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joezworld · 3 days ago

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Christmas Story

Five Days Until Christmas

The engines of the big shed tried, both individually and as a group, for several days to puzzle out exactly what had occurred between Bear, Duck, and City of Truro. Their results were… mixed.

“I don’t know what I did…” Duck said, his stare vacant. It seemed like he was looking through Edward. “He just… It’s like it wasn’t even him.”

“Why do you care?” Truro scoffed. “It’s a brutish monstrosity and always has been. I say it’s for the better that the facade has finally come off and we know the truth.” He missed the way that James’ expression cycled through several different levels of outrage before settling on “astonished and also furious”.

“Mate, I wasn’t even there.” Oliver said to Thomas across the platforms at the big station. “But if you ask me, Truro and Bear seem to be on the wrong wheel with each other. Thing is, I dunno if this is just some leftover stuff from the sixties, or if they actually offended each other.”

“Maybe,” BoCo said to Delta, one night in the diesel shed. “If you and I couple onto each end of him, we could threaten to pull him in half unless he tells the truth about why he’s such a bellend.”

“I know that you all like keeping to yourselves,” Toby crept slowly through the yard at Knapford, looking at each truck in turn. “But does anyone know anything about what’s going on with Bear?”

“You must understand,” Gordon said, eyeing the Small Railway’s engines with deadly seriousness. “I wouldn’t come down this piddling branch line unless the circumstances were dire. So start talking.”

Notably, nobody talked to Bear during this time, but that wasn’t for a lack of trying…

At every opportunity, he dodged his would-be interrogators with a shocking level of ease:

“Bear, may I-” Gordon called across the platforms at Barrow. Bear took one look at him, and reversed backwards across the bridge to Sodor. Fittingly, it raised behind him, and Gordon lost sight of him behind the rigging of a fishing boat.

“Oi. We need to talk.” James tried being assertive. Bear growled at him so loud that the dust shook off the rafters at the big station, cowing him into silence.

“Bear, is everything-” Edward didn’t get his sentence out before Bear and his train roared out of Wellsworth, sprinting up the hill and out of sight. “-alright…?”

BoCo got more success than most. “Do you want to talk?” He asked, while shunting the wagons for the Flying Kipper. He didn’t get a verbal response, but the quiet pain lingering in the back of Bear’s eyes said more than enough.

Late on Friday night, they held a deputation around the turntable in the big shed. “Does anyone have any idea what we’re to do?” Gordon asked.

“I don’t know if we’re going to have a formal process for this,” BoCo began. “But I’d like to suggest finding Truro and extracting the information from him.”

“I’ll second that.” Delta mumbled under her breath.

Gordon closed his eyes. “As much as I want to chide you for being brutish, that may have to happen… later.” He took a steadying breath. “Does anyone have an idea for now?”

“Why don’t we involve the Fat Controller?” Thomas had stayed over at the shed specifically for this meeting. “He’d sort this out right quick.”

“We tried that.” James said, remarkably serious. “He’s concerned with what’s happening, but it’s so close to Christmas that he doesn’t have the time to handle it.”

A mutter of agreement rolled through the shed. “Isn’t that the truth.” “Why couldn’t this happen in July?” “Aye, we’re so rushed we havenae even seen the poor blighter.”

“And,” James continued once the voices died down. “He’s retiring come New Year’s. There’s other things that need to be done just to “manage the handover”, whatever that means.”

“It means,” Gordon read between the lines. “That this will be young Stephen Hatt’s first crisis as controller.” He looked around, all business. “Now, I have no doubts about his skills for the job, but now that Bear is, ahem, “willfully separating himself” from Truro and Duck, it means that the current Fat Controller is performing triage during a difficult situation. After the twenty-fifth, things may change. Hopefully for the better.”

There was a long and pregnant pause. “It also means,” Gordon continued, now gravely serious. “That we have between now and Christmas to solve the issue ourselves.”

“Durin’ the busiest three feckin’ days out o’ the year?” Donald sounded exhausted. “In what time?”

BoCo spoke up. “We didn’t survive this long by doing things that were universally pleasant. I have trust in everyone here to make miracles happen.” There was a long pause. “And if for some reason we fail, I hope that I can trust you all enough to lie to the Fat Controller on my behalf about what happens to Truro. Now everyone get some sleep, it’s the Saturday before Christmas, and we are going to be extremely fucking busy.”

With that, he closed his eyes and went to sleep.

The other engines, Delta excepted, looked at each other, completely unsure if he was joking.

Saturday morning found Charles Hatt in his office before the dawn. There was no “weekend” today, just “busy” and “busier.”

Everyone seemed to want to go everywhere, and the schedule was being changed literally all the time. He spun in his chair, taking a moment to observe the lights of the station bouncing off the roof of an HST he’d managed to finagle out of York. It was bound for Manchester before the day even began, and the crush-loaded train would be a distant memory before the hour was over. The next platform over had Wendell, his region’s sole class 47, looking quite amused to be on the lead of a passenger train - this one to Kirk Ronan, to meet the very earliest of the Irish Ferries. Next to him was an entirely different 47, wearing ScotRail colors. That one was off to Glasgow, another deeply packed train. An argument could be made that the island would be empty by the time they left, had both mainland trains not disgorged nearly a thousand out-of-town passengers between them.

Finally, on the far platform, was a problem masquerading itself as an enigma. City of -

Bzzzt - “Mister Hatt, Gordon Drury to see you.” His secretary’s voice buzzed through the intercom, taking him out of his ruminations.

Gordon Drury was the second son of a farmer, and despite now working as the sole paid member of the Island Council’s Tourism and Travel Directorate, he still rose at well past five in the morning. “Charles,” He said, his gruff voice not matching the tailored suit he wore. “What’s so urgent you called me here before the sun?”

Charles was in full “Fat Controller” mode. He didn’t want to be dealing with this right now, and was quite irritated that he was. “Gordon, I know that you have made great strides in your… management of the Tourism Board-”

“Directorate.”

“Whatever.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “However I feel that your “volunteer administrators” and I have not been working on the same page.” Gordon was the only paid member of staff at the Tourism Directorate, but a great many local luminaries volunteered their copious free time, noted lack of effort, minimal coordination, and overestimated skills.

“What did they do now?” There wasn’t a question involved. They both knew what it was about.

“Last night, they claimed that “performance art” was a sufficient excuse to play their music naked.”

“I see.” Drury put his head in his hands, his large frame bending over in disbelief. “How’d that go over?”

“They were arrested, Gordon.”

“Of course they were.” The directorate needed more paid staff. It also needed smarter volunteers. Gordon Drury would also like to be able to plant money trees on his brother’s farm. It felt more possible than the others. “I’ll speak to the embassy.”

“Speak to whomever you like.” Charles said bluntly. “But they’re not coming back.”

“Of course.” Damned Germans.

There was a lull in the conversation, both men deep in thought. “I could… source another band, if you want.”

“Gordon.” Charles was blunt. “I am this close to having the Wellsworth Youth Choir perform in the station on Christmas day. I know that we have an agreement, but the - well I hesitate to use the word bands - that you and your volunteers have sourced are among the worst things I have ever heard.” He fixed the larger man with a steely look. “If you manage to find one at such short notice, it will be done by you personally, and they will demonstrate their skills or lack thereof to me. Understood?”

“Aye.” The two men shook hands on it, and the meeting was over. Gordon rose to leave, gathering his coat. “Say, if you don’t mind me asking: have they been that bad? For you to call me out here at six in the mornin’ on the Saturday before Christmas and be in such a state. I know the whole… naked thing is a bit much, but…?”

Charles took a deep breath, and felt himself deflate a little. “I have seventeen people staying in my home for Christmas, nine of whom are under the age of ten. My sister and daughter are arriving today, and while they have assured me that they and their respective broods will be staying elsewhere, that means that I will be playing host to nearly thirty people, most of whom are either children or acting like children.”

He paused, looking out the window. “Then on a professional front, several of my engines seem to be having what I could charitably describe as an interpersonal meltdown, the line to Arlesburgh has been beguiled by derailments and permanent way failings, and,” he said with great finality. “I am retiring next week, so I have to ensure that my son - who is totally qualified for this position, is kept completely in the loop, lest he be thrown headlong into what I assume will be a simply gruesome chapter of the next Awdry Book.”

Another pause, and he ran his hand through his hair. “Which, by the way, is now the subject of a television series on ITV. Apparently my father is portrayed by a little wooden figurine. I’m told that it’s very popular with children, which would explain why every grandchild, niece and nephew I have is suddenly very interested in trekking out to Ffarquhar and meeting Thomas.”

He finished, then paused for a second, before slumping back into his chair, utterly spent. “I apologize, that was out of turn.”

Gordon Drury tried to hide his wide-eyed stare. “No, I should be sorry. I didn’t realize all that was happening. I’ll let you know about the band, double quick.”

He left before Charles could say anything else.

The door didn’t even shut before his secretary stuck her head in. “Sir, your sister called. She says that she’s going to be on the 07:30 from London.”

“Thank you Emmaline.” He dismissed her, idly paging through the schedule on his desk, trying to work out what train that was.

Outside the window, unnoticed by Charles, the HST departed with a roar of Valenta motors. A minute later, the ScotRail 47 powered up and left as well. Both trains seemed unusually eager to leave, considering the weight of the coaches. Behind them at the platforms, Wendell seemed slightly anxious, eyeing the signal bridge, waiting for his turn to leave.

Next to him, City of Truro radiated hostility.

Arlesburgh - Later

The sounds of an argument wafted on the breeze as City of Truro arrived at the station.

“Oh, what now?” he said to himself, quietly.

Ever since that horrid diesel had left, the branch had somehow become even more of a travesty than it had been before. The tank engines were losing cohesion seemingly by the hour, especially the 5700 class. He had apparently been under the impression that the monstrosity was his friend, and was quite put out that this had been untrue.

“How is any of this my fault!”

“I don’t know, but he certainly didn’t say anything like that to me!”

He rolled his eyes as his driver uncoupled the coaches. The Collett-designed locomotives always had interpersonal problems like this. How he longed for the days of Dean and Churchward types being en vogue. They knew how to work - twice the work done with half the chatter.

“What? I’m supposed to read his mind?!”

“He’s not exactly the strong and silent type Duck! James knew that something was wrong, and he’s a bleeding moron!”

And then there’s the 4800 class. Not a drop of the original Armstrong design was left in him after Collett got his dirty fingers on the design. Even worse, this one has a brain, and the resultant opinions that he thinks he is entitled to have, as though he were a top link express engine. Bah.

“Gentle-engines, please.” He rolled up to the water plug with all due grace. “I know that things are perhaps a bit more… tense than they ordinarily would be, but it is nearly Christmas, so let’s all have some of that good cheer and merriment, hmm?” His driver set the hose in the tank, and promptly made himself scarce, meandering off to wherever it was that Drivers went when not serving their engines.

“Truro – ” The Pannier really was upset over this, goodness gracious. It will take some work to correct that once the trial period is done and he’s properly settled onto this line. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t help but feel like this was my fault somehow.”

The 4800 furrowed his brows, likely ready to say something unhelpful. Truro cut him off. “Duck. Montague. I know that you feel slighted by this, but I can assure you that anyone who would have a grievance with you is someone you’re better off not knowing. You did nothing, and that is all that’s important.”

There was a scoff from the 4800. “Huh. Nothing is about right.”

“What?” Even with eighty years worth of good upbringing, Truro was momentarily baffled by the seeming non-sequitur.

“That’s what Quackers over here did. What I did too. Nothing.” There was a concerningly determined look on the tank engine’s face. “All this time, Bear is looking like the world is crashing down on his cab and what did we do? Not a blessed thing.”

“I assure you that-” Truro tried to steer the conversation away from the point he was making.

“No, I assure you that we didn’t do anything.” The branch line runt continued. “You’ve got an excuse, being cooped up in a museum for lord knows how long, but-”

“Twenty two years.” It escaped Truro before he could even acknowledge it was occurring. The acid in his tone was barely tamped down.

The oik continued on like he hadn’t even heard him. “We’ve known him for almost twenty years now. Goodness sake, I escaped from his ilk more than once back on the mainland. He’s not a subtle engine - something was wrong, but I figured that it was just him and you not getting along well… Lord knows that I didn’t get off on the right buffer with him back then, and I’m not City of bleeding Truro.”

He paused, looking deeply troubled. Truro’s brow furrowed, and he tried to figure out how to make him shut up.

“But…” Nevertheless, the backwater country branch line tank engine continued on, as though his opinion was wanted or valuable. “I saw that something was wrong, and I didn’t do enough to help it.” He paused, a sardonic laugh escaping him. “Of course, I did something at least. I tried to talk to ‘im.” A sharp gaze was fixed on the 5700. “You, on the other wheel, didn’t notice anything beyond the tip of your enormous nose unless it was related to him.”

“I-” The pannier tried to retort. Truro’s mind spun its wheels - he really hadn’t expected this level of independent thought from a rural tank engine.

“No, I’m not done yet.” The farmer’s express kept talking. “You didn’t even notice! He was coupled to Truro and you didn’t even look! Clearly something was going wrong, and what, you spend all night grumbling that he messed up the yard? Right after he almost falls off a bridge? No wonder he yelled at you! You didn’t even consider-”

The Pannier looked like he was going to cry, and Truro’s slipping mental wheels abruptly found traction as an idea flashed through his smokebox. “Oilver. Stop. This isn’t being productive. Nobody is to blame for that beastly-”

“Beastly?” The tank engine shot back. “His name is Bear. Don’t think that you’re completely blameless here, boy-o. I know that we don’t have the best history with diesels, but it’s not his fault! You could’ve made an effort to be friends with him, it’s not the sixties anymore!”

It was probably the casual “boy-o” that did it. The casual implication that they were equals. “Oliver, I do hate to be blunt like this, but shut up.”

The two tank engines looked at him, mouths agape like Shakespearean groundlings. Now assured of at least some temporary silence, he continued, tone serious, gaze fiery. “I don’t appreciate being spoken to like that. While I appreciate that it isn’t the nineteen-sixties anymore, we are still the engines of the Great Western, the last scions of Brunel himself. There is a dignity and composure that we must uphold at all times, even in private.” He paused, mostly for dramatic effect, so as to sufficiently wow the proles. “What we have been doing over these last few days has been anything but that, and so I am asking you, as an express engine, to conduct yourselves using the best practices of the Paddington shunters. Is that acceptable?”

