still faster than you Mon Cheri.” Daisy said, mock sweetly.

The bus muttered frustratedly under his breath about blue kettles.

Thomas chuckled smugly as Sir Charles Hatt walked past him to the end of the platform, where the tall Christmas tree stood. The former Fat Controller waited patiently for the passenger from both train and bus to disembark, then he finally spoke, his strong voice carrying over the crowd. .

“It is my honor this year to welcome everyone to the lighting of the Village tree. Every year on the first of December, one city on Sodor lights their tree first, before the light is run across the Island the following night. This tradition was old when I first saw it as a child in this very town. This city and the Island it calls home have grown since then, but our spirits, and that of Christmas remains the same!”

The crowd cheered loudly, and the former controller smiled broadly.

It is my great honor to light the tree this year. 3…2…1…Light!”

The tree’s lights blazed to life, bathing the street in colour and light, to the sound of cheers, whistles, and horns.”

[edwards-exploit]

SODOR LIGHTSHOW IS NOW LIVE! HAPPY CREATING, EVERYONE!

SODOR LIGHTSHOW 2024

The winter holidays are coming, and what better way to celebrate it than by decorative lights? Many railways in the UK agree, with dressing up their rolling stock in LEDs and other festive decor! It’s a wondrous sight, where families, friends, and strangers gather around to watch the trains run along the lines in bedazzling lights.

And what other railway would fully throw themselves and their engines into the holiday spirit than Sodor? That’s right! @sodorgazette’s 2021 event is coming back, hosted by yours truly- with permission from the mods, of course! The events holds no obligations- you don’t have to sign up, just jump right in with the #sodor lightshow or #sodor lightshow 2024 tag with your art, fic, or even edits following the lightshow and other illumination themes during winter!

The event starts at 2nd of December, with the end date being 8th of January, so mark your calendars, and have a very happy holidays!

[edwards-exploit]

Gordon and Edward, Part 3

As Lady is my witness, I will never take more than 500 words to ever answer a simple ask again 🫡 Enjoy this last hurrah of hyperlexia!

Part 1: Gordon, what's your damage? 😭 / The Doylist Reason / Rent. Free. 

Post 2: Edward's Defences / Gordon's Growth

Post 3 (this post): Collision / Uh… Cleanup Crew?

Collision

Folks take Main Line Engines Edward and Gordon as a glimpse into just normal day-in-the-life stuff for them. It's not. It's the culmination of 40+ years of their shit. (From a Doylist perspective, it's also the last time Awdry would ever visit this dynamic – it's the last time any Awdry would, in a proper RWS book – and he seems to have known it.) 

So, cue scene: "Wrong Road." Here we are, late evening, chilling on a couple of sidings somewhere outside Tidmouth station. The text puts this setting in a sort of void. I’d assume our heroes are taking on coal or water or something, as after this they report to the station for their trains. But that’s not for a bit yet. Right now we’re chilling. Eddie and Gordo. Great old friends. 

All right, that might have been sarcastic if we were setting this scene in the ‘20s, but this is now 1964 or -65 (depending on just how rapidly you think The Author and his publishers beam these stories out there). Don’t be so cynical, dear reader. Time has passed. 

This is Gordon matured. In his prime. He’s an Evolved Being these days (still capitalizes random things in his head, though). He has come to recognize that, grand and mighty though he is, relationships are important. He's been reminded of this just recently, in fact, what with his old driver retiring. (How's he doing with the transition, you ask? Wonderfully. No one copes with change better than Gordon the Big Engine. No one!) And so he’s going to make an effort here to find something to chat about with Edward. Even if Edward is kind of a queer old fellow, one of his tougher relationships. They don’t often see eye-to-eye on things, you see. But Evolved Being Gordon values his relationships, so, goddammit, he puts himself out there. Truly, he has a certain respect for Edward for never being drawn into Gordon’s lead on things. Like, it’s irritating – very – but Gordon can acknowledge that this is because, in his own way, Edward is something sort of like a leader, and indeed on occasion Gordon has had cause to admit to himself, after the fact, that Edward may have been right. Once. Or even twice. Anyway, their differences make things tricky and a bit distant, but Gordon still values the relationship. Enough to make an effort.

And! Tonight, he has a commonality for them to bond over. Something that’s been bugging the hell out of him and that surely must be worrying Edward, too. 

"It's not fair," grumbled Gordon. "What isn't fair?" asked Edward.  "Letting Branch Line diesels pull Main Line trains." 

Coz diesels, amirite? 

I cannot emphasize enough that Gordon makes this conversational gambit in good faith. He knows that Edward has had insecurities about being replaced before. Edward’s been dealing with The Fat Controller letting this diesel lurk around on his Branch Line for some while. And now Gordon and the others are facing the same threat! Gordon can genuinely carp to Edward about this and fully expect sympathy! Then after that Gordon can offer sympathy, too! They have a common interest, huzzah!

Gordon is sure that tonight he is getting a good grade in Friendship. 

Then - 

"Never mind, Gordon. I'm sure BoCo will let you pull his trucks sometimes. That would make it quite fair."

Needle scratch. 

From Gordon’s perspective: WTF just happened here? Edward’s… Edward’s teasing him, isn’t he? 

Now, look. Part of Gordon’s maturation is that he has accepted that he is part of the great karmic circle of life. Some days you’re the champ, and some days you take the L and just have to graciously accept that everyone else is gonna enjoy their victory laps. He’s used to this. He can handle it with good grace, indeed. 

However: 

1) Is that… is that what’s going on? IS Edward zinging him? Gordon’s pretty sure. He’s familiar with the experience ("never trust domeless engines! teehee"). But Edward does like to take his shots with an angelically serious face, which Gordon always finds confusing and a bit annoying. No one else bothers to disguise it when they’re laughing at him, and Gordon has learned to take it well (well, take it without melting down). But he does wish Edward would be more direct about it. Because… is that what’s going on here??