Two agog tank engines stared back at him, and he took their silence for acquiescence. A moment later, his driver and fireman emerged from wherever it was they’d gone, stopped the flow of water into his tender, and drove him off to the coaling stage.

Duck and Oliver could only stare as Truro took on coal, and was turned on the table. He’d never spoken to them like that, ever.

“Did- did he just tell us to conduct ourselves like Paddington shunters?” Oliver asked, not quite believing what he’d heard. “Did he tell you to conduct yourself like a Paddington shunter?”

Duck, who had been allocated to Paddington station’s fleet of shunters for thirty two years, said absolutely nothing. He continued to say nothing for quite some time, long enough that he eventually had to leave for his next train.

His driver grumbled all the while, pulling hard on the sluggish throttle and reverser. “Fuckin’ big engines running their goddamn mouths, I outghta give that one a poke in the nose for putting him in state like this.”

Alice and Mirabel were equally furious, and quietly plotted amongst themselves as to the best way to pay out Truro.

Duck meanwhile, was in a haze of memories mixing with reality. Truro really did tell him to act like a Paddington shunter, didn’t he?

Didn’t he?

Didn’t he know?

Didn’t he remember?

Didn’t he see?

Paddington shunters were the best of the best - what every other shunter on the Great Western aspired to be in the very realest sense. All the major termini tried to emulate them: Cardiff, Bristol, Birmingham - even Plymouth. They had developed the Shunting System over decades, ensuring the fastest and most efficient service into and out of the capitol. They could strip a train into its component wagons and coaches faster than most engines could ever dream. Their yard had been a haven of efficiency and poise - it had taken a direct hit from a German bomb to make the trains late.

But the big engines never cared, did they? Except for a few, a most serene and righteous few, they saw the shunters as nothing more than worker bees, scurrying about with no rhyme or reason. They weren’t worthy of respect, and if it weren’t for the general good upbringing and demeanour that Armstrong, Dean, Churchward, and Collett had built into them, they likely would have treated the shunters as poorly and pompously as the dreadful Eastern pacifics that befouled King’s Cross.

To ask “as an express engine” was a polite way of saying “do it now, I’m not asking again.”

To ask for someone to “conduct yourself using the best practices of the Paddington Shunters” was a deeply insulting way of saying “I don’t want to see you do it, and I don’t want to hear you do it.”

On their own, these didn’t mean any offense. If an engine had said that to Duck in the middle of Paddington station, he would have taken that to mean “I’m asking you extremely politely to go away and stop talking.”

But they weren’t in Paddington station, were they?

Duck wasn’t stupid, nor was he sheltered. Despite rarely leaving Paddington, he knew exactly how other engines, other railways, and even other (lesser) yards on the Great Western viewed Paddington.

By-the-book

No-nonsense

Precise

Efficient

Obsessive

Fussy

Officious

Irritating

Imperious

Haughty

Dislikable

City of Truro thought that he wasn’t worthy of respect, only contempt.

Duck - who had served thirty two years at Paddington, five of which were as the yard’s senior-most engine, was not worthy of his respect.

And the reason why that had to be true, was that in any other yard on the Great Western, what Truro said was not “Please go away and be quiet”.

It was: “How dare you speak to me. Go away and never let me see you again. Now, you worm.”

Oliver had never been a firm adherent of the shunting rules, or the seemingly mythical status that some engines gave to the shunters at big stations, but he knew damn well that Truro hadn’t said anything nice.

Seeing Duck wandering up and down the line, looking like he’d lost his best friend, was further evidence, and it made his boiler pressure skyrocket.

At noon, Duck’s driver took a half-hour lunch break, and when he returned to duty it was on Oliver’s footplate. “Wretched engine, great plodding brutish thing…” he grumbled as he worked Oliver’s throttle.

“What’s the matter with you?” Oliver asked as they pulled out of the station.

“This is the first time all day that my job has been easy, that’s what!” The man snapped.

“I’m sorry?”

“That big superstar engine went and flapped his gums and now Duck’s in a right tizzy.” He continued. “Mark my words this is gonna cause an accident if some eejit isn’t paying due care!”

Oliver could sympathize. “It’s worse than that - Truro is going to run engines off this branch at the rate he’s going. First Bear, now Duck!”

“Oh wonderful!” The driver groaned as they rolled south towards Haultraugh. “That whole nonsense was because of him?”

“That’s what I think, but nobody can get him to talk!”

Behind Oliver, Dulcie rolled her eyes deeply.

“What?” Isabel asked.

“Have you ever considered that we’re living inside an episode of The Archers?”

“What?”

“Nevermind…”

Oliver and his driver continued their discussion all the way to the big station, and by the end of it, they were convinced that something needed to be done.

Unfortunately, they were of very different minds.

“I’ll just pop in and talk to him. Won’t take more than ten minutes.”

“No! Do not bother the Fat Controller about this!” Oliver’s eyes were almost popping out of his smokebox as they rolled into the big station.

“Why not?” It’s an issue that needs to be addressed!”

“We can address it! Engines solve their own problems!”

“Duck’s in tears, Bear is covering himself in spray paint, and Truro tried to glare a hole in your boiler when we passed him at Haultraugh,” the driver said, ignoring the choked laughter of the fireman (who wanted nothing to do with this soap opera, thanks very much). “I’d say that your plan is going poorly.”

Oliver spluttered in disbelief as the train came to a stop, and yelped as he felt his driver’s feet leave the cab. “Where are you going- DON’T DO THAT COME BACK HERE!”

“Grow a pair of legs and stop me then!” the driver said, almost cheekily, and ran off to the station offices. Oliver’s helpless whistle echoed behind him.

He darted into the staff only portion of the station through the baggage handling doors, dodging trollies of luggage and freight as he went. The “shortcut” to the upstairs offices was up the massive freight lift in the back of the station building, and through the second floor storage areas. He rode upstairs in the company of a rolling cart filled with mail bags, and nearly bowled over the clerk collecting it when the doors opened.

Shouting sorry over his shoulder, he slipped through an unmarked door hidden between shelves of British-Rail branded crockery, and emerged into the carpeted environs of the station offices. A series of oak doors lined the hallway, each proclaiming a different name and title. After a moment’s walk, he stopped in front of the door labelled “C. T. Hatt - Regional Controller”. He took a second to brush the coal dust off, made sure that he looked as presentable as he could, and walked into the Fat Controller’s waiting room. The door shut behind him with a solid click.

Seconds later, fifteen feet further down the hall, a door labelled “PRIVATE - C. HATT” swung open. Charles Hatt stepped out of his office, his son Stephen, and Gordon Drury in tow.

“I must say Gordon, I didn’t think you would be able to find anyone on such short notice.” Charles said as they made their way towards the stairs down to the platform level.

“I didn’t think we wanted him to,” Stephen said, under his breath.

“Hush.”

The three men continued down the hallway, descending the stairs and entering the station proper. A small side room, part of the first class waiting room, had been closed off, with an assistant station master guarding the entrance. “Right through here, sirs,” he said as they approached.

They entered the room to find it empty, save for some instrument cases strewn along one wall. Large hat boxes were leaned up against another, and there were small satchels and suitcases pushed under a table.

“I think they went to change.” Gordon Drury put in helpfully. “They have costumes and everything.”

There was an audible slap as Stephen’s hand met his face, and Charles resisted the urge to groan out loud. “Gordon, what… genre of music did you say this was again?”

“Oh, it’s, uh, Mexican music. Mariachi or however you say it.”

Stephen’s other hand met his face, but Charles found this somewhat heartening. “Mexican? Wherever did you find them? I haven’t heard music from that country since I went to the Olympics there.”

“Oh, they’re on tour of Western Europe. Their embassy is doing a “hearts and minds” campaign,” Gordon explained as the door opened again.

There was a noise from Stephen yet again, as a group of seven men entered the room. To a man, each one wore an elaborate black suit, covered in brightly colored frills, ruffles, and ornamentation. Each one wore an exceptionally broad hat that Charles vaguely remembered being called a sombrero, and carried some kind of acoustic instrument. There were several guitars of varying sizes, an accordion, a pair of violins, a huge bass about the size of the man carrying it, and a trumpet.

Stephen seemed paralyzed in shock, so Charles strode forward to greet them. As he did so, he noticed something… intriguing about the men, that he couldn’t quite place.

“Charles, Stephen,” Gordon Drury continued. “This is the band. They call themselves, well it translates to English as “The Sound of Mexico”.” He chuckled, before moving to introduce each band member in turn. “Does what it says on the tin if you ask me. This is their leader, Senor Pintarić, guitarists Senor Kovač and Senor Paskaljević, violinists Senor Vukov and Senor Kodžoman, Accordionist Senor Dugonjić, and their Bass Player Senor Gomez.” There was an almost one hundred percent certainty that he hadn’t pronounced a single name correctly.

As he went down the line of men, shaking each hand in turn, Charles began to feel more and more like he was the butt of a rather elaborate practical joke. Meeting Señor Gomez as the last one seemed to crystalize it in his mind. “Gordon, only one of these men is Mexican.”

“Yeah?” There seemed to be some kind of communication breakdown. Perhaps he’d suffered a stroke and was now speaking in tongues.

“Gordon, how can they be a Mexican Mariachi band if only one of them is Mexican?”

“Ah!” The leader, Senor Pintarić, spoke up with an accent firmly from the wrong side of the iron curtain. “Is no problem. We play Yu Mex! Is Mexican music from heart of Yugoslavia!”

“I beg your pardon” floated into the air over Charles’ shoulder, as Stephen seemed to crash back to reality.

“Is very popular music in homeland!” Senor Pintarić continued, with the members of his band straightening up and looking their best. “Yugoslavia very independent, take culture from everywhere, not just America and Russia! Mexican culture, very important to us!”

“I see...” Charles really didn’t. “I take it that’s where Señor Gomez came from?”

“¡Si Señor!” The man in question responded.

Well. Charles thought to himself. One can either roll with the punches or take them on the chin. “All right, fair enough. Let’s see how they play.”

“Right!” Gordon Drury sprung into action again, addressing Senor Pintarić. “You mentioned having a Christmas song in English?”

“да наравно - Yes of course!” The bandleader issued a quick order in his native tongue to the rest of the band, who picked up their instruments with zeal. “Један, два, три, четири!”

The string instruments picked up a jaunty tune, joined by the trumpet a moment later. It seemed that the accordion player could also play the guitar.

¡Feliz Navidad!

¡Próspero año y felicidad!

¡Feliz Navidad!

¡Próspero año y felicidad!

I wanna wish you a merry Christmas!

From the bottom of my heart!

The worst thing about this, Charles mused to himself as they played, is that they’re actually quite good.

About an hour later

Light and cheerful Mariachi music filled the station. Both Stephen and Charles gave each other a look that spoke volumes as they stood near the bandstand on platform one.

The clock struck 12:30 with a single chime, and both men pulled out pocketwatches. Activating the stopwatch feature on each, both current and future controllers watched the hand sweep around the face.

One minute, two, then three and a half minutes passed before lamps appeared in the distant darkness of the tunnel. Another forty seconds passed before Gordon emerged in a cloud of steam and smoke, and the midday express finally rolled into the station six minutes and twelve seconds behind schedule.

Gordon’s brows furrowed as he saw the timepieces. “Blame the bridge tender, we’ve been late since Vicarstown.” He grumbled, before his eyes swept further back on the platform and found the bandstand. “What on earth-?”

Whatever he said next was carried with him to the end of the platform, the coaches sweeping past Stephen and Charles with a squeal of brake shoes. The first class coaches came to a stop directly in front of them.

Porters materialized as though by magic, swinging open the doors to the plush Pullman cars, revealing-

“Grandpa!” Stephanie, one of his many grandchildren, burst out of the train car like a racehorse from the gate. She was quickly followed by several other children, all moving too fast to see who was who, and then well behind them, his daughter Bridget.

“Hi Dad,” she smiled, sweeping him into a hug once Stephanie had let go.

“Hello, my darling,” he smiled. “Happy Christmas!”

Any further greetings were cut off by a voice from inside the carriage. “What, I don’t warrant a hug?” His sister Barbara stepped out of the doorway with a wry smile. “I see how it is now. Perhaps I shall just get back on the train and let it take me away to someplace-”

He cut her off with a similarly-sized hug, and they all spent the next few minutes collecting the hand luggage and children - both of which were many in number - before making their way down the platform towards the exit.

“I say, what in the world is that?” Bridget asked as they approached the bandstand.

“Your fault,” Stephen poked her in the ribs.

“Mine? I’ve scarcely been here ten minutes! How could I have…” She and Stephen continued arguing, a sound that Charles had long ago learned to tune out.

“It’s good to be back,” Barbara threw an arm around his shoulder. “Say, did you ever get my package? You never told me.”

“Oh yes, I did. That Jenga game is quite relaxing, actually. I haven’t had much time to play it, but I assure you that come next week I will have all the time in the world.”

Barbara laughed at that, and then had to quickly turn and chase after a wandering nephew who was getting too close to the platform edge.

Charles turned to help, but she had it under control before he could take two steps. Crisis averted, he took a long look along the platforms, instinct refusing to allow him to leave the station without checking for calamity.

While nothing immediately presented itself, his eye caught on something in the far distance, beyond even the shape of Gordon at the end of the platform.

It was Oliver, coming into the station with another commuter train. He looked deeply conflicted, in a way that was unusual for him, and his eyes were scanning the station like he was looking for something.

As the train got closer, Oliver’s eyes snapped onto him, and he caught Charles’ gaze like he wanted something. The look in his eyes said it was somewhat important, maybe moreso.

Then it was gone, hidden in a plume of steam from Gordon.

“Come on Granddad…” It was Stephanie, yet again, pulling on his hand and ushering him into the waiting room. Charles made a mental note to follow up with Oliver at a later point, before following his granddaughter into the station.

The next day

Sunday was usually a slow day - fewer trains, shorter trains, and a couple of extra goods services running in the daytime. A special once a week train ran early in the morning, carrying the faithful and the religious to the newly-restored Catholic Cathedral in Tidmouth in time for morning church services. The Anglicans had their services later in the day, timed to correspond to the usual train schedule, and the usual times at which people woke up.

Of course, the Sunday before Christmas was not an ordinary Sunday, and so the train waiting at the platform was not the usual rake of Duck and his autocoaches.

Instead, City of Truro stood placidly at the platform, billowing steam in the cold December air, while five Mark 1 coaches stretched behind him. As befitting an engine of his stature, he was thoroughly polished to a mirror finish, and a small “Cathedrals Express” headboard sat above his eyebrows. He looked up at it with something approaching fondness. The Sudrians had managed to… acquire the original headboard that had adorned Western Region trains in the 1950s, and after finding it in a condition they only described as “broken”, they’d made it “better than new” by modifying the crest to include a GWR logo in the centre of the bishop’s hat.

While he wasn’t one for modifying such a historical artifact, he did have to admit that it was a damned good looking headboard, especially when placed on an engine such as him and not some plebeian tank engine.

The lights from the waiting room were dimmer than the lights on the platform, and the glass in the windows became very reflective as a result. I look good today, he thought as he admired his reflection. The billowing white steam hid the few imperfections left by some of the less intelligent cleaners, and the snow that was just starting to float down from the clouds was swirling around him in a thoroughly roguish way. I look very good indeed.

Inside the station, two sets of eyes looked out at the engine. “Fucking wanker,” one said.

“I don’t know how, but he looks wrong like this,” said the other. “James doesn’t look wrong, when he’s preening.”

“‘S cause James isn’t a wanker.” The first said.

“Fair enough.” There was a pause, punctuated by a slurp of a mug of tea. “You ready?”

“As I can be.”

The drivers on the Little Western weren’t stupid. They’d figured out that something was going on, even if they didn’t know exactly what, and that Truro was likely at the center of it. This lowered their exceptionally low estimations of him to previously unheard-of levels. He was already difficult to fire, and drive, and keep steaming, and he treated them like scum on his buffers, but now? He’d made Duck upset, and there would be retribution.

Duck’s usual driver, still smarting over his inability to speak to the Fat Controller yesterday, had volunteered outright. There had been some debate over who would be the fireman today, with no-one wanting to officially step forward for this duty… until the start of the shift, that is.

When the “Cathedrals” stretched to its maximum length, there were a few different options for who would pull it. Occasionally Donald or Douglas took it, although Bear was a more common choice. James had taken it more than once, and he’d delighted at having a headboard. The most usual option, however, was for Duck and Oliver to doublehead the train, with all of their autocoaches in the train, plus any others that would be needed. It was a “bonding thing” as Oliver had once put it, and everybody seemed to enjoy it, even the hopelessly-fussy passengers. The few times Christmas had fallen on or near a Sunday, the “bonding” was increased moreso, and the train was decorated with Christmas frills and decorations, much to the delight of the passengers, engines, and coaches alike.

However this morning, while Duck and Oliver were in the process of being polished for the run, Truro had apparently browbeat them into giving him the train, and took the coaches he’d been using for the last month, leaving all the autocoaches stuck in the shed. Of course, the engines disputed this, but the manner in which they did so was so halfhearted that it raised concerns with the cleaners, who raised the alarm in the station, alerting the footplate crews to the unfolding situation.

After that, so many men clamored to be the one on Truro’s footplate that the stationmaster threatened to go off of the seniority list, and eventually one of the engine inspectors was chosen to be the one wielding a shovel.

The guards were equally upset, and despite the unpleasantly early hour, every single employee on the train was a seasoned railway man with many decades of experience.

As the clock struck six in the morning, the passengers started arriving for the train’s six thirty departure. The decorated condition of near-Christmas runs of “The Cathedrals” was known to passengers at this point, and so there was a significant amount of disappointment as people filed onto the starkly appointed Mark 1s. Several even made a comment about Truro, usually in the context of “wherever is Duck and Oliver?”, and the engine’s frown deepened greatly each time.

“I say,” he remarked to nobody in particular. “But you would think that they want to be hauled around in squalor.”

“Well,” the driver said curtly. “Some of us like the ‘squalor’.”

There was a confused chuff. “Who asked your opinion, driver?”

“Who asked yours, you inelegant excuse for a tea kettle?”

Truro whooshed steam aggressively, scattering the passengers on the end of the platform. The stationmaster was on him in a second. “What kind of a display is that? You’re going to spray people while it’s below freezing? You stupid great engine!”

“But- he-!” Truro tried and failed to defend himself.

“No!” bellowed the stationmaster. “This is your one warning for the day! Don’t make me get inventive!”

He stalked away to help a passenger who had tripped as he ran from the steam, leaving Truro furious and confused.

Half-past six in the morning approached with agonizing slowness, but eventually the time came. The train was packed to the gills with Christmas visitors and residents alike. Some weren’t even going to church, but were using the train as an early morning connection to the big city.

The clock struck six thirty with a single bong from the station clock, and the last passengers were quickly ushered aboard. A short distance train like this had little luggage, and so the porters were milling about on the platform while the coaches were quickly shut and locked behind the last stragglers. Leaning out of the window of the last coach, the guard slowly but surely waved his green flag. He didn’t wave it very far or very hard, and it could scarcely be seen behind the porters. He put his whistle to his lips, but didn’t actually blow it.

From the cab, the driver and fireman looked back, seeing the flag wave from their elevated vantage point. Moving quickly, they advanced the controls, and the train set off down the tracks.

Screeeeeeeeech

For about five seconds, before the brakes came on with a squeal, throwing passengers off their feet in the coaches. “The guard hasn’t said to go yet!” Truro bellowed. “What sort of a driver are you?”

“What do you mean he didn’t blow it?” The driver shouted back. “Didn’t you hear it?”

“He did no such thing!”

“Oh great!” The driver said melodramatically. “He’s arrogant and deaf! You heard it, right?”

“Of course!” The fireman exclaimed.

Truro rolled his eyes. “You’re hearing things that aren’t there.”

“What are you doing?” The stationmaster came out of the station at light speed. “Go!”

“There hasn’t been a whistle yet!” Truro shouted.

“Yes there was, I heard it inside!” Came the retort.

“You’re mistaken.’ Truro said firmly.

“Mister Truro sir,” The lead coach said quietly. “He waved the flag, but-”

“Be silent, Termite.” Truro snapped, before turning his attention to the stationmaster. “There. Was. No. Whistle!” He ignored the insulted gasp that ran down the train as the all-first-class rake processed what was just said - a Termite was an old GWR term for a third class coach.

The cab radio crackled. “What in the bloody hell is going on up there?” The guard shouted through the connection. “I said go!”

Everyone turned to look at Truro, who looked bewildered. “But-but-there wasn’t!”

“Yes there was!” Everyone shouted back.

The driver reached up and released the brakes. “Yes. There was.” he said firmly before advancing the throttle.

Truro was outraged, confused, and more than a little embarrassed. He tried to set off, to minimize his error, but the hand at his controls must have been slovenly and ill-trained, because the throttle was advanced so far forward that his wheels slipped and spun all the way out of the station, jerking the train wildly.

“What’re you doing up there!” Came a shout over the radio. “We’re getting thrown around here!”

“Easy does it!” The driver yelled, rapidly reducing steam, causing the wheelslip to stop but the train to jerk again. “This is Swindon’s finest? Banging your passengers up and down the line?”

Truro growled, but otherwise didn’t dignify it with a response.

Haultraugh

The train banged and clattered into Haultraugh station amid a veritable cloud of insults. The coaches yelled and snapped with each bump, the driver was heavy-handed on the throttle, berating Truro for each wheelslip, and the fireman made only a minimal effort the get the coal into the firebox, leaving the cab a dusty mess and the fire a poorly-burning pastiche of what it should be. Dirty black exhaust emanated from Truro, staining his paint and dulling his brass. The radio hadn’t let up since they left Arlesburgh, a torrent of complaints spewing from the guards in the coaches.

The passengers in the station recoiled at the state of the train, and even before it stopped moving some turned around and left.

“Ach jaysus!” Burst out Donald, who was stopped at the signal on other platform, running “light” down to Arlesburgh to pick up a stone train. “What’re ye doin ye great beastie? Them’s coaches, nae trucks!”

Truro scowled at him. “I don’t need any help from you, you Caledonian lout!”

“An what’s tha’ supposed to mean?!”

The argument soon became blistering, with the coaches joining in on Donald’s side.

“-oh yes, we’re just all third class biddies to him!”

“-what I’m saying is that if you like Scotland so much you should go back to it!”

“-does anyone know the postcode fer Swindon? I’m gonna crush ye up and mail ye back in a box!”

“And we’ll help!”

“Typical lower class aggression! Not a drop of emotional intelligence anywhere!”

The few passengers still on the platform had very quietly made their escape - a brave few had gotten onto the train, but most had followed the first group and made a mad dash for the station carpark. Quite a few of those on the train joined them, and by the time the stationmaster came out, screaming bloody murder at Truro and Donald alike, the train had gotten quite emptier.

This was very apparent to the guard, who barrelled up the platform to yell at Truro as well. “You great mouthy disaster! Half the bloody train has run off because you can’t keep a consistent speed for five seconds! We’d better get going before they all run off!”

Truro turned a particularly bright shade of puce at that, and then very quickly turned a bright red when the guard pulled out his flag and whistle and made a great show of using both right in front of him.

With an infuriated whistle and a roar of steam, Truro practically ripped the throttle from his driver’s hand, and tried to take off down the line. The coaches and the guard screamed at him to stop, and it took a lot of squealing brake shoes just to slow the train to a crawl. As the second to last coach passed the guard, a door popped open, and he was able to jump on board.

“You maniac engine!” The guard shouted down the radio as he landed in a heap on the coach’s carpet. “You’ll pay for this!”

Truro simply grew angrier still, and bumped the coaches. This sent anyone not sitting down flying, and startled the coaches so much that the brakes came off, and the train shot forward down the line.

The driver was quick to apply the brakes again, and the train continued its jerky, stop-start journey down the line to Tidmouth. Before it had even left sight of the station, the stationmaster was back in his office, placing a very serious phone call…

Truro stormed into the tunnel, more furious than he’d been in a very long time. The NERVE… He bellowed within the confines of his own mind, too angry to even think coherently. The train was far lighter than it should have been, considering the pull on his couplings when they left Arlesburgh, and it only made him crosser still.

His smoke was dark and sooty, and each chuff was a deafening thunderclap inside the tunnel bore. He stormed over the summit and down the grade towards the big station, bursting out the other side just in time for the first ray of sunlight to crest over the horizon, straight into his eyes.

Hissing like a wounded animal, he jerked the train and shut his eyes, never once thinking of slowing down as they bucked over the switch at the start of the double track line into the station. Anyone out in Tidmouth’s affluent northern boundary in the predawn hour would have been treated to a phenomenal show of smoke and steam as Truro charged down the line towards the station.

To make matters worse, the line here was actually icy, the morning dew having frozen to the rails. Ordinarily not an issue, Truro’s rage and already difficult to master throttle had the driver increasing and reducing steam at wild intervals. The coaches, now firmly against their engine, were of no help, and bounced on his buffers like the most uncivilized group of trucks imaginable. The bumps were so bad that even the headboard mounted above his eyebrows was rattling on its posts.

In the coaches, the remaining passenger clutched at anything sturdy. They were praying harder now than they would have at church, and felt very close to God indeed.

Far away, Charles Hatt could just barely see a puff of smoke making its way across the horizon.

“Granddad, do you have to go to work?” Jack, his youngest grandson, whined in the way that young children could only do. “It’s almost Christmas!”

Stephen opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by Barbara, who was having faux-melodrama with her breakfast. “Jack, am I not enough for you? You need Grandpa too? Not just Auntie Barbara?”

Jack giggled, and was soon joined by the rest of the children, who flocked to Barbara’s theatrics like iron to a magnet.

“We see you all the time, Aunt Barbara!” Stephanie protested. “We never get to see Grandpa!”

“But he’s so old,” Barbara protested, causing Charles to quirk his eyebrow in mirth. “Not like moi, who is a picture of health and vitality!”

“Barbara,” He said evenly. “Have you been telling the children that you’re their aunt?”

“Isn’t she?” Stephanie said, turning to face Charles and missing the wide eyed look that Barbara tried to stifle.

“Well,” Charles said with as much drama as he could muster. “She is your mother’s aunt, which means that makes her my little sister, and… your Great Aunt!”

The Children gasped at this revelation, and turned to face Barbara. “Auntie, you didn’t say you were old too!” Jack said.

“Maybe you should go to work.” Barbara addressed over the heads of the children.

“Maybe I will stay at home and educate my grandchildren on how family trees work.”

“Um,” Stephen said from across the dining room, marmalade toast halfway to his mouth. “You do know that I took today off, right?”

“You know, I think I’d forgotten that.” Charles said, reaching for a piece of fruit. “But I think the railway can manage one day without us.”

The Cathedrals Express screeched into Tidmouth with the sound of nails on a chalkboard.

Truro was black from buffer to buffer, coal dust streaking down him in a myriad of ways. His eyes were red, sweeping furiously across the platform, seeking out anything at which he could yell. The coaches were howling at the tops of their voices at him, seconded only by the train crew, who emerged from the cab equally black and enraged. They stormed up the platform, leaving black boot prints on the cement, wielding shovels threateningly. Behind them, the doors to the coaches opened up, and a wave of blasphemy followed the passengers out of the train. In two distinct streams, they parted on the platform, the first and largest group made a beeline for the ticket office - they were going to speak to someone about this.

The second group followed the crew up the platform, and before a minute had passed, Truro was surrounded by a near riot of angry people telling him exactly what they thought of him and his ability to pull trains.

Somehow, he was able to still his tongue, and take his verbal lashes in silence. The station staff were rushing up the platform like they were being chased, and he hoped against hope that someone, anyone could make it all stop.

Then, a particularly loud voice became briefly audible over the crowd noise. “-and if you want to be like that so bad, HERE, take it!”

A hard-sided leather briefcase came sailing out of the crowd in a near perfect arc. It smashed into Truro just above his eyebrows, fell down his face, bounced off his nose, and caught itself by the handle on one of his lamp irons. The case snapped open, and papers flew everywhere.

There was also an ornate clatter, followed by a shattering sound. Looking around on the ground for what that possibly could have been, Truro’s eyes fell upon the Cathedrals Express headboard, lying broken in three pieces on the sleepers of the next track. The GWR-painted crest sat almost perfectly atop one of the rails, and Truro had a fleeting thought that it could be salvaged…

Until, moments later, it was crushed underneath Gordon’s wheels, as the big blue idiot backed down onto his train.

Eyes wide with surprise, and not even able to fake the pompous demeanour he usually took with Truro, Gordon looked at the raging crowd, the furious coaches, and the simmering mad locomotive. “What on earth has happened? What have you done?”

Truro’s response could be heard on the platforms of Knapford station, nearly three miles away.

It must be said that the Alresburgh crew’s plan did not go exactly as planned.