2) And, if it is… WHY? What the hell just happened? You tease someone after they fucked up and you’ve won this round. Did something just happen in the time it took Gordon to blink? What was the round? How did Gordon fuck up? They were having a perfectly amiable conversation like one bloody second ago! Garrrrgh. 

(This is the whole problem with Edward, Gordon harrumps to himself. What is ‘this’, you ask? Well, if Gordon could explain it, it wouldn’t be such a problem now would it!)

Well, where he went wrong is utterly baffling to Gordon. But it’s clear as day to Edward, and pretty obvious to everyone he tells (and he seems to manage to relate this story to at least some parties within an extraordinarily short window of time…) The others may only tease when they’re in a position of strength. Edward’s playful teasing is not necessarily a sign that he’s comfortable; it’s a defense mechanism. When Edward is comfortable and relaxed with other engines, he tends to be practical-minded (job swap time!) and/or very much 100% in earnest (“I was pleased to hear your happy whistle yesterday”). Teasing is something he resorts to in order to find or restore equilibrium. So he’s not trying to signal that he’s “won” anything, but he is trying to win the exchange and turn the tables on Gordon in a moment when Gordon’s superior, dismissive attitude towards an engine rubs Edward the wrong way. Gordon thinks Edward will relate to him; they’re both steam engines who go way back, after all. Instead Edward instinctively relates to whatever engine Gordon is talking down. He probably would even if he hadn’t already made friends with BoCo - and he has. (This is another thing Gordon can’t fathom. Edward’s intuition lets him find and form friendships way faster than Gordon can comprehend warming up to anyone. To Gordon this feels like disloyalty.)

So Edward’s already lowkey annoyed - ‘Oh, Gordon’s being Gordon again’ - even as Gordon unconsciously stomps on the old, old wound that Edward still carries from the far past when Gordon would talk down him. Gordon doesn’t do that to him these days, but he’s still out here doing it to other engines and Edward dislikes it. A lot. 

But, because it is Gordon and Edward just isn’t comfortable enough to communicate with him in any sort of straightforward way, Edward once again pretends not to be bothered - even as he deliberately turns the tables on Gordon, playfully suggesting something he knows Gordon will hate as a fair solution to the problem. 

Winding Gordon up is so much easier and safer than, like, actually communicating with him. 

And so Edward does. He knows that when he pulls this sort of passive-aggressive move that it leaves Gordon pleasingly unsettled. 

What Edward may not understand is that Gordon really is genuinely out of his depth. It’s not clear to Gordon whether Edward is joking or not - and, unfortunately, wherever this notion appeared from, The Fat Controller does tend to call things Edward’s way so the fact that Edward has a bright idea really could imply that it’s going to become reality in a bafflingly brief amount of time. 

At any rate, Gordon deals with what seems to him this sucker punch out of nowhere by resorting to his old well-worn defense mechanism - his superiority complex. To soothe his confusion and his own hurt feelings (why is Edward laughing at him? how did Gordon just lose a game that he didn’t even know he was playing? what in Gresley’s name is Edward all the sudden trying to PUNISH him for?) Gordon grabs and flaunts his superior importance and breeding as a trump card: 

Gordon spluttered furiously. "I won't pull BoCo's dirty trucks. I won't run on Branch Lines."

(Gordon needs the comfort of this sort of boast, maybe needs to say it to convince himself.)

"Why not? It would be a nice change." "The Fat Controller would never approve," said Gordon loftily. "Branch Lines are vulgar." He puffed away in a dignified manner. Edward chuckled and followed him to the station… 

Of course, the fact that Gordon instantly needs to resort to boasting and putting Edward down (ho-hum; anyone here have a branch line?) only confirms to Edward that he’s always been right not to put much trust in this new amiability between them. To Edward’s eye, he barely had to tap on it before it shattered. From Gordon’s point of view, Edward just did a lot more than tap on it - stomped on it rather. Still, it’s incredibly fair to my eye for Edward to conclude that he was right not to think Gordon’s latter-day changes run very deep, and to keep up his ‘laugh and pretend not to care’ tactic even as the scene closes.

It’s completely fair. Still, Gordon, I’m sure, never gave this baffling exchange a second thought after he left the platform that evening with his train (for the first time). As far as Gordon is concerned, Edward scored one off on him SOMEHOW, Gordon harrumphed and did a little tit for tat which is his goddamn right, and perhaps they both could have been a little more mature about it but at any rate that’s over. 

It was dark by the time the trains reached the Junction, and you can guess what happened – Edward went through on the Main, while Gordon was switched to the Branch… It took The Fat Controller several hours to sort out the tangle and pacify the passengers. In the end Gordon was left, with his fire drawn, cold and cross on one of Edward's sidings[...]  "No, Bill, this lot's useless for scrap. We'll take it to the harbour and dump it in the sea." Gordon was alarmed. "I am Gordon. Stop! Stop!"  The twins paid no attention. Gordon shut his eyes and prepared for the worst[...] 

After an absolutely terrible night and, somehow, a more terrible morning with what Gordon (not autistic at all btw!) sincerely regards as a genuine attempt on his life…  

Edward scolded the twins severely, but told Gordon it served him right. Gordon was furious. 

… Gordon encounters Edward again the next day only to be told that his whole harrowing experience, complete with the disrespect and the death threats from Edward’s own weird little industrial twin terrorists, ‘served him right.’ 

Gordon: 

WHAT?????? 

Gordon thinks that, at most, he got a little shirty the night before but that Edward literally started it. 

Edward, however, is taking a cool account of every sin Gordon has ever committed, up to and including Gordon being a drama queen about this whole ‘dump him in the sea’ business (I’m sure Edward could fathom taking the china clay twins seriously if he tried - if this were Duck coming to him with this complaint I’m sure Edward could make that leap of imagination - but this is Gordon. Edward doesn’t regard the twins as all that challenging and he’s not about to make an effort right now to understand the troubles of Gordon, who just last night had turned back the clock some thirty years in order to directly insult his branch line out of nowhere.) 

Basically: All the sudden, their old truce is in tatters. Both think that it’s the other’s fault – Edward reckons Gordon’s just proved it never meant much, while Gordon thinks Edward just spat on all his efforts for no reason at all that he can see. 

I am sympathetic to Gordon’s bafflement up to this point - I understand why Edward is blowing hot and cold like this, and I think he has a right to, but this hostile confusion and mutual pain was always going to be the inevitable result, sooner or later. 

But Gordon loses my sympathy real fast when he reacts to this development by… partying like it’s Vicarstown 1922:

(Note of course that while Henry and James gave Gordon an opening, their remarks were far more neutral – Gordon takes the opportunity to tank the entire vibe:) 

"Did you see him straining?" asked Henry.  "Positively painful," remarked James. "Just pathetic," grunted Gordon. "He should give up and be Preserved before it's too late."  "Shut up!" burst out Duck. 

Okay, yep. I am vividly reminded why kind little Edward, once-upon-a-time a very straightforward and transparent character, had to go and develop this entire fucky points-scoring communication style to begin with. 

But my proposal here is that this blow-up represents an aberration from their postwar relationship. They seemed to have moved on. They had at least 15 years of relative peace. The above scene represents something of a surprise twist (appropriate for a finale): Nah, they never did patch things up! They’re as fucked up as ever! 

Now, the previous paragraph was a place where I think that I am actually reading in concert with what Awdry’s writing. I do think he intended that as a bit of a twist. I think “Edward’s Exploit” is in a way meant to be a callback to those days, a deliberate “Edward’s Day Out/Edward and Gordon Part 2: Electric Boogaloo.” 

This whole book is, I think, meant to be a new as well as a final word on Edward’s character development. Hence, he shows us an Edward who throughout the book displays a new level of assuredness. We see his dynamic with Bill and Ben, introduced here for the first time. We’re shown that, far from fading away, he’s fast becoming besties with one of those newfangled diesels. And - well, you couldn’t really crown Edward’s character development without revisiting the Gordon dynamic, now could you? “Wrong Road” shows us the playful, teasing, never-fear-these-days-I-can-handle-Gordon-with-a-smile Edward we already met for the first time in “Cows,” but then for this go-’round Awdry takes it one step further: Edward no longer has to couch his disapproval of Gordon’s attitude indirectly, but can assert himself in a direct conflict. Edward’s never canonically scolded anyone before, but now we see he’s able to manage both titchy little saddletanks and Gordon Himself. The next time someone says Edward is a static character, I swear to Lady I am going to chuck this book at their head. That was a very deliberate character arc. And I love it! Lookit my sweet boy crack some skulls! Awesome! 

… it is, however, very depressing to me that we had to explode the apparent Edward+Gordon truce in order to achieve this. 

Mind you, Awdry thinks he resolved that conflict by the end of “Exploit.” I cannot emphasize this enough. Yes, Gordon reverted to his old tricks when Edward leveled up and told him off – but by the end of the story Edward’s wildly popular exploit has shut him up, so yay! It’s all good! 👍 👍

…

Oh, wait? You don’t think it’s so good? You feel like maybe you could use a bit more, before you felt like these two were on new and solider-than-ever ground? Like maybe this relationship needs a bit more than Gordon merely shutting up? Like you’d wish it to be deeper than Gordon apparently resigning himself to the fact that Edward is Always Fuckin’ Right, and Edward Always Fuckin’ Wins? Like maybe we haven’t really addressed the underlying problem here at all, maybe jealousy and pique and hierarchy was always their obstacle from Day 1? And so they can never compete their way out of this mess?

Yeah, weird. I feel like that too, somehow. 

However, this is what canon gives us. We can add some more to it, sure. But I do think it’s worth just… sitting with this for a while. Processing things. These are two characters who are flawed but who have such great qualities, as well, and there are these obvious points of connection and potential understanding, and you just feel like this could be a much richer relationship, instead of merely a decades-long tug-of-war. I mean, we go on to see it with Gordon and BoCo. (All right, obviously I’ll never admit BoCo is ‘just a diesel Edward.’ But for purposes of this particular essay, I’ll just say that… he’s not not a diesel Edward, y’know? They’re certainly goddamn similar enough that it’s incredible how close Gordon becomes with one of them and how, despite so much time and opportunity, he will forever be held at arms’-length with the other.) That relationship seems like one of genuine mutual support. Indeed the other remarkable thing that goes down in "Wrong Road" is that for once Gordon not only connects to someone without relying on the "benevolent patron" role, but indeed that he is the one who needs help – but he actually responds to it well and, instead of condescending to BoCo, he shows respect. And it seems so obvious that Gordon and Edward’s could have been like that too, but instead they’ve spent so long bothering each other despite a fair amount of good intention on each side. 

That’s how it goes sometimes, I guess. 

But hey, you know what. Maybe their relationship improved later, off-screen. Like maybe it had some space to breathe once The Author stopped poking around and fuckin’ writing about it. 

I’ve heard of wilder things. 

Uh, Cleanup Crew? 

"All three engines are now great friends." 

I think this famous conclusion is true – at least, it was true in 1945, at the height of their optimism and unity. However the tension in the Gordon-Edward leg of this triangle, seen from the beginning of canon, only ever gets worse. 