Yes, while Truro did receive a tidy helping of the blame, the Tidmouth stationmaster and the yardmaster, who both declared the other to be in charge once it was discovered that the Fat Controller was “unavailable”, declared that this was everyone’s fault, and punished accordingly.

The driver was sent off to the docks, to work with the shunters down there - apparently the weekend fishing catch was much greater than expected.

The fireman/inspector was formally written up, for allowing such nonsense to happen (even if the stationmaster had no idea of the extent that he allowed things to happen)

The coaches turned out to be slightly damaged by Truro’s rough handling (and their own responses to that), and they were sent off to the works on the back of a goods train, much to their displeasure.

Truro, who was so upset he could barely be moved, was eventually dragged to the coaling stage by Edward, who took one look at the situation and decided that he didn’t actually want to know.

Later (hours later), while still fuming with rage and snapping at everyone in view, Truro was washed down on the yardmaster’s orders. The only hose that anyone could “find” (actually looking involved effort that nobody wanted to spend) was attached to the yard’s standpipe. Somehow, being hosed down with freezing cold water in temperatures that were at most a degree above freezing somehow didn’t help Truro’s mood, and when late afternoon came he was sparkling clean but blindingly angry.

The yardmaster nor the yard foreman were willing to trust him with coaches, and so he took a short mail train back to the Little Western as the sun started to go down. The mail vans had heard something about this engine not being a Friend Of The Mail, and considered making his life difficult, but the beady-eyed, tooth grinding fury that was plastered all across his face made them reconsider that course of action. They didn’t say a word to Truro, and he didn’t say a word to them, all the way to Arlesburgh.

Duck and Oliver were no more interested in talking to him than he was in talking to them, and so he sat in a corner of the yard for most of the day, ignoring the looks the trucks gave him.

That night, the night shift stationmaster came over and spoke to him seriously. “Truro, I know that there’s been some issues over the last day or so, but we need an engine to run the next service. Do you think you can keep your calm long enough to take it?”

Truro wanted to tell him exactly what had been disrupting his calm earlier, but held his tongue. “Of course sir. Where is the train going?”

After the disaster of that morning, the return Cathedrals Express had been run using Donald and a group of second and third class coaches taken from the Express pool. They hadn’t been needed after that, and Donald had needed to take one last stone train before the Christmas eve rush effectively removed all goods trains from the timetable, so he hadn’t been able to return them. There was just enough room in the timetable for a train to go south to Tidmouth around eight that night, so the stationmaster had organized a special “extra” service.

Truro didn’t say anything to the coaches as he buffered up to them, and they didn’t say anything to him. It was a difference from the usual fawning and fussing that he usually received, and after the morning, it was a welcome change. Pleasantly, his crew didn’t speak more than was strictly necessary. He didn’t know it, but shortly after the train had arrived in Tidmouth, there had been a series of very loud phone calls to Arlesburgh, and the crews had been ordered to never do that again.

Thankfully, few of the passengers traveling to Tidmouth at 8 PM were in the same circles as those who went to church at 6 in the morning, and nobody said a word about the disastrous Cathedrals Express as they filed onto the train. Despite it being an extra service, it was still full to near-capacity, and he struggled a bit on the frost-slicked rails along the coast.

In complete opposition to the events of the morning, the extra service arrived and departed from Haultraugh with minimal delay. He met one of the northbound services there, and the tank engine didn’t even speak to him, instead choosing to remain subserviently quiet. It was yet another welcome change, and he relished in the silence until the signal man waved him through with flags - they hadn’t yet fixed the signal, something which never would have been allowed on Brunel’s GWR. He would have to speak to someone about that, at some point.

Arriving in Tidmouth was an altogether pleasant experience this time around - there was a ludicrously dressed band playing music that wasn’t dreck this time, and the passengers streamed out of the train with no fuss whatsoever, let alone a riot.

His crew spoke to him for the first time in the journey, informing him that it would be some time before he could get back to Arlesburgh, due to the holiday traffic, and that they would leave him by the carriage sheds. By the time they got there, Truro was simmering happily, and he even found the time to take a nap.

I suppose we all have bad days…he thought to himself as he drifted to sleep under a few flakes of snow.

It is now Christmas Eve

He was rather rudely woken up at one o’clock in the morning, to a pure white vista stretching everywhere he could see. “Oh bother…” he said, surveying the completely snowed-in yard as the church’s clock tower bonged once.

A crew - presumably his crew - were moving purposefully around him, oiling his joints and tending to his fire with less care than he’d like. “Two inches an hour!” One panted as he shoveled snow off the coal pile in his tender. “It’ll be a foot high soon!”

“How concerning…” Truro drawled, unsure why so many people were fussing around him - he was warm enough to melt the snow landing on his boiler, perhaps they should be focusing their attentions elsewhere? Shovelling snow perhaps? “I take it you are to bring me inside?”

Bitter laughter, laced with schadenfreude, rang out around him. His warm mood began to dissipate as he began to get an idea of what they wanted him to do… “Gentlemen, I do hope you know that I am still technically part of the Collection at Swindon until the first of January-”

The sun just about peaked over the horizon as a snow and ice coated Truro slithered into Arlesburgh station. The tight confines of the tunnel meant that the Little Western was assigned a wedge type snowplow that was modified to be narrower than usual. It did its job well enough for clearing the line, but as an added detriment, it tended to throw quite a lot of snow back over the engine pushing it. This usually wasn’t a problem for Duck and Oliver, who knew the limitations of their equipment and went slower as a result, but Truro had just spent the last five hours clearing the line as fast as he could. He was wet, he was cold, and he was coated in ice.

The yard was still covered with snow, but the upcoming Christmas eve traffic would be using solely the coaching stock, so nobody was too fussed about clearing the goods yard. (Except the trucks, but there wasn’t an engine around who would listen to them right now.)

“Oh look!” The shed doors were thrown open, and Oliver emerged from the shed in a cloud of smoke and steam. “It snowed last night! How…”

His voice trailed off as he saw Truro. The bigger engine was being disconnected from the snowplow, and didn’t even appear to notice him, but it was enough to quench any possible excitement over the snowfall. Oliver made it halfway to the carriage sheds before he even realized that Truro had probably been the one to clear the line.

Truro watched the tank engine fetch the autocoaches. He may have feigned disinterest, but he was still paying keen attention, and had seen how the childish excitement had trailed off the instant eyes had been pointed in his direction.

Hmmph, he grumbled to himself, the mild indignation mixing and swirling with the furious discomfort of a long, cold, sleepless night. What’s all that about? Is my very presence enough to snuff out joy? Juvenile little imp. Just because I want order and discipline in the yard he thinks that happiness can go out the window? Hmmph. I will have words with him later. He scowled at nothing in particular, and this time he actually didn’t notice Duck emerging from the shed, seeing his face, and then steaming out of sight as quickly as possible.

As much as Truro wanted to correct this behavior, the time just wasn’t there. It was Christmas Eve, and the island was going… well to put it frankly, absolutely berserk.

The roads were jammed with cars, buses, and lorries going every which way, but especially into Tidmouth. Ferries from Ireland and the Island of Man were rushing back and forth as fast as the winter seas would allow. Airplanes soared low overhead, as they made long sweeping approaches to the airfield at Dryaw. Even Harold the helicopter was buzzing about - the roads were so choked that he had to act as an air ambulance.

And then there were the trains.

No train was long enough, and services couldn’t be frequent enough. Every train bound for anywhere was full to bursting; the Express was double headed, as was the Limited. James was so rushed that he forgot to complain about anything, and when Truro and Bear briefly crossed paths in the big station, they were both so focused on their next train that they didn’t notice the other.

The mariachi band was playing in shifts, and multiple engines had to do a double take at the occasional Yugoslav folk song that was thrown into the mix. Strangely, Gordon seemed to enjoy it, and he spent his meagre downtime talking to the bandleader about… whatever it was that Gordon would talk about.

And the weather wasn’t playing favorites either. The weather had warmed above freezing, and the clouds had given way to the sun, causing the snow to melt onto the cold rails, where it either froze or puddled. On the Little Western, Truro found himself slipping inside the tunnel, as snow that fell off the roofs of passing trains melted onto the rails.

For some unusual reason, Duck had even more trouble than that, and any time he set off from a stop it was with a flurry of wheelslip before his driver could bring things under control. “I think it’s your auto-train gear,” The fireman said, poking at the controls. “Something might be loose.”

“Just what we need…” Duck grimaced as he rolled into Haultraugh with a northbound train. The rails were icy just before the points, and his brakes locked as he encountered a fully iced over section. “Whoa!”

“Easy!” He yelped, as his driver slammed shut the regulator from his position in Alice’s control cab, and the Duck slithered to a stop directly on top of the switch.

Fortunately, this had happened several times before just in the last hour, and so with great care and patience, Duck’s driver slowly opened the regulator and…

chuff chuff chuff chuff chuffchuffchfuffchuffchfuffchuffchuffchuff

Duck slipped immediately, his wheels spinning wildly on the ice, before abruptly finding purchase. The entire train jolted, but got underway, and they were at the platform within a few moments.

Meanwhile, inside the signal box, trouble was brewing.

When Duck slipped, the whole building had shaken, the entire lever frame jumped, and there was a loud ping sound. The signalman groaned, knowing exactly what had happened.

Sure enough, when he tried to move the lever controlling the points, it wouldn’t budge. Worse still, the lever was frozen halfway between its two stops, meaning that the switch wasn’t pointing to either track.

“Stupid great engine!” the man grumbled to himself, already dialing the phone. The signal maintainers are going to earn their overtime today!

Duck didn’t learn that he’d broken the points until he’d arrived at Arlesburgh, and it was to his surprise that he felt no guilt or shame over it, or the massive inconvenience it would cause to the passengers on such an important day.

Instead, all he felt was worry and discomfort - unlike the last two times this had happened, all of the branch’s engines were trapped in Arlesburgh yard… and that included Truro.

Or rather, City of Truro. Use my full name, scum.

With all trains being delayed or cancelled outright, Truro and Oliver had been moved back to the sheds. Of course, Truro was facing Oliver, meaning that he couldn’t ignore the big engine.

Duck was usually a brave engine, but today his bravery ran away and hid, and he asked his driver if he wouldn’t mind taking a look at the auto-train gear.

Begrudgingly, the man agreed, and Duck sat there, facing away from Truro and Oliver, wondering exactly when everything had gone all wrong.

“So,” Oliver asked after a long silence. “What’s gotten so up your boiler that you’ve gone and become a bastard all of a sudden?”

Truro recoiled like he’d been struck. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me.” Oliver said firmly. “You’ve been nice as can be (to us) for weeks and weeks, and then all of a sudden out comes the old haughty express engine tripe.” He fixed the big engine with a level glare. “It wasn’t fun back then and it isn’t fun now.”

There was a simmering silence that followed that. Truro was inscrutable.

“You know, I don’t quite understand it.” Truro said after a second. “I spoke with Duck just the other day about perhaps restoring some discipline to our interactions, and he said that you were all for it.”

Oliver rolled his eyes. “No he didn’t, come off it.”

“Oh yes,” Truro was entirely earnest, except for the shifty look in his eyes. “He said it would be nice to go back to the old ways. Something about tradition?”

The lie was so bad, and so blatant that Oliver couldn’t even be offended. “Mate,” He said, halfway to a chuckle. “That might work on a Paddie shunter like Duck, but I’m from the countryside, right? ‘Bout the only thing I trust coming out the mouth of an express engine that acts like you is ‘Hello,’ ‘Goodbye,’ and ‘I’m better than you.’ So cut the nonsense and say it Swindon style, alright?”

Duck had been listening intently since the moment Oliver had said the word “bastard.” On one buffer, it was inconceivable that he would speak to Truro in that way, but on the other…

Then:

I spoke with Duck just the other day about perhaps restoring some discipline to our interactions, and he said that you were all for it.”

What?

Duck reeled, completely missing everything that happened after that. Truro said that he what?

It was so completely false, so untrue, that it didn’t feel real.

Why would he say that? Duck thought to himself. Does he think Oliver would believe him?

“Oh Yes, he said it would be nice to go back to the old ways. Something about tradition?” Truro’s voice filtered through the mental noise.

Tradition? What?

There was a crashing noise from outside the station. A car towing a trailer had hit a pothole, causing the trailer to bounce up and down, making a tremendous racket.

Duck didn’t hear that.

“Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! We’ve broken away! We’ve broken away! We’ve broken away!”

“Chase him! Bump him! Throw him off the rails!”

“Another clear mile and we’ll do it.” “Oh glory! Look at that!”

There was a passenger train in the station.

“I must stop them. I must.”

A sudden swerve, a slide.

A barbershop.

What had been murky was suddenly clear.

Truro wasn’t being nice. He didn’t care.

He was manipulating them.

“Galloping Sausage!” “Rusty Red Scrap Iron!” “Old Square Wheels!”

“I’m revolutionary…”

Exactly how it happened all those years ago.

“He played me for a fool…” Duck whispered to himself, as every interaction he’d had with Truro played through his mind, free of bias for the first time. “He’s like a diesel…”

Silently, tears fell from his eyes.

His driver, too engrossed in the auto train connections, didn’t notice.

“So cut the nonsense and say it Swindon style, alright?” Oliver’s phrasing hung in the air like a lead balloon. ‘Say it Swindon style’ was the ultimate request - a plea, or perhaps a demand - to say exactly what you meant, with no more dancing around the point. The great equalizer, any engine could say it, at any time - it was one of the immutable rules of the Great Western.

Truro’s earnest look faded. It didn’t disappear, but it seemed to lose all its warmth. What had been a slight upturn to the edges of his lips became the barest hint of a sad smile. There was something behind his eyes, but it still seemed hidden, or perhaps restrained. “Are you sure?” the bigger engine asked, after a second. It almost seemed like he was readying himself to let go of a great weight, in the way that an engine does when they finally reach the last station, or the top of the hill.

“Am I sure? What kind of a question is that?” Oliver saw all of this play out on Truro’s face, but he didn’t comprehend it. If he’d had Duck’s level of training, of knowledge, of sheer exposure to haughty express engines, alarm bells would’ve been ringing.

But he wasn’t Duck, and his only real exposure to big engines and subterfuge was Gordon. He mentally shrugged off the “odd” look Truro was giving him, and tried his best to look slightly intimidating.

“What do you know about me?” Truro asked, after a moment.

“What sort of a question is that?”

“The ultimate question.” Truro looked almost pensive. “Am I a creature of myth, shrouded in fables, or am I steel and iron? Do you know who I really am?”

“You’re City of Truro, and I’m not playing guessing games beyond that.” Express engines always had these inflated ideas of their own importance anyways.

“Ah,” Truro rolled his eyes ever so slightly. “So I’m naught but a myth to you. Some ultimate creation, hewn from a solid block of steel by Brunel himself. Blessed be my name, for I am the son of the father, and the only witness to the holy ghost.”

“Well I wouldn’t go that far-”

“Hmm. All better for you then. Some do; we’ve been sharing a shed with one.”

“I wouldn’t say-”

“Oh, but he would.” Truro’s smile sharpened slightly. “One of the Paddingtons. He knows the legend full well.” There was a pause, and a hint of sadness. “Of course, he knows the legend as it is now.”

“Now?”

A sad chuckle escaped Truro. “Ah, there were two of us once: myself, and the holy ghost. He was once my compatriot - my comrade in arms, so to speak. Great Bear. Now there was an engine that Brunel shined on. I had to get by on my merits - my speed, my looks, my charm - but he needed only to exist for the full weight of fame to fall upon him. Posters, films, anything of publicity value, he was on it, right next to me. It was wonderful, having someone to share the load with.”

“But I thought that Great Bear was-”

“A total failure?” This was followed by a bitter chuckle. “Yes, he was. He wasn’t the great white hope that we all wished for, but you’d never know that for the publicity. He could do no wrong, and his wheels turned the rails to gold anywhere he went.” He paused wistfully. “And then it became anywhere we went. When the papers finally saw fit to publish my name, and my achievements, my status rose to equal his, and the publicity department couldn’t be separated from us both except with crowbars.”

Oliver, wondering exactly where Truro was going with this, missed the engine’s darkening expression. “And then of course, came progress.” He almost spit the word. “Churchward had only retired for what felt like a week when Collett swaggered into the picture. His thoughts were that only successful engines should be public figures.”

Truro was getting more and more emotional, words being accentuated by barely hidden anger. “Caerphilly was getting her official portrait done within three months, and Great Bear was gone within two years. They took him away and used his parts to make a Castle. He didn’t even recognize me when it was all said and done.”

“Hey…” Oliver felt an instinctual need to stand up for his designer. “Mister Collett was-”

“A man.” Truro snapped. “An ordinary man, with a pencil. He knew nothing of how engines lived, just how to improve them.” A scowl. “They even came for me, and the rest of my family, soon enough. I wanted to rage at the world, to rebel, fight, or at least die with them, but they all said ‘no, Truro, you will live on.’”

He scoffed. “What they meant was that I would be the one to carry their names into the future. To make sure that our class does not die the same ignoble death that Great Bear did. What the engines that you replaced did.”

“Oi!”

“Shut up. Do you think those branch lines managed themselves, before the works pushed you out like a little green turd?” It was now inescapably obvious that Truro was incensed, and Oliver began looking around for someone, anyone to defuse the tension.

Truro continued. “And then, do you know what happened? What my thirty years of faithful service got me? My speed record?”

“Did you call me a-”

“I got my wish.” Truro hissed. “I got my bloody wish to die with my family, because the Great Western Railway had no interest in preserving its history. I was going to go off to scrap, but at the last minute…” He trailed off, furious. “The last minute, I was saved. By the L-N-E-R.”

Part of Oliver’s mind was suitably shocked by this information. The rest was trying to plan an escape. He’s going mad right in front of me!

“I spent the next twenty six years crammed into a shed with the best and brightest the North Eastern could bother to preserve,” Truro continued, his voice buzzing with anger. “Who all think that they are god’s gift to railways, and that everyone else - including me - are apostates! It would drive a lesser engine mad. It almost drove me mad, but I was saved - or so I thought, when British Railways came calling.”

Oliver wanted to be anywhere else. “Oh yeah?” just keep him talking Ollie. Someone’s gotta come over here sometime.

Truro continued like he hadn’t heard Oliver. “They pulled me from that accursed building and whispered promises like they meant them. I’d get to run trains again, they said. With my own kind - Westerners!” He scoffed. “How quickly they forgot the reason why I was in that damnable place. Or so I thought at the time.”

He was quiet for a moment, and that honestly scared Oliver more than the increasingly crazed rambling. “You would never have known, seeing as you suffered the replacements that forced the change, but back then modernization was a dignified thing. We did our jobs until we were allowed our final rest. It was treated more like a living funeral, similar to what the humans do when one of their own gets some incurable disease. What do they call it nowadays, hospice care? It was quiet, and orderly. We were allowed to make our own goodbyes.”

He paused for yet another worrying moment, gaze dropping to the sleepers. “I was treated as a dangerous lunatic, for wanting to rage against this process. For wanting them to live.”

The gaze snapped up, and Truro stared directly into Oliver’s eyes. The burning rage behind the eyes was almost diesel-like in its intensity. “I trust that you remember what happened, as progress battered our shores?”

“Y-yeah.” Oliver gulped.

“I didn’t like the Castles,” Truro didn’t break the gaze. “Nor any of the rest. But they were still Our Metal, and they were worthy of that basic respect. I watched, from my position of privilege, my ornate cage of preservation, as every single one of them were driven into the rails in some sadistic attempt to extract every last shilling of value from them. How they were towed off to the scrap heap without so much as a by-your-leave. Engines would vanish, never to be seen or heard from again. Their friends would die wondering what had happened. The diesels reveled in it. They laughed and played with us as pawns on their game boards! Sadists, every one of them!”

Oliver had lived through this era, thanks very much, and was not enjoying a forced history lesson. “I was there.”

“But you didn’t go back in the box, did you?” Truro’s voice was barely above a whisper. “You ran for the hills and got away clean, like nobody ever did before or since. There was no rumour of your survival or death, no muttered tale of a crane snatching you off the dock like Scylla, or a screaming dismemberment at some mechanical abattoir, just a true story of the little engine that did. Not even I was so lucky. I had to go back, into an even smaller box this time, surrounded by the trappings of the railway I had just seen dismantled before my very eyes!”

Speaking of eyes, a little bit of derangement was slipping into Truro’s. “You have no idea what it was like! To be torn asunder and then thrown into a box for people to gawk at! There were only four of us to represent over a century’s worth of history, while more and more of it was being cut up just outside the walls! On clear nights we could hear it!” He was panting like he’d just charged up Gordon’s hill with the brake on. “Lode Star wouldn’t speak for ten years! I didn’t know what gender she was because I’d never even spoken to her! You have no idea the level of trauma I went through before I got here!”

Something in Oliver very quietly went snap. “You think that I don’t know?!” He found his voice and roared like a much larger engine. “I was on the run! This wasn’t some Sunday excursion up to Cumbria! I had to hide to survive! Living off of charity, my crew stealing coal out of other engine’s tenders! We disguised ourselves as a landslip to hide from the diesels looking for us!”

“Oh! And yet somehow you associate with them as though that didn’t happen!” Truro yelled back, subtlety forgotten.

“They’re not all monsters!” Oliver could not believe he was making this argument. “After they shut you back in that museum they started going after the diesels too! Whole classes wiped out in a month! All the Western region types, gone from service except for Bear, and BoCo’s worse off than that - he’s the only one of his kind left!”

“You named them?” Truro scoffed. “They don’t deserve names! They don’t deserve anything!”

Oliver growled. “Suddenly, I get why Bear hates you so much! There’s not much of you to like!”

“I’m not here to be liked!” Truro roared. “I am here to be obeyed! Don’t you get it, you mental reject? I am the express engine, and you are the servant who does my bidding!”

“Servant?” Oliver scoffed. “Yeah right, I might not be the most fanatical engine, but even I know that Brunel-”

“BRUNEL IS DEAD! I REMAIN!” Truro screamed. “I am the Great Western! My word is law! Do you think I spent twenty two years in Swindon telling children about broad gauge? No! I built the foundations of a legend that will live on forever. There is a Great Western Way, and it is my way!” Steam was beginning to escape from Truro’s nostrils.

The small part of Oliver’s mind not consumed by blinding rage nor reeling from shock was beginning to realize that he may be in some very real danger. It was not paid any attention to. “Not on this island it isn’t.” He said, suddenly defiant. “We follow the real ways, right from the heart of Paddington!”

Truro made a noise that could be a scoff or a hysterical scream. Or both. “I am well aware of that! And I will fix that! Just as I have been fixing that since I arrived here!”

“How’d you mean?” Oliver was only partly aware he said that.

“What- what- You can’t actually be that stupid?” Truro was incredulous, and it took the edge off his rage. “Have you not paid even a bit of attention to what has been happening around you? Are you as willfully blind as the other one?” Truro’s eyes motioned towards Duck, who hadn’t said a damn word the whole time.

“What?” Oliver said. “What could you have possibly done?”

“EVERYTHING!” Truro dragged out every syllable. “I have done everything to bring this line up the standards of the true Western, and away from the backwater attempt at adherence to The Ways that it currently is! I excised that diesel, I meddled with your trains, I even caused that derailment. You mean to tell me that you didn’t even notice!?”

Oliver was momentarily speechless. “You- you- you did what? You… you treated Bear like that on purpose?!”

“I most certainly did! It was far too welcome around here!”

“And-and-and you - you didn’t break his-”

“I will admit it was a touch more brutish than necessary, but the results were effective!” Truro almost sounded pleased with himself.

Oliver was seeing red. “What did he do to deserve that, you monster?!”

“I saw enough good engines get hauled away to an unjust end to make its specific crimes irrelevant.” Truro sniffed. “But I would think that it swanning into our midst with a Great Western livery on its sides was provocation enough!”

Oliver’s safety valves lifted, and Truro raised an eyebrow. “Oh don’t get upset, it’s not worth it.” He said hypocritically.

Oliver wanted to scream. “You- you- you- I can’t-”

“That’s right,” Truro cut him off. “You can’t, and you shouldn’t. You’re a tank engine. Your job is to make sure I can do mine. The fact that you get to gallivant all over this Island while I have to shunt trucks is an abomination.”

“You messed with my trains?!” Oliver suddenly remembered what else Truro had just admitted to.

“How else could I put you in your place?” Truro retorted, slowly regaining his composure as Oliver spiralled into spluttering rage. “It should have worked, too, but this whole line seems to be blessed by Saint Cajetan, he who brings luck to the moronic! Anywhere else, and you’d have been demoted to pushing trucks filled with horse shit two weeks ago!”

“And when that didn’t work you derailed a train?” Oliver snapped. “They were ours! Westerners to a one!”

Truro rolled his eyes, like it was a stupid question. “Don’t be idiotic. Those vans weren’t supposed to make it halfway out of the yard with bearings that seized. The fact they made it well past Haultraugh is a testament to their Great Western construction!”

“So, so, so what? They were supposed to fall apart or something? Make a mess in the yard?”

“Oh yes! That would’ve gotten you put on work details for a year in Paddington - moving something without inspecting it first? For shame.” Truro almost looked like he hadn’t just been screaming his voice raw. “But of course, not all plans survive contact with the enemy - or the Scots.”

Oliver, on the other wheel, looked ready to explode. “Why me!?” He bellowed. “Why pick on me? What did I do to you? What did I do that Duck didn’t?!”

“What you didn’t do, Oliver,” Truro said his name like it was an epithet. “Was know. Your. Place. Duck knew his place. Duck was not a problem. You, on the other buffer… needed some “re-education” on your proper spot in the world.”

Oliver stared at the diesel masquerading as a steam engine. “You won’t get away with this.” He said, his voice quivering with anger. “The Fat Controller-”

“Will learn nothing of this.” Truro cut him off, his face going very serious. “No-one will know of this conversation outside of us.”

“Hah!” Oliver laughed involuntarily. “What a load of rubbish! You think I’m not going to tell him? You think he’s not going to believe me?”

“Oh, I know that you won’t tell him.” Truro said very calmly, his face impassive.

“How’s that gonna work?” Oliver felt a rush of confidence. Truro had overplayed his hand, and he was going to feel the wrath of-

Inside Truro’s cab, the reverser and regulator moved violently. With a great jerk forwards, Truro began to roll towards Oliver, quickly buffering up against him and pushing him backwards. “OI!” Oliver screamed in the big engine’s face. “What’re you doing?!”

“Well Oliver,” Truro fixed him with a murderous stare as they rolled backwards toward the closed doors of the shed. “As it turns out, I know that you won’t tell the Fat Controller anything, and I know that because if you do…”

He trailed off as they smashed into and then through the door to the shed, wood raining down on them in a shower of splinters. A few seconds later, Oliver slammed into the buffers at the end of the shed, stopping with a groan of metal and wood.

Truro’s wheels kept spinning, though, and the creaking of the buffers got louder and louder.

“Well,” Turro said, his voice gravely serious. “It turns out that they preserved several of your brothers and sisters. If you should become a problem, I will simply replace you with one of them. Understand?”

Oliver gulped, but remained defiant. “They’ll never let you get away with this!”

Truro’s face twisted into an ugly sneer. “I’m City of Truro. You’re a tank engine. Who’s going to believe you?!”

“Oi! What in the name of mike are ya doing you maniac!” It was at this point that several new voices, all speaking over each other, interrupted the proceedings. Feet pounded on the floor of the shed, and hands grasped at the handle to Truro’s ash pan. Bodies flung themselves up the ladder and bounded into Truro’s cab. Hands cranked open the injectors and shot the in-cab hose into the firebox, drowning the fire and cooling the boiler even as the burning coals were unceremoniously dropped into the shed’s ashpit.

Truro yelped at the hands and bodies clamoring over him. “What are you doing? Stop that!”

He was ignored, and a hand grasped at the lever for the safety valve, and the shed filled with steam as the boiler pressure was released in a continuous droning roar. Truro bellowed some more, and attempted to move his controls, only to be stopped by a firm hand on the regulator and the reverser.

Oliver was blind in the confusion, and felt more than saw someone enter his cab and open the regulator slowly. With a few short chuffs, he was moving, shoving Truro backwards out of the shed and into the yard.

They emerged from the shed in a cloud of steam, Truro bellowing and roaring like a wounded animal. The cloud of steam seemed to multiply in size on contact with the cold winter air, and the figures swarming around in the cloud seemed to be more like spectres and phantoms than men.

Eventually, the hand at Oliver’s controls shut off steam and applied the brakes. Oliver came to a quick stop, while Truro continued to roll backwards under his own momentum. He came to rest a few dozen feet away, already under siege by men with large chocks to place around his wheels, locking him in place. The person in Oliver’s cab exited in a very swift manner, and Oliver noticed that he’d taken the coal shovel with him.