Honestly, the notorious TTRE stuff doesn’t strike me as all that bad. I read TTRE and I’m actually like, yeah sure, I can see how these two would move on to become friends. Honestly I can see it at the end of TTRE a lot more easily for Gordon and Edward than for Gordon and Henry - I feel like Gordon’s actually been a lot worse to Henry. Most of the red flags in this relationship – the aggressive ostracizing of Troublesome Engines and Edward’s backbiting and Taking Control of the Narrative – come later! And look, Gordon and Henry have their rough patches too. Henry the Green Engine is a terrible low point, Gordon was a flaming dumpster fire in his whistle story. But it’s also clear that Gordon and Henry do a lot of relationship repair, off-screen. We see continually how joined at the hip they are, we see them genuinely enjoying each other’s company, and it makes sense because we know they have interests and personality traits in common. 

In contrast, even though Gordon and Edward’s relationship seems more recoverable in theory, in practice nearly every interaction between them ranges from uncomfortable to actively hostile. There is never any repair, there’s only ever Edward managing to keep Gordon in check, and when you are constantly playing defense you might be able to make some sort of old working relationship creak and clatter on but you are never really getting close to each other either. If Henry needed an apology from Gordon, and I expect he did, then Henry spoke up and he got one. Edward is tougher than Henry, more independent. Which is good for him but one result from never moaning or complaining to Gordon about Gordon’s past offenses is that Gordon, oblivious and proud, is never going to take responsibility or make amends for them. Usually in real life I’d just be like 'good riddance!’ but this is fiction, lol, and despite this one major flaw Gordon truly is so valuable as a friend. But there’s no evidence to me that he ever really became one for Edward. Edward doesn’t hate him, I think sheer necessity and his capacity to understand others makes him genuinely fond of Gordon. But he doesn’t trust him, and because he doesn’t trust him he provokes Gordon to forever give him fresh reason to not trust him, and because of this no matter how well they can work together or chit chat this never becomes a mutually supportive relationship and, like… that’s sad. That’s real sad. By the end of TTRE I’m like ‘aww, this friendship could be cute.’ By the end of MLE I’m like ‘Family counseling, stat. Or just communicate solely through intermediaries for the rest of your life, that could work too.’ 

But Jobey. I don’t accept this. I imagine them as genuine friends and/or I straight-up ship them and LA LA LAAA I can’t heeeear youuuu. 

You’re perfectly welcome to do so, lol. I'd like to take a sad song and make it better, too. 

The one fortunate thing is that, after Main Line Engines, there is plenty of blank space where anyone can continue or add to the 2+4 story. I think one can plausibly fill in a happy ending. Gordon still has some character development after MLE. Edward doesn't, but I think he ought, and I can see a couple areas where he could. To make a happy ending for this dynamic convincing three things still do have to click into place. In no particular order: 

The narrative actually has to validate the good parts of Gordon's ethos (not the selfish parts - but the subversive/rebellious/engine autonomy parts) as a necessary complement to Edward's ethos.

Edward has to be willing to let himself be vulnerable in front of Gordon. 

Gordon needs to need Edward's help and then actually express gratitude afterwards. 

Shouldn't be too tough, honestly! The first has to be done by we the transformative-work fans; canon never did and never could. The third is especially easy because we do finally see Gordon doing this in Main Line Engines and again in his second book, High Speed Engine – it's just that both times it's with BoCo, lmao. Gordon's there. Gordon's ready. He just needs a plot point opportunity. To be honest the second is going to be the toughest nut to crack. Again, Edward is not shown to develop after MLE. For this dynamic, he's gonna have to. Just a smidge more. Unlike TVS, I don't think "Gordon is humbled" is going to be enough of a wandwave to make this right. I'm not interested in blame, I'm interested in them finding a groove that works for them. A relationship that doesn't need to make either of them smaller for it to work.

And it should be possible, to somehow get those boxes checked. Some factors are already very much in their favor: 

The Author is no longer sticking a mic in their smokeboxes and publishing the shit they say about each other every few years. 

We saw them have normal, comfortable interactions in 1952. We already know a level of mutual trust is possible.

Presumably more and more engines are coming to Sodor, making this older bond rarer and more important to them. 

They're good friends with each other's friends. 

Gordon's growth clearly takes some cues from Edward's example. Their outlooks are converging, not diverging.

(If we need to wait this long for something to facilitate this) Gordon getting knocked off the express in 2011 radically changed his lifestyle. 

So, I don't feel too despairing about this relationship. Hell, I kind of like to imagine that by the time the century turns they're able to laugh together and even mutually pitch caricatures of their old relationship missteps to the new writers lol. 

And their proposed smoothing-out and reconnection would have big thematic resonance. The early conflicts in canon often had to do with the Edward ethos and the Gordon ethos. Part of the reason those conflicts taper off is because both the characters mature, of course. But part of the reason is just that the external circumstances change. The world whole environment of the NWR changes, and when it does these two ethos are incorporated into a whole. They begin to merge and complement each other. Indeed, arguably a lot of the success of the railway's culture is because everyone figures out a way embrace both. Innit? I think so. And if you buy that interpretation (Awdry didn't, lol, but what does he know?) then this long and winding 2+4 road actually ends up as a very nice story. Best story never written, perhaps.

But, for all the promising signs for the post-MLE era, I would still love to see more fan content within the original RWS canon timeline that represents the high degree of textual tension between them (and uniquely between them) from the 1920s to the 1960s. It's messy as hell, I hate the discomfort and would-you-two-dumbasses-just-COMMUNICATE of it sooo much, at the same time it's extremely compelling. Very good food. Even if things have improved, I hope they're still sometimes Problematic and Passive-Aggressive. I hope newbies are occasionally stuck with them in the sheds when they trip over a sensitive old topic and these two oldies don't even look at each other but the temperature still drops like a falling snowcap and the most oblivious of the newbies is like "Uhh, guys? ? ? Real weird vibe in here!" 