It was Duck’s driver, the one who had taken such an interest in Truro’s issues just a few days ago. He held out the shovel like a weapon, bellowing at the big engine as he stormed down the gravel. “What you think I’m fuckin deaf? You think that I’m not gonna hear you admit to bein’ the goddamned wrecking crew on my line? With my engines?!” He bellowed at a furious staccato.

“- think you’re immune? I will have you drawn and quartered for this!” Truro roared, his eyes looking from one man to the next - as the steam cleared, it became easier to identify people: the stationmaster, the yardmaster, a different driver, some of the porters, a guard, a cleaner, two inspectors, someone from the p-way gang, at least four firemen, some of the drivers from the small railway, and the signalman. “Your existence is tolerated! How dare you interrupt me, touch me in such ways! You will-”

CLANG

The coal shovel rebounded off of Truro’s face, and Duck’s driver reached up for another swing.

CLANG

This time the shovel fell out of his hands, and as he bent down to retrieve it, the p-way ganger, twice the size of a normal man, stepped forward. He was holding a pipe wrench the size of a sledgehammer. It usually laid against the wall of the shed, and was only used to undo some huge bolts that lay under Duck’s boiler jacket. The man gave it an experimental heft with one hand, and then turned and threw it at Truro like a shot put. It sailed through the air.

CRACK

Truro’s nose now pointed to the left. “YOU SAVAGES!” The big engine howled, snapped out of the stupor induced by the shovel. “I’LL KILL YOU AL-”

CLANG

The shovel came back for another swing, silencing Truro once again. Duck’s driver stood there, panting in the cold air, and pointed the shovel at the big engine yet again. “You think we didn’t hear you, you piece of shite? You’re done.”

#ttte #sodor #sodor shenangians #fic #christmas story

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joezworld · 5 days ago

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Holy shit

i'm never going to emotionally recover from this

PLEASE everyone go and IMMEDIATELY read @joezworld's absolutely splendid fabulous wonderful glorious heartbreaking devastating remarkably in character fic 'God Rest, Ye Merry North-Westerners' (also on tumblr starting here!) it is so so good!!!

bear has my heart <3

#christmas fic #fanart! i got fanart!

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joezworld · 5 days ago

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Two chapters this time!

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joezworld · 5 days ago

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Christmas Story

Later that day

Bear rolled into the works in an ugly mood. The stationmaster had not been kind or brief (what else is new - everyone on that Branch hates him), and he hadn’t been so much “sent away” as he had been “ordered to leave… now”.

There had been a pick-up goods bound for the mainland waiting at the big station, and he’d managed to talk his way onto it. It was one of the rare trains headed by a diesel from the other railway - a gray class 37 who seemed like the stern and silent sort - and Bear had enjoyed a complete lack of conversation all the way to Crovan’s Gate.

The workmen had known about his arrival, and met him in the yards. “Hullo Bear!” The diesel foreman said. “Have you decided what paint you’d like? Obviously we can just do a quick touch-up right now, but for later?”

Bear had thought about this intently during the ride to the works. “I don’t care - just not green.”

“Not green?” The man looked confused. “But I thought you were going to want to be painted in western colours now that City of-”

“Absolutely not.” Bear interjected. “No Western anything. Understand me? I want nothing to do with any of them.”

More confusion. “But, I thought that-”

“Things have changed.” Bear was clipping his syllables again. This time it was understandable as anger. “Do you have Rail Blue? Or anything from British Rail?”

“Really? You want-”

“It doesn’t matter what I want.” Bear snapped. “What about that 37 who brought me here? He was gray.”

“You want… Railfreight triple gray?”

“Is that what it’s called? Do that.”

“I- I mean, we can, but-”

“But what?” Bear narrowed his eyes.

“But we don’t have enough gray.” The man spluttered under the intense glare. “We thought you’d like the green, so we ordered-”

“Well then what can you do?”

There was some more hemming and hawing and hand wringing, before the men pulled him into the paint booth without telling him what they were doing. He wasn’t in the mood to ask any questions, and so when they began pouring black paint into the tank of a paint sprayer, he just let it happen.

“Do you want us to mask out the plates?” one of the men asked, pointing to the Great Western style name and number plates on his cab sides.

“No.” He said curtly. “Take them off. Just paint something on when you’re done.”

“Okay… do you want us to see if He-”

“No!” He barked. “Not now. Not like this. Just paint it and get it over with.”

The men looked at each other warily, but shrugged and continued. They were going to strip this off after the holidays anyway, so it didn’t really matter.

Did it?

The Big Station, That Night

“I can’t believe he would say that,” Gordon confided in Edward.

“It certainly doesn’t sound like him, but Duck was almost inconsolable. It took Truro and Oliver quite some time to calm him down.” Edward’s expression was guarded, as though he knew that he didn’t have all the facts, and didn’t like it.

“Whatever occurred, it had to happen so close to Christmas, didn’t it?” Gordon murmured. “Some time of peace and joy. Puh!”

“Maybe it was that horrid music they’re playing in the station? Drove him mad?” Edward suggested, trying to bring some levity in.

Gordon rolled his eyes. He could just hear the awful sound of arrhythmic synthesized jingle bells if he listened hard enough. “That could drive any engine mad, but hasn’t Bear been trapped in Duck’s little backwater shed for the last week? What with that horrible set of accidents?”

“Don’t call it that,” Edward rolled his eyes. “It makes me feel like my shed is some ramshackle hut in the wilderness.”

Gordon wisely did not comment, and the two blue engines sat quietly for a moment.

“Truro’s due in a few minutes,” Edward offered up. “I hear he’s trying to prove he can pull the express.”

“By taking your stopping train?” Gordon scoffed. “Next you’ll tell me he’s learning to fly, so he can challenge Concorde.”

Another pause. “You know, BoCo has very little to say about City of Truro, and none of it is good.”

A distant signal dropped on the huge semaphore array above the station throat. A moment later, a whistle could be heard from under the station canopy - probably Truro, setting off with his Arlesburgh-Suddery stopper train.

“I know,” Gordon said quietly, thinking deeply. “The same can be said for Delta.”

“Is there some truth to it, then? Truro and diesels are like, well, oil and water?”

“I certainly hope not.” Gordon murmured, watching as Truro appeared from underneath the station canopy in a cloud of billowing steam. A picture of vanity that could make James jealous, his brass was polished to a shine visible from a considerable distance away, and his paint was a deep pool of silky green. In the lights of the station and the yard, he lit up as though a perpetual spotlight was upon him. “He’s yet to prove himself in any way. It would be a shame if we lost a useful worker in exchange for a show pony.”

A diverging home signal dropped, above the distant. There was a train bound for the docks profiled to cross Truro’s path. The Westerner came to a dignified halt, his smoke rising in a perfect column into the cold dark sky as he waited.

“Maybe he could prove himself if you stopped annoying him every time you spoke to him,” Edward whispered.

“Rubbish,” Gordon returned the volley. “I was much worse to you and Henry, and look at how well you both turned out.”

“Gordon, you were a pompous twit, not an instructor.”

“Yes, but think about it,” Gordon continued, unphased. “He’s older than either of us, and yet I can bring him into a rage with comments that you wouldn’t even register.” He paused, as a set of marker lights began to shine through the tunnel leading into the station throat. “If he were here now, he’d be screaming something about honor and dignity just from that Concorde remark.”

Edward mulled it over for a moment. In the distance, a somewhat familiar engine beat began to filter through the tunnel. “Oh dear...”

“Indeed…” Gordon watched Truro intently as Bear’s engine note got nearer.

The oncoming train rolled out of the tunnel doing all of twenty miles an hour. Bear and his train of oil tankers rocked from side to side as they negotiated the many switches leading to the docks.

“Oh…”

“...”

Gordon and Edward were both rendered momentarily speechless.

It had been mentioned in passing that Bear had gone to the works for a new coat of paint, and goodness gracious was it a new coat of paint.

Bear had been green for many years, but not anymore. Now, he was black from his frame to his roof. It was a shockingly dark matte black at that, making the few colors on him stand out with vibrant clarity:

There was a single light blue stripe running down his body about three feet above his frames, a half-height yellow warning panel that didn’t quite cover all of his face, and white British Rail logos behind his cab. Tall white letters that read NORTH WESTERN were located between the cab doors and the double arrow logos, and all numbers were painted on in white stencils. It looked like the livery of that new “sectorization” thing they were doing in Scotland, but without the cream band that had made Donald and Douglas inexplicably furious when they saw it.

It wasn’t applied well, either - even from far away, there were visible drips of black streaking into the blue. In some spots, the Great Western Green could still be seen, and there was a partly visible BR cycling lion logo half-covered by the blue stripe. The numbers were done with stencils and a spray can, it seemed like - there was copious overspray around the big 35 102 painted on each cab side.

As he neared Truro, his scowl deepend, and his engine began skipping and missing quite badly. The train slowed down even further, almost to a crawl, before his engine roared back to normal as he was almost level with Truro.

With an earsplitting growl, his engine went to full power, and the train began to pick up speed. In the process, a massive cloud of sooty black exhaust belched out Bear’s exhaust. Thick and roiling, it stuck close to Bear’s roof, rolling over both Bear and Truro like a fog bank.

When it finally cleared, Truro was black from buffer to footplate. His eyes and teeth were thrown into stark contrast - the only white spots against a sea of dirty black.

He took one long blink, his face becoming a temporary sea of black rage, before snapping his eyes open. “YOU HORRID CREATURE!” he screamed, his whistle sounding like an air raid siren.

“Takes one to know one!” was the only response as Bear rumbled down the line to the docks.

For a moment, there was a perfect, shocked, complete silence over the yard. Edward and Gordon stared in disbelief at what had just happened. Truro was clearly so upset that he couldn’t speak.

“BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Across the yard, James hadn’t seen Bear at all, and only witnessed Truro being enveloped by a cloud of clag. He laughed so hard that his safety valves lifted, and he vanished into a cloud of steam, still cackling madly.

Edward and Gordon, startled out of their shocked state, looked at Truro, looked at where Bear had been, and then looked at each other.

“What has he done?” Gordon whispered.

#ttte #sodor #sodor shenangians #fic #christmas story

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joezworld · 5 days ago

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They re-laid the ballast and sleepers on Sunday, and by mid-day Monday, the last of the temporary rails were bolted together. It was, to quote a workman, a “hack job”, but it could be replaced after the busy winter hols.

Douglas pulled an inspection train across the newly repaired section shortly after supper, and it was with great jubilation that the Fat Controller deemed the line “fit to re-open.”

That night, Duck was the first to come back, running the last (and only) train of the day. He was ecstatic to be back in his own shed, and there was much merriment and joy as he shunted Alice and Mirabel into the empty carriage sheds. He whistled gaily to the engines on the small railway, who yelled at him to keep the noise down, didn’t he have any idea how late it was.

Then he turned to the yard, and his gaiety died down significantly. “Wha-what?” He stuttered, staring in confusion and slight horror. “What have you done?”

Bear rolled his eyes, having endured quite enough of Duck’s personality in the last ten minutes. “I needed trucks for the track work.”

“Yes I see that. Did you fetch them with your eyes shut?”

Bear growled. The yard was only a mess if you had been indoctrinated into the Great Western Shunting System - which, in fairness, he had been - but he’d been told that the first train would arrive in the morning, not tonight. “No, the work just finished early, is all. I’m fine, by the way.”

“That’s no excuse!” Duck ploughed on, getting into a proper strop. “You should’ve been cleaning as you went! Single Workings 3:7 clearly states-”

“I know what it says, and I don’t care.” Bear snapped. “If we’re going to get into this, what about Emergencies 12:5, hmmm? Shouting chapter and verse at me isn’t going to make the yard cleaner.”

Duck tripped over his own tongue while Bear smiled spitefully. “Now, I was going to offer to help you clean the yard while my driver is still on shift, but instead I think I’ll let you fix things to your exacting specifications.”

Bear’s driver, who had been performing an inspection on his engine, looked at Bear in surprise, Duck in shock, and decided to reverse Bear into the shed to end the confrontation. In a few minutes, snoring could be heard through the closed doors.

“Well..!” Duck said, thoroughly surprised. “What got into him?”

“The fact that you haven’t figured it out is, quite frankly, appalling.” boomed a voice from across the goods yard. Duck glared, but the glare quickly turned to surprised suspicion when the trucks didn’t start laughing. They always laughed after someone got a one-liner in.

Instead, a sea of surly faces stared back at him. “What are you looking at?” he asked, suddenly off-kilter.

“That wasn’t very nice.” A flatbed scowled, backed up by a wave of agreeing murmurs.

Duck didn’t know whether to scowl or be frightened at the show of unity, and shunted the worryingly quiet trucks until the end of his driver’s shift.

When he was backed in next to Bear, he thought about saying something, to see if the diesel was still awake, but in the end he went uneasily to sleep.

The next morning, Bear woke up much later than he usually would. Duck was gone, the yard was organized, Oliver was receding into the distance, and there was a long line of trucks sitting by the goods shed.

His driver came over, train orders in his hand. “Right-o, first we’ve got these to take, then we’ve got passenger trains with Truro for the rest of the day. Excited?” He wasn’t one of Bear’s usual drivers, and he completely missed the smile that hid a scowl.

The trucks didn’t miss it. As he rolled past the train, the brake van - the SR Queen Mary, finally on his way back to whence he came - eyed him with sympathy. “Keep your guard up, once you’re with him.”

“Back to reality…” the low loader rumbled.

The Fish Van didn’t say anything, but gave him a look of sombre understanding.

A long line of hoppers, full of tunnel debris, were somewhat more cheerful. “You’ve got us, remember.” their leader whispered.

Bear felt somewhat uplifted by this, but, as he waited for his driver to perform a brake test, his spirit began to wane. There was a crowd of passengers on the platform, already waiting for the next train. A large group of them were wearing shirts with the Great Western Railway logo stitched into them. They had cameras, of course, and were taking pictures every which way, except his.

One pointed a lens his way, and was promptly shoved by several friends. “Don’t waste your film,” they said, “on that box on wheels.”

By the time the signal dropped, Bear felt deeply morose. He set off, leaving the station behind, each turn of his wheels bringing him closer to the big station, and City of Truro.

The train halted at Haultraugh station. The inbound train was Duck’s, and as more passengers flowed in and out of the train, someone made a comment, loud enough to be heard over the hustle and bustle, that “this was straight out of the sixties.”

As the last passengers boarded, someone else replied, “yeah, the 18-60s.”