And Henry and BoCo just look fuckin' exhausted, lmaoo. 

[edwards-exploit]

JAMES WINS! HE'S THE BIGGEST BOYFAILURE OF THEM ALL!

Congratulations to our spledid red engine! Or.... Our condolences?

propaganda is allowed. proof from both tvs and rws count.

[edwards-exploit]

Here's @edwards-exploit's Tangmere

Might use them to remake my awful looking Rebecca lmao

[edwards-exploit]

Christmas Story

Haltraugh Station, November 30, 1984

“Late again…” Duck chided gently as Oliver rumbled in with the mid-day train. 

“Oh button it!” Oliver snapped from in-between Isabel and Dulcie. “I can’t help it if the train’s standing room only!” 

This was becoming a standard back-and-forth, and Duck rolled his eyes. “Ah well, at least it can’t get worse, eh?” he griped sarcastically. 

Oliver didn’t even dignify that with a response, and Dulcie sighed in relief as a large group of passengers departed en masse. 

In short order - although not short enough for Oliver’s already-late schedule - both trains set off down the single track line in opposite directions. It’s not even December yet! Duck thought to himself. Where on earth are these people going? 

It was a legitimate question. Over the years, the number of passengers had grown, but this year - specifically this Christmas, was well above average, and both engines were already feeling the strain. Trains were getting heavier and fuller, and the number of passengers trying to press in made each station stop take ages - and on top of all that, some days they now had to take extra coaches just to meet demand, which meant that they had to run around the train because they weren’t auto-coaches, which made them later still… It was a vicious cycle!

When Duck arrived at the big station, the Fat Controller was waiting for him, his pocket watch conspicuously on display. “Duck. Good afternoon.”

“Afternoon, sir.” Duck said, hoping the controller wouldn’t notice-

“Ten minutes behind time today.” Damn and blast. “Almost a record, albeit one we don’t want, hmm?”

“Sir…” Duck began, plaintive.

The man held up his hand, cutting him off. “No, no, I know.” He said, eyeing the stream of passengers departing the train. “Ticket sales are up almost twenty percent since the summer. I never thought we’d have too much of a good thing.”

“That,” Duck replied. “Is one way of describing it.”

Pocketing his watch, the Fat Controller sighed, leaning on his cane as he did so. “Don’t take this as an underestimation of your skills, but you and Oliver need help. Would another engine be of more use? Or just more coaches?”

Duck sagged in relief. “Oh goodness, both!” He said quickly. “There’s not enough of us to go around as it is. Donald and Douglas can’t help much, what with all their goods trains; and heaven forbid if we need to help them - it throws the entire day into chaos!” 

“I see.” The Fat Controller said seriously, just as the next group of passengers began to make their way out of the station building. “I will see what arrangements can be made. Expect something by tomorrow.”

Duck would have said something more, but the Fat Controller turned around, and was swallowed up by the crowd almost instantly. 

-------

The next morning, the Fat Controller’s ‘arrangements’ arrived, in the form of Bear, resplendent in shiny Western Region Green, and a rake of chocolate-and-cream Mark 1 coaches. This pleased Duck to no end, and Oliver found it all quite amusing. “It’s like we’ve gone back in time about twenty years!” He joked.

Bear smiled warmly. “That is not lost on me. Shall we make like our appearances and have this branch all ship-shape and Swindon fashion?”

And they did. It took most of the day, but with an extra set of buffers, and - mercy of mercy, more coaches - they were able to keep on the schedule all of Saturday, and were even able to put on an extra midday train for Sunday. 

It was enough to make an engine optimistic, and Oliver marveled at the lightened load on his buffers as he picked up a load of stone from the Small Railway. “It’s wonderful! He said to Rex. “We’re actually running to time. Who’d’ve thunk it?”

“Don’t say that!” the small engine hissed. “You’ll jinx it!” 

“Oh don’t be like that!” Oliver laughed. “Maybe it’ll be a Christmas miracle. Can’t jinx that!” And he chuffed away down the line. 

-

Rex took a passenger train up to the top of his line, came back, had a drink of water, and managed to goad Mike into taking a permanent way train instead of him by the time Oliver came back, several hours late, missing his autocoaches, and redder than a tomato.

“I don’t want to hear it,” he growled as his driver pulled him up to the water tower. 

Rex said nothing. 

“Of all the rotten luck!” Oliver grumbled anyway. “Bear gets called away on a train up to the mainland, and so I have to take his passengers - which is fine, but his coaches aren’t auto-fitted so I’ve got to run around them, and now Duck is stuck with all four of ours and I have to use the others which aren’t all day because we’re out of place. Of all the-grrrr!” He hissed angrily, steam billowing around him.

Rex and Bert looked at each other with barely concealed bemusement. Rex stayed mum, but as Oliver’s driver waved his arms in a futile attempt to clear the steam away, Bert raised an eyebrow sagely. “He did warn you about jinxing it.”

“GRRRRRRRRHHG!” Oliver vanished inside a cloud of his own steam. 

----------

Stephen Hatt entered his Father’s office. It felt somewhat strange to be in here - he’d spent most of his life in this place, but now that his father had announced he was planning to retire soon, the knowledge that it would be his made the entire room feel… odd. 

“Ah, Stephen, do come in.” His father said, staring intently at a precarious pile of wooden blocks. 

“You called for me?” He asked, before looking at the tower again. “And what is that?”

“It’s called Jenga.” His father said, carefully removing a block of wood from the base and placing it on the top. The tower wobbled unsteadily as he did so. “It’s a children’s game. You take the blocks from the bottom and put them on top. You lose if it falls down.”

“Why are you playing it?” 

“Your aunt knows the creator - I think they’re in the same ladies’ group -  and thought it would be a fun Christmas gift.” The tower wobbled again, and his father stilled himself for a moment to let it subside. “But I have also found it to be a thinking tool.”

“Thinking tool?”

“Yes.” Very slowly, another block was extracted from the bottom. “Churchill did something similar during the war, you know.” The block was deposited on the top. “He’d have a bucket of mortar and a pile of bricks and would build a wall in the back garden of Number 10 whenever he needed to relax.”

“Knowing what I do about Churchill, he seemed like an odd fellow.”

Another block was wrested free, and his father looked up from the tower. “I met him once. Had I been twenty years older, he and I would have been friends, I’m sure. Your Grandfather would definitely have been, had he gone into the military.” The block was deposited on the top, giving the tower a somewhat lopsided appearance. 

“I don’t know what that says about you and granddad then.”

“As you age, you must become eccentric on your own terms, lest it be thrust upon you against your will.” He looked up again. “Just think, I could be playing with dolls right now.” 

Stephen didn’t quite know what to say to that, and watched as another block was slowly pulled out. The entire structure seemed to be resting entirely on one block, and it was astounding that it hadn’t fallen down. “Did you call me in here to play with blocks, or was there something you wanted?”

“Ah yes.” His father put the block down on top, and once the tower had stopped wobbling, addressed him. “What do you think we should do about the Little Western?”

Ah. It suddenly made sense. “We need another engine.” 

“That sounds wonderfully simple.” His father left the tower, and began rooting around a large cardboard mailing box that was in a corner of the room, eventually producing a much smaller one labeled JENGA: THE PERPETUAL CHALLENGE. “Do we just ring up the Midland region and ask for one?” 

“Honestly? Yes.” He said. “Simple is sometimes the best.” 

“And you’re sure they’ll have one that can fit down that little branch?”

“Oh, it’s not for the branch.” 

That brought his father’s head up. “Oh?” 

He took a seat on the plush visitor chairs, careful not to disturb the desk or the tower. “The Little Western needs an extra engine for peak services - preferably a small mixed traffic engine - and we have three such engines - four, if you count James.”

“The other three being the Twins and Bear, I assume?” 

“Mmhm.” He watched as his father tried reaching into the little Jenga box, before eventually turning it upside down. A small piece of paper - probably the instructions - fluttered out. “The problem is that when we’re in a situation where an engine like Henry is being overhauled, our mixed traffic engines are the first to be called to cover for him.”

“So you propose we need another dedicated mixed traffic engine?” his father said, unfurling the little piece of paper. 

“I certainly think so.”

“Hmm.” His father made a noise as he inspected the instructions. “That would make more sense.”

“What?” 

“This is a two player game.”

“It took you this long to realize?”

“Mmhm. Why don’t you pull a block?”

“Seriously?” 

“Yes. I’ve seen how high your eyebrows have raised. You have a go at it then.”

Stephen rolled his eyes, and went for a block at random. The tower wobbled, and stilled his hand. 

“Are you sure that bringing in a new mixed traffic engine would solve the problem?” His father chose that moment to get back on topic. 

“What?” Stephen asked as he hunted for a block that wasn’t so precarious. “Yes. Another engine on the main would ease traffic there when it’s not on Little Western.” Aha. There was a loose block, and he pulled it out and set it on top with a minimum of wobbling. 

“And what happens when traffic picks up on both?” His father strode over and plucked a block out of the second from the bottom row with almost no effort. “Christmas doesn't happen only in Arlesburgh, you know.” 

Stephen goggled as his father set the block on top with a plink, the tower not even moving a little. “You’re cheating, and you know something. Out with them both.”

“I can’t cheat physics,” His father’s eyes were fucking twinkling. “And everything I know, you know. You just haven’t put it together yet.” 

“What would I do then?” Stephen asked as he pulled on another seemingly-loose block, wondering how on earth his father came up with this insane idea for a metaphor. “Do you think London would give us any engine that wasn’t a right terror? They’d have Oliver jumping at shadows within a fortnight.” The block he pulled at was stuck fast, and he had to go for another. “And I don’t think we can just go down to Dai Woodham and buy a steam engine off him - not unless we want to do it out of pocket.” The tower wobbled as he set the block on top, but it held. 

“No, I don’t think we could do that.” His father admitted, as he ran his finger down one side of the tower, looking for loose blocks. “But, you are on the right track.”

“What? Is there a steam engine you know about? How could we get it?” 

“As a matter of fact, there is.” There was a single block remaining at the bottom of the tower, and with a dramatic flourish, his father pulled it out. 

The entire tower dropped down vertically onto the surface of the desk with a clack, but didn’t fall over. 

Ignoring his son’s agog look, Charles Hatt smiled beatifically and placed the block atop the tower. “Sometimes, the best move is not the most obvious.” 

Stephen was still speechless, and Charles took the time to walk back over to the mailing box. “You know, Barbara didn’t only send me that Jenga game. She actually heard about it when discussing another game her friend was making.” He hefted out a much larger box - it was green, with gold lettering on it. “This one isn’t even sold yet, but she was very kind to send us a pre-production copy.”

“Great Western Railway Game?” Stephen read the box. “What does that have to do with anything?” 

His father responded by opening up the box and producing a few game cards. They were rough around the edges, clearly hand-cut; a pre-production sample, it seemed. He moved over to the desk and laid them out in front of Stephen. “We already have some pieces.” 

The first card said “Paddington” and had a picture of a 57xx on it. 

The next card said “Salisbury” and had… was that Oliver? It was. Looking at the first card showed that it actually was Duck on it. 