Bear stared at the GWR branding covering the station. There’s no place for me here.

Next to them, Duck was off in his own world. One of the porters had asked him how Truro was doing, and this had led to a lengthy and animated description of how bored and disrespected Truro felt in the yard at the big station. Gordon was the apparent ringleader, finding great fun in pushing Truro’s buttons. Bear’s engine note took on a notably staccato beat, and the trucks began grumbling to each other. The porter paid this no mind, but Duck began looking quizzically across the platform, trying to figure out what, if anything, was the matter.

Meanwhile, Bear’s driver was looking up and down the platform. “What’s the holdup? Where’s the signal?” He scoffed, climbing out of the cab and knocking on the door of the signal box.

Inside he found the signalman, looking quite aggrieved and holding a pair of flags. “Signal lever’s jammed. Points are good. Go out and I’ll wave you through.” He kicked the lever for good measure, a resounding clang emanating from the lever frame. “Piece of junk…”

Bear’s driver exited the box, noting for the first time that anything seemed to be amiss with his engine. “You alright?”

“Are we going?” Bear’s short, clipped tones could be mistaken for anticipation if you weren’t that bright.

“Yeah! Yeah, hold your horses.” The driver jumped back into the cab, and set off the instant the annoyed looking signalman waved the green flag.

Bear set off sluggishly. He didn’t care if he got there, or how long it took.

Behind him, the brake van could sense the disappointment and despair radiating down the brake line, all the way at the end of the train. Slowly, steadily, and stealthily enough to not alert the guard, he began slipping on his own brakes.

The other trucks in the train felt this, and realized what was happening. Slowly but surely, the train began to get heavier and heavier as Bear kept going.

The train made it halfway up the tunnel before grinding to a halt on the grade. There was no radio reception in the tunnel, and with Bear’s engine belching out more diesel exhaust every second, the driver made a quick determination to back down to Bulgy’s Bridge and try again.

Slowly, with the brakes mostly released, the train rolled back into the clear air, slowly click-clacking over the new jointed rails as it rolled back towards Bulgy’s Bridge. The tunnel mouth was now a jagged hole in the side of the rock, scarred and pitted in spots where the decorative portal had been chiselled away.

“So,” Bear addressed the train, taking care to not be heard by his driver. “Does anyone want to explain why we stalled out in the tunnel? Something that hasn’t happened with stone trains that are twice as heavy?”

There was a moment of guilty silence on the brake line, then:

“We can’t let you go without a fight.”

“You shouldn’t go back to that.”

“We like you too much to subject you to the snake.”

Bear was struck absolutely dumb by that, and felt a warm and fuzzy sensation in his fuel tanks. As his driver brought the train to a halt by the bridge, he couldn’t help but feel incredibly… honored? Was that the correct word? Liked? He pondered on this for some time, and was finally brought back to reality by his driver banging on the control desk in the cab. “Wakey wakey! Time to do some work!”

Bear chose not to dignify that with a response and instead allowed his engine to rev up to full power, to get the train moving up the hill and through the tunnel at a sufficient speed.

Then, nothing happened.

Or rather, nothing seemed to happen. Bear was pulling against the train with quite a lot of force, but it just didn’t move. His engine revved, his wheels slipped, and the train went nowhere.

It did not take a brain surgeon to figure out what was wrong: the trucks were quite serious about not letting Bear go back to Truro, and were doing everything in their power to stop him.

“We’re not joking…” came a low voice up the brake line.

Bear didn’t think they were, and was quite willing to sit out here for some time. It was a nice day compared to most of last week - the sun was out, and it was a few degrees above freezing - and if the railway had to send another engine to help him up the hill, then so be it.

“Ah, for the love of pete!” Unfortunately, Bear’s driver was a dedicated sort, someone who had a lot of interest in doing his job to the best of his ability, and someone who had no interest in being labelled as “the one who stalled in the tunnel”. He was going to get this train to Tidmouth come hell or high water, and so he didn’t let off the throttle, much to Bear’s annoyance.

“We’re not going anywhere like this. Call for a banker.”

“Absolutely not!” was the retort. What happened instead was that the train was put into reverse, and backed up even more to let the slack in. Bear knew what he was doing, and also knew that it wasn’t going to work. The trucks did too, and there was a bit of light laughter from most of the train. They even let him move the train a bit, rolling well beyond Bulgy’s Bridge without a fight.

The exception was the lead truck, who was looking at the coupling chain with worry. “That’s starting to stretch a little…”

Then, as has happened many times before, there was trouble.

Bear’s driver released the brakes, set the reverser to “forward”, and then jammed the throttle as far forward as it would go.

Bear set off with a great cloud of smoke and clag, his engine roaring like a wounded animal. The first five trucks on the train, realizing that something very bad could happen to them if they kept the brakes on, had let up. The slack went out of the train with a quintuple bang! as those trucks were yanked into motion. Then, the coupling to the rest of the train, who were not going to move under any circumstances, was pulled on.

They did not move, and the train screeched to a halt, Bear’s wheels spun furiously, sparking on the rails.

Then the coupling chain snapped.

Bear shot forward, suddenly free of the rest of the train. Fortunately, the vacuum brake hose also separating meant that his brakes came on automatically, and he came to a shuddering and screeching stop less than a hundred feet away, atop Bulgy’s Bridge.

“Now look at what’s happened!” He barked at his driver. “I told you to stop hammering on the throttle like a neanderthal!”

Then, things got worse.

When the rails had been re-laid after the derailment, the workers had done everything properly… except on Bulgy’s Bridge. The bridge, which still bore its scars from when Bulgy had gotten stuck underneath it almost twenty years ago, was known to be a fragile structure, and couldn’t withstand heavy or sustained vibrations.

“Heavy or sustained vibrations” is exactly what would happen when a ballast tamper machine was brought over the line. It “tamped” ballast by extending vibrating rods into the gravel and shaking them until the ballast had become smooth and level. This wasn’t possible on Bulgy’s Bridge, and so the workers had smoothed everything down as well as they could by hand before re-opening the line to traffic. And, for the trains that had gone over it so far, it had been fine - mostly because it had been light engines like Duck and Oliver, who moved over it quickly.

Bear, on the other hand, weighed as much as Duck and Oliver combined, and had just come to an abrupt stop directly on top of the mostly un-leveled ballast.

As Bear began to berate his driver for the problems that he had most certainly caused, the gravel underneath the sleepers began to shudder and shake.

Suddenly, and with distressingly little noise, the gravel on the right side of the line subsided, the sleepers and rails sagged as one, and Bear found himself tilted at an extremely worrying angle on top of Bulgy’s Bridge.

His driver closed his eyes in horror, and didn’t open them again until everything in the cab had stopped moving.

Bear, meanwhile, was so utterly overwhelmed with what was happening that he couldn’t even muster up a bit of shock. “Driver, this is your fault.”

Having already dealt with a calamitous derailment on the Little Western once this week, the railway was extremely quick in responding to the accident, and both a crane and the Fat Controller were there before lunch.

“Bear,” he said seriously. “I mean this in as non-insulting a manner as possible, but the fact that this was not your fault astounds me.”

“Don’t worry sir, the others will find a way to blame me for it anyways.”

“I-” The Fat Controller didn’t know how to respond to that, and had to choose his next words carefully. “I see.” He paused again. “I would actually like to mention something, now that you’ve brought that up.”

“Sir?”

“Yes.” Again, he had to choose his words carefully. “Due to… recent circumstances, British Rail has agreed to let us trial City of Truro on his own merits.”

“Sir? Does that mean that I don’t have to run trains with him anymore?” Bear’s tone was suddenly ecstatic, which the Fat Controller unfortunately didn’t understand the full connotations of.

“Indeed.” he said, eyes twinkling slightly. “Apparently his ability to be “more reliable than a diesel” was quite a point in his favor.” A pause. “Not that it is a mark against you in any way.”

“Of course sir, thank you sir!” Bear looked like Christmas came early, which did not mesh well with the fact that he was perilously close to falling off of a bridge.

“I’m glad you understand.” Charles Hatt smiled warmly. “And one more thing - I have been informed by the foreman that… removing you from this situation will involve damaging your paintwork in some way. Obviously, that cannot stand, and so I will have you sent to the works tomorrow or the day after for a temporary touch up. Once the holidays are over, you will receive a new coat of paint in any color you like. You’ve earned it.”

Bear’s smile was the biggest it had been in almost a month, and it stayed there throughout the cleanup process, even as the lifting chains gouged long silvery stripes all over his paintwork.

It took until well past dinnertime for the tracks to be put right again, and once Bear was checked over by works staff (again), he was immediately put to work with the permanent way gang, who worked throughout the night. Finally, at one in the morning, the work was declared “done!”, to much celebration, and the workers went home to bed.

Bear still had a job to do, though, and it wasn’t until two-thirty that he arrived at Tidmouth station with his now very contrite goods train, who didn’t say a word as he shunted them into the goods yard.

The diesel shed was empty, and Bear was asleep before his driver could fully set the brakes.

The next morning was cold but sunny, with still, crisp air soaking up the sun’s weak rays.

Bear, who had been woken up at seven in the morning after less than five hours of sleep, quite frankly could not bring himself to care about that, and grumbled all the way to the fuel depot, the station, the goods yard, and then most of the way to Haultraugh. He only stopped grumbling once he was awake enough to remember, as he burst into the sunlight at the end of the tunnel, that he was finally free of this wretched branch line and could go to the works soon!

This massively improved his mood, and he almost forgot how tired he was, as he rolled across the temporary speed restriction at Bulgy’s bridge, and through Haultraugh station. As he rolled into Arlesburgh, he was almost smiling.

“Well well well,” A stern voice immediately quelled any chances of enjoying the morning. “Look who shows his face around here!” Duck, a distinctly upset expression on his face, puffed into view. “You break my branch line, leave me stranded here all day - let’s not even get into what the passengers had to endure - and then just waltz off to the big station without so much as a by-your-leave? What sort of Western work ethic is that?”

He was really getting into full flow now. “And this is after you leave my yard a complete and utter disaster for more than a week! Whatever do you have to say for yourself?”

Bear was a patient engine, he really was. He could understand Duck’s position, he really could. He was even willing to hear him out, and talk with him like an adult. After all, they were both what people would call “grown-ups”. For goodness’ sake, he was twenty years old - far older and more mature than most of the diesels on the mainland!

But then… he looked behind Duck.

There, in the shed, was City of fucking Truro’s smug fucking face. He looked thrilled at what was happening.

And something in Bear went snap.

“Duck.” He said firmly, cutting the steam engine off mid-word. “You can take your Great Western work ethic and you can shove it down your boiler tubes. I do not care any more.”

Duck’s face moved like he was trying to say something, but he seemed unable to process what was happening.

“Furthermore,” Bear continued. “I didn’t break anything.” He glared daggers at Truro, who blinked in surprise. “The great green disaster over there is responsible for all of that. Unless you think that I shattered my gearbox out of a sense of whimsy.”

“I… I… I…” Duck couldn’t seem to put syllables together.

“In a similar fashion, I didn’t derail the Siphon wagons - if we’re really going to hand out blame like Christmas presents, it was Donald’s fault for not checking anything before he set off down the line with a bunch of plain-bearing equipped vans like it was the 1930s. Although, to go even further back, it was that one’s fault for moving the Siphons across the yard for no clear reason other than that he felt like it!”

Truro could hear everything, and blinked like he was offended. Good.

Duck looked like someone had smacked him across the face.

“Of course, let’s just blame it on me, why don’t we?” Bear could feel the indignation coursing through his systems, and let it flow. “As I can do nothing right, and only bring about confusion and delay! Yes, of course I wanted to almost fall off of Bulgy’s Bridge yesterday; it was part of my larger plan to learn to drive on the roads like an automobile, leaving the rails to wither and die on the vine like Doctor Beeching!”

“Bear, I-”

“Oh no! Don’t you “Bear” me! For all you know, that’s true! You’ve not taken your eyes off of Truro for a month now! “Truro” this and “Truro” that! If you like him so much, why don’t you give him the branch line and spend the rest of your life licking his buffers like the obsequious toady you seem intent on becoming! I thought you were my friend, but you can’t even notice something going on right in front of you!”

Truro was now glaring. The signalman had left his box, the trucks were silent, and Duck was so confused he was almost in tears. On the platform, the passengers started looking in their direction.

“Bear-”

“No, no.” He snapped, fire blooming in his eyes. “Use my goddamned number. You don’t have the right to use my name!”

Duck looked horrified. Good.

Bear pressed on, a month’s worth of frustration and aggravation spilling out uncontrollably. “So you know what, Montague? I’ve had it. That’s what this is. If you and Truro and Oliver want to play pretend in some fantasy recreation of a time that died a long time ago, be my guest! But I will have no part in it.”

The stationmaster appeared out of the station building and began making a beeline across the tracks.

“You can take your Great Western Railway, and all its idiotic traditions, and you can shove it someplace unpleasant!” He roared, engine growling menacingly. “But I’m done!” “And before I go…” The stationmaster was getting closer, and Bear could tell that he was going to be silenced one way or the other. He tried to think if there was anything else he wanted to say, but all he could see was Truro, looking so unjustly offended on Duck’s behalf. “Oi, you! Domeless wonder! I wish that they’d kept Great Bear, and scrapped you!”

#ttte #sodor #sodor shenangians #fic #christmas story

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joezworld · 11 days ago

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joezworld · 11 days ago

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Christmas Story

December 11

The next morning broke over a very subdued Arlesburgh yard. While Bear, the station staff, and the engines of the Small Railway were very concerned about the disruption in traffic, the trucks seemed… unnaturally quiet, in a way that Bear didn’t quite understand.

“You’re askin’ me?” The yardmaster said, as crews from the Works moved purposefully around them. With the line blocked, they were going to try and fix Bear “in situ”, so that he could help with the rebuilding efforts at the tunnel.

“Yes,” Bear said, somewhat firmly. “It’s your yard.”

The man scoffed. “People don’t get on with trucks, and neither do engines if you’ll remember.”

Bear scoffed. “I’ve found that being nice tends to work wonders - ow!”

“Sorry!” cried a workman from deep in his engine bay.

The yardmaster raised an eyebrow. “And where has that gotten you? Nowhere fast, perhaps?”

Bear glowered. I see why he’s in charge of freight and not passengers. “Quite far, actually. I’ll speak to them myself.”

“Yeah right. Let me know how well that goes.”

Bear glowered at him, but held his tongue.