“Where are you going with this?” Stephen asked. 

“I,” His father said with infuriating placidity, “Am not going anywhere with this. You, however, might do well to go to Crovan’s Gate later.” He put down the last card. “Truro” was emblazoned on the top, a City class engine underneath. 

The pieces suddenly fell into place for Stephen. “You’re an irritating old man who speaks in riddles.” He told his father as a bewildered grin spread across his face. “Why didn’t you just tell me?” 

“Because come January I won’t be here to tell you.” His father said, placing the cards on the desk's cluttered surface. “This will all be yours to command, however you choose.” 

“I suppose you’re right.” Stephen stood, collecting his coat. “And I should go now, to make those arrangements.”  He made it almost to the door, before he stopped. “You know, it’s not January yet.” 

“And?” 

He motioned to the abandoned Jenga tower. “Two player game?” 

Charles Hatt smiled broadly. “I’d be honored.” 

With that, two generations of Fat Controller - one current, and one future - stepped out of the office, headed towards the platforms. 

Behind them, the slamming of the door caused the Jenga tower to collapse, sending blocks scattering across the desk, and burying the engine cards. 

-------------

Later that night, the Fat Controller met Duck at the big station. From several platforms away, Gordon couldn’t hear what was being said, but he could tell that it was important - perhaps Oliver was finally being told the importance of being on time? 

A jaw-dropped expression turned into a giddy smile, one that threatened to crack Oliver’s smokebox clean in half. Clearly something juvenile, and Great Western (which was assuredly the same thing).

Curiosity now assuaged, Gordon put the strange workings of Western Tank Engines out of his mind, and thought nothing more about it. 

A few minutes later, Duck steamed in with the next train. He pulled up right next to Oliver, who immediately began babbling about whatever the Fat Controller had said. 

Again, Gordon pointedly ignored them, until Duck yelled so loud that he could be heard over the general din of the station, and then whistled for so long that his driver had to take him outside, thinking that something was wrong with the whistle! 

Finally, when the uproar ended, James found time to speak up. “What was that all about?” 

Gordon sighed. “I don’t know, but I imagine that we will find out in short order whether we like it or not.”

[edwards-exploit]

Back in Bournemouth West

November 1947. Maunsell’s finest meets Bulleid’s newest.

A little oc fic for @konnosaurus. Consider this a late birthday gift!

---

The wind brought November’s biting chill, and 926 was only protected from it by the warmth of his firebox- thank goodness for that. He really can’t comprehend how humans go without it in this weather. Still, 926 thought, as he felt his fireman tended to his fire, people and rolling stock must work for the good of the railway, after all.

Bournemouth West was bustling as usual- yes, up trains going to Bournemouth Central, and he whistled goodbye to a departing sibling of his; Midland engines coming in through the SDJR, surely there for their little hotel; shunters in the yards marshaling coaches and parcel vans; and passengers boarding and departing from their trains. Steam hissed from all the platforms as engines came and went, and 926 let himself be immersed in the music of his railway’s workings- if only to distract himself from the boredom building up in his boiler, as he awaits for his departing train- at the very least, the mousy little shunter has already took his coaches.

A bit of pride was swelling up as well, as 926 observed the proceedings. All of these engines coming together like well oiled gears in a machine, running the railway like clockwork. It’s something beautiful to him, and 926 will gladly say that he’s part of the finest railway in all of Britain.

Which is the thought of most engines, really, who work up and down their lines- pulling trains, shunting coaches, banking… No matter who they are, they believe that their railway is the best, but 926 hasn’t seen any evidence of that hogwash. No, he only sees what was in front of him, and what was in front of him was the Southern Railway’s rails that have been very carefully maintained.

WHOOOT-WHOOOOOOOOOOT!

A truly frame shaking whistle trumpeted throughout the station, which 926 has learned to recognise as one of Bulleid’s engines, after six years of existing alongside them. Those engines can’t help but make an impression wherever they go, 926 thinks, and with good reason!

Air-smoothed (not streamlined! There’s a difference, you see, and 926 made that mistake, once. Never again,) and powerful, 926 couldn’t believe his awestruck eyes when the Merchant Navies first rocketed down the tracks, pulling loads that he would have struggled to pull with ease. They came at the right time- the war was difficult for all of them, as they were in the front lines- 926 still shuddered at the sound of planes overhead. But the Merchant Navies rose to the occasion, and he wasn’t surprised that it was announced that the Bournemouth Belle was to be handed over to them from the Lord Nelsons.

If the Southern Railway was the finest railway in the world, they were the finest engines of the railway. Still, he glanced at the next platform over, at the very least to identify which one is arriving- was it 21C1, or another of her twenty strong siblings?

Steam billowed through the station, as the Bournemouth Belle arrived at a sharp 2:52- right to time, as expected, and 926 sized the engine up. It was not, in fact, a Merchant Navy at all- his buffers read 21C167, signaling that he was part of the Merchant Navy’s younger siblings- the West Country? The Battle of Britain? Well, in any case, they were smaller in size, but larger in number- and 926 considers them on the same tier as the Merchant Navies, as they’ve been dedicated workers the moment their doyen ran under their own power.

21C167 came to a smooth stop, grinning to himself as the passengers left the coaches, and 926 idly wondered if the engine couldn’t be older than a few weeks old- certainly, most young engines had that grin on their faces when pulling their first few trains.

926 was prepared for a lot of things, but he was not prepared for 21C167 suddenly glancing up at him, and eyeing him wonderingly. “Hullo,” said 21C167, still with that annoyingly charming grin, “Are you going to talk to me, or are you just going to sit there with your mouth open?”

Regrettably, 926’s mouth worked faster than his brain, “Don’t they teach you manners, back in Brighton?” He says dryly- and to his surprise, 21C167 only snickered, but he still felt the need to apologise, “I’m sorry, that was beneath me. I’m 926, of the Schools class. You must be 21C167.”

“Tangmere.”

“Pardon?”

21C167- er, Tangmere donned a slightly annoyed scowl as his eyes flicked to his side- a polished nameplate was stuck proudly there, “I’ve a name! The men gave it to me, and I quite like it! ‘Sides, I see you have a name too, er…” The young engine trailed off, squinting at 926’s own nameplate.

926 sighed magnanimously, and figured, for a fact, that this engine mustn't be very old at all. “Must I teach you your letters, Tangmere?” He asked, and a little part of him enjoyed Tangmere’s scowl deepening- but he quickly relented to his senses and sighed. He shouldn’t treat a fellow engine like that, “It’s Repton.”

“I know,” Muttered Tangmere sheepishly, “It just took me a minute. Can’t see too well, this up close. You know how it is. ‘S a little… blurry.” He defends. In fact, 926 doesn’t quite know, but it’s improper to point it out, so he let it slide.

“Hmph. Well. Is this your first outing to Bournemouth?” 926 asked, steering the topic to more proper pastures- it is not unusual for engines to talk idly at stations, after all, and he knew the Bournemouth Belle’s departing train wouldn’t leave for another hour or two. “I’ve not seen you here before.”

Tangmere smiled, pride still dancing on his features, “It is! I’m pulling the Bournemouth Belle. I’m usually based at Ramsgate- ’s real far from here. But it’s not my first express, believe me.” He sounded like he’s mustering all his humility to say his words.

Annoyingly charming is really the only phrase to describe the scene. “I believe you,” He conceded mildly, “Your lot is seen pulling all sorts of trains, I hear- no offense.” He quickly adds- despite the Bulleid Pacifics being proper express engines, the title is… unofficial, according to the board. They’re mixed traffic, and while 926 does not scoff at goods trains, he’s aware that goods engines… they’re not as respected, you see.

But to his relief, Tangmere brightened up instead, “That’s right! I got to pull my first goods train the other day! The trucks gave me no trouble at all, no sir!” He reported.

Something about that sentence…. Well, it gave 926 pause. “Your first goods train… You must be very new, then, for your first.” He notes, and Tangmere shifts on his axles, a bit shyly.

“Well, I just went to service in September,” He confessed, all the while smiling ruefully, and 926’s eyebrows raised a little. He did figure that Tangmere’s young, but just two months! “But I’m very capable, really!” There was a defensiveness in Tangmere’s voice, and 926 decided to soothe Tangmere’s worries. It would be cruel otherwise.

“I know. The Bournemouth Belle, it’s the heaviest train on the route. You must’ve handled it with ease, seeing that you’ve still got steam left.” He says, with real awe in his voice- the Lord Nelsons were always a little red faced, when they pulled to the station, but Tangmere was looking like he was running light engine!

Tangmere visibly relaxed to 926’s relief, “Thanks, Repton,” and 926 blinked in surprise, yet Tangmere continued, “When I was in Waterloo, Channel Packet warned me about the load, and I was rather worried, but I managed! It’s like my other trains, really.” He earnestly says, “But ‘s not as nice as boat trains. Do you like boat trains?”

The question threw 926 off a little, who was mainly expecting to be a listener to this conversation, not an equal, still, it would be unbecoming of him if he didn’t answer. And besides, Tangmere’s got a refreshing frankness about him that made 926 want to answer, “I like all my trains,” He claims and he liked to think he was doing it humbly, “The Southern Railway needs all of their services running well, after all.”

And it’s true- delays and accidents are the enemy of railways, and 926’s proud to say that he’s got a clean record, and even prouder to say that he’s never shirked work. “You shouldn’t play favourites,” He advised a wide eyed Tangmere, “You should work hard on all your trains.”

“But I do!” Exclaimed Tangmere, and 926 thought he was being a little dramatic, “I just like seeing the docks, when I pull boat trains. ‘S why I like passing by Southampton, really. And the boats are nice, too! I just look forward to pulling boat trains, that's all.” His words were tumbling out of his mouth, and 926’s still not quite sure how he still had steam.

“I see,” 926 really didn’t but he once again, generously, let it slide, “... In that case, I look forward to pulling the Royal Train.” He admits, and Tangmere smiles.

“See! You like Royal Trains, I like boat trains. We both like our trains,” Tangmere sounds like he’s making a reasonable sentence, despite sounding so… simplistic. “It’s as easy as that.”

926 smiled wryly. “In that case, tell me about your first boat train.” He challenged, and he quite liked the way Tangmere’s face brightened, despite himself.

“Oh, ‘s nothing special, really, but-!”

“Excuse me, 926?” A voice behind him interrupted, and 926 looked back- and he can’t help but feel annoyed, when he sees his new coaches being shunted to him by an Adams B4. “Your train is ready.”

“I see. Well, another time, then.” 926 graciously said, but paused in surprise when Tangmere looked down, a disappointment evident in his face, “Oh, chin up, Tangmere. We’ll see each other again yet. You did splendidly on this run, after all.”

And Tangmere’s eyes widened, and he grinned shyly, “You really think so?”

For the first time in the conversation, 926 smiled back. “I do.” He sincerely says, readying himself as he eyed his guard about to blow his whistle, “Well, I suppose I should get ready for my guard. I hope I’ve been good to you, Tangmere. Be a good engine, now, and wait for your next train.”

Tangmere’s shy smile became more lively, and he laughed, “Oh, there’s not much else I can do! G’bye, Repton!” He whistled, and 926’s guard whistled too. With his own whistle goodbye, 926 chuffed off with his up train back to London, thinking about the young express engine.

[edwards-exploit]

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