With the rest of the railway inaccessible, the workers had called in a crane to help extricate Bear’s transmission. It was located inside his engine compartment, and accessing it meant removing part of his roof and lifting it out with a crane.

To do this, the men first had to get Bear into a position where the crane could safely lift the transmission out of him.

There was a critical problem with this plan… Bear couldn’t move under his own power.

And the only patch of ground that was both level and firm enough for the crane was near the Small Railway’s transfer platform.

“This is gripping.” Mike was grinning wide enough to split his smokebox as two groups of workmen, each armed with a large ratcheting lever-like device, slowly inched Bear forward across the yard. The levers were shoved underneath Bear’s rear wheels, and each push would move the wheel a fraction of a turn. They’d started two hours ago, and weren’t even halfway across the yard.

“I would keep your mouth shut,” Bert advised.

“Why? It’s good fun!”

“It’ll be sundown before they finish moving him.”

“Yeah? So?”

“A man can get awfully anxious when his work stretches into the dark and cold. His tedious, long, and manual work.”

“Spit it out already.”

“Oh, would you look at that?” Bert said brightly. “An entire railway, with engines in steam! Surely we could get a long enough chain and have them pull?”

“They wouldn’t.”

“They won’t if you keep your yap shut and look busy.” Rex hissed from the station platform. “Now go rearrange the coaches or something!”

The men finally inched Bear up to the lift site shortly after sundown. It was bitterly cold, the sea air whipping across the ground, and with the crane not due until the morning anyways, Bear was left alone by the chute for transferring stone from the small railway to the big railway.

Well, he wasn’t entirely alone.

“Hey,” He whispered to a nearby truck. It was one of the bigger fish vans, long retired from the Flying Kipper with the introduction of bogie trucks. There was a sort of hierarchy in the yard, with bigger or older vans being deemed “leaders” in whatever way the trucks considered such a thing.

“What’s it to ye?” She whispered back. “Can’t ye see we’s in mourning?”

Bear blinked several times. “No… I hadn’t. That’s actually what I was trying to ask about.”

“What? You think we don’t mourn the passin’ of our own?” Light but beady eyes looked at him suspiciously.

“I didn’t know you cared enough to.” It sounded cruel, but trucks seemed to appreciate honesty over saving face.

A scraggly eyebrow raised. “Yeh, I suppose you’d have tha’ impression.” There was a sigh. “Bein’ honest, we’s don’t much care about those bigg-uns. They’s almost coaches really. Proper fusspots.”

“The siphons?” Bear tried to remember anything about the old milk/mail vans. He realized that he didn’t know a thing about them, other than where they were stored.

“Yeh.” The truck looked ambivalent for a moment, before a wistful expression crossed her salt-stained face. “It’s the little ones we be weepin’ for. The old dames.”

“They were institutions!” A nearby tanker whisper-yelled. “They didn’t deserve what they got!”

Murmurs of assent came from other trucks. Seemingly the entire yard could find only good words for the late three axle vans.

Bear marveled at this, but kept his comments as far from patronizing as he could. “I’m-I’m sorry. I had no idea they were so well regarded.”

“Yeh,” the van scoffed. “None o’ your kind did.”

“They wouldn’t have done it if they did!” A hopper yelped, his voice high and reedy.

“Ignorance!” Cried a flatbed.

“Carelessness!”

“Forgetful!”

“Blind as a bat!”

“A bull in a china shop!” “A right menace!”

“It was murder!”

One voice was louder than the rest, and its cry of murder lingered over the yard for a long moment. Eyes from across the yard turned to look at the speaker.

It was a brakevan, although definitely not Toad, who was looking at the speaker with jaw-dropped shock. They were a big Southern Railway “Queen Mary” bogie van, hitched to a low-loader flatbed on the other side of the yard. They’d arrived from somewhere beyond the Island last week, a shipment of farm equipment lashed to the low-loader. Bear dimly remembered seeing them sitting in the yard, waiting for an outbound train - the low loader and the van together were long enough to cause problems with both the holiday traffic and the already long “Truro Trains” clogging Haultraugh station.

“It was murder!” The brake van yelled again, voice manic and high pitched. “I saw it with my own eyes!”

“No it wasn’t!” Shouted a nearby hopper who was clearly fed up with the brake van, shedding any pretense of preserving the stillness of the night in the process. “It was a mistake! An accident! Idiocy! You think that an engine can put vans that out of order onto a train without notice? People saw and they didn’t care - just like usual! It might be negligent, but it isn’t murder!” He said the last word mockingly.

“Oh fine!” The van fired back. “Don’t believe me! I’ve only been watching what’s going on! Observing that green and gold snake come in and out of this yard over and over again with the sheer purpose of causing havoc! Just ignore 286, he’s just an old fool!”

“Enough!” The fish van shouted, bringing silence to the yard. “Wha’s all this about then? Wha’d’ya mean it was a murder?”

The hopper started to make a noise, but was silenced with a glare. The brake van took this as an invitation to speak. “I saw it! We saw it! Those vans were in their spot so long that there were weeds growing through the leaf springs! Then one day, out of the blue, that doubletalking serpent comes over and whispers things to them, and shoves them halfway across the yard. Next thing you know, the blue one takes them away; and trust me, he had no idea what he was doing, that much was obvious.”

“And this is murder how?” The hopper shot back. “Things get moved by accident all the time!”

“Oh please!” the brake van cried. “He downplayed ev-er-y-thing! No inspection, no questions, no orders - he just said they were supposed to go someplace else, and someplace else they went!”

“It’s true,” The low-loader added, his voice deep and rumbling like distant thunder. “The green one, the famous engine. He was asked if anything was amiss with those vans, and said they were not. They were to be moved to their appropriate spot, or so he claimed.”

The yard broke out in a chorus of furious murmurs, and nobody spoke up to stop it. The Fish Van stared down at the rails, expression inscrutable. Toad, who had been shocked at the proceedings up until now, looked deeply, deeply horrified.

As for Bear, her was… well, surprised wasn’t the right word. Curious, perhaps? Or maybe befuddled. He could imagine that Truro had done it, but what he didn’t know was why.

“Why would he do that?” He asked, after a moment. “Did he not know?” Was this really an accident?

“He had to have known.” Toad said, in a slow and halting way. “There… It… “Weeds betwixt the wheels!” They nearly had a tree growing between them!” He grew more manic, the words flowing out like he couldn’t stop them. “That violates… four different sections of The System!”

“Weeds?” Called another truck. “Betwixt? System?”

About half the stock in the yard groaned. “It’s part of the shunting system!” Said a “Mink” van from across the yard.

“Miscellaneous 2:1!” put in a “Macaw” flat wagon.

“And Storage 1:10!” said an “Open A” coal hopper.

The rest of the trucks - all of those who weren’t originally built for the GWR or the Western Region, stared in bafflement.

“Does someone mind explainin’ what you’re all talkin’ about?” the Fish Van barked, glaring at trucks indiscriminately.

Bear cleared his throat, and the evil eye was turned towards him. “It’s an organizational system, from the Great Western. It’s very long, and very detailed, and it is referred to in the same manner as chapters and verses of the bible.”

There was an incredulous pause. “Is yer entire lot like this?”

“I’m afraid so.”

A deep sigh. “So, there’s… verses to this shunting system? That mean he should’ve known better?”

“Yes.” The trucks started to chatter again, before being hushed. “What was it, again? Miscellaneous two, and what else?”

“Storage!” Several trucks shouted at once.

“Ah yes.” Bear dredged deep into his memory. “Miscellaneous 2:1, “If there are weeds betwixt the wheels, speak to the oldest shunter.” Storage 1:10 is, “If it looks like it belongs, leave it.””

“And he’d know this? Isn’t he some prissy express engine?”

“He’s City of Truro, the Greatest Westerner. He knows.”

There was a deep exhalation of breath. “Jesus Wept. He really is doin’ this on purpose, ain’t he?”

“It fits. I just don’t know why.” We’re going in circles, but it’s like accusing God of murder. What reasoning does he have?

“You can’t see it?” The Van asked him.

“See what?”

“Why he’s doin’ this. He’s got all the reason in the world.”

“What reason is that?” Bear, and most of the yard, were listening intently.

“It’s like what all those diesels said, back in the bad old days when the steamer’s asked ‘em why.” A momentary look of apology was pointed at Bear. He didn’t notice, his mind suddenly racing with dozens, hundreds, of encounters with those kinds of engines.

“Why?” he interrupted. “Because they could, that’s why.”

December 12

The next day was cold and gloomy, but with very little wind, and the crane arrived promptly at nine in the morning. London had authorized the hiring of an enormous crane, easily twice the size needed and capable of lifting Bear himself, so it was somewhat anticlimactic as it lifted away one of Bear’s roof panels, the broken transmission, and then lowered in a replacement that the works had sent by road. It was work of maybe half an hour, and then the crane was pulling in the stabilizers and readying to go back from wherever it had come.

“Now all that’s left is to put humpty dumpty back together again.” Leigh Hunt, the Works’ diesel foreman, said to Stephen Hatt as men began pulling tools from the back of a van.

“How long should that take?”

“‘Bout three days, with testing. Gotta make sure that nothing else broke when the gearbox went.”

Stephen mulled that over. “I see. Hopefully we’ll be able to use him on the tunnel repairs, after that.”

“Don’t see any reason why he shouldn’t. S’not the worst failure in the world, just more difficult considering we’re working in the field.”

There wasn’t much else to say at that point, and Stephen excused himself. Making his way into the station building, empty and desolate with no trains or passengers, he placed a phone call at the vacant porter’s station.

The phone scarcely had time to ring before Charles Hatt answered it. “Speak.”

“Everything is proceeding apace.” He never put much stock into unnecessary pleasantries on phone calls, much to the annoyance of his wife.

“Excellent. How goes the tunnel?”

“Better than expected. It seems that the heat damaged the masonry of the portal itself rather than the tunnel lining.”

“I see. How does that effect the engineering work?”

“That is going to come down to you.”

“Elaborate.”

“From what I’ve been told, if the decorative structure around the portal is torn down, that will solve the structural instability concerns. Apparently it won’t compromise the hillside around it. Our other option is to repair the structure, which could take some time.”

“How much time?”

“They’re not sure, but presumably longer than a teardown.”

Charles paused for a moment. “What do you think? Is it worth saving?”

“An ugly hole in the rock is still a tunnel.”

“I understand.” Another pause. “Bring me firm time estimates for both options. We’ll discuss them tonight.”

Stephen was about to say something else, but it was obscured by a cacophonous noise from the platforms below Charles’ office.

“What was that?”

“I believe I am about to have to relitigate the second world war,” Charles looked out the window at the exact culprits. “I shall call you back.”

He hung up, taking one last look out his office window before making haste to the stairwell.

He emerged onto the platform, now a scene of chaos. The German “musicians” had been attempting to “tune” their electric pianos and other piano-like instruments (one was being worn around the neck like a guitar), in the process producing sounds that couldn’t quite be called music.

City of Truro, still relegated to shunting duties, had spotted the coaches for the Limited directly next to them, and had decided it would be an excellent time and place to tell them exactly what he thought of their music.

The Germans had responded by playing louder.

“- THAT INFERNAL SOUND!” Truro bellowed, as the door to the station offices swung wide. The Fat Controller, coat billowing behind him, emerged with a frown that rapidly turned into a grimace.

The leather-clad “musicians”, who had been using a synthesizer to make jingle bell noises at increasing volume, stopped abruptly, their faces impassive but still recognizing that Charles was a man of Stature.

Truro, on the other hand, was both distracted and pompous (a dangerous combination, as Gordon long ago learned), and continued raving about “common musical decency” and “soothing sounds of a building site” long enough for Charles to find a stool, stand upon it, and clear his throat in a dramatic manner.

“And another thing! You lost the w- oh hello sir.” Unlike Gordon, who would have acted like he’d just swallowed a lemon, Truro’s entire countenance changed in an instant, the firebreathing dragon subsuming into a well heeled express engine. “What may I do for you?”

“I believe you’ve already done it.” Charles was quietly impressed by the quick change. There are engines who could learn a thing or four. “But for the future, I would appreciate it if your… complaints were made at a quieter volume.”

“Of course sir.” Truro even had the grace to look contrite. “It shan’t happen again sir.”

It was at that moment that the band began to play again, this time with an un-melodic sound that could only vaguely be construed as “jingle bells”. Truro’s face contorted, and an eye began twitching.

“Excuse me, gentlemen?” Charles quickly brought the “music” to a halt. “Perhaps you could play at a later time? Thank you.” It wasn’t a request, and some of the larger and burlier porters were summoned to make sure that the band took a tea break.

Truro looked faintly relieved, a feeling that Charles shared. “I must admit that they are already trying my patience.” He said quietly to the engine.

“I completely agree, sir.”

Charles let the next moment drag itself out, slowly polishing his reading glasses with a handkerchief. “Truro, if I may?”

“Yes sir?”

“I’m sure that you’re aware of the derailment on Monday?”

“Yes sir. I was wondering if you would speak to me, sir.”

That brought Charles up short. “Oh?”

“Yes.” Truro’s face was impassive. “From what I’ve heard, the derailment occurred when some out-of-service vans were accidentally put on a train. If that is correct, and it was the train and vans that I’m thinking of, then I made a mistake in judgment and shunted those vans out of their siding.”

Charles blinked, slowly. This was not going how he thought he would. “Is that how it happened?”

“Yes.” Truro looked… genuine, in a way that made Charles suspicious. None of his engines would admit to anything that readily. “My mind was elsewhere, what with that diesel’s gearbox failure and all. I assure you that it won’t happen again.”

“Yes,” Charles said, suppressing the reeling sensation he felt. “See that it doesn’t.” He stepped off the stool and walked back to his office. “And Truro,” he turned at the last moment. “I appreciate your honesty on this matter. It speaks volumes to your character.”

If there had been any doubts he had about Truro’s sincerity, they ended with the broad smile the engine gave him. “Thank you, sir.”

December 15

Bear spent the rest of the week being repaired and thoroughly tested by the works staff. He felt like an animal afflicted with fleas, there were so many men crawling about his engine compartment. It was a most uncomfortable feeling, not helped at all by the small railway engines being… themselves.

“Oh! Lookit that one! He’s carrying something with tubes and wires!”

“Mike! Will you shut up and shunt your trucks already?”

“Who asked you, Bert?”

Eventually, the men finished their work, and declared Bear fit to operate once again. Without a moment to spare, he was sent up the line with a train of empty hoppers

“Goodness me,” he exclaimed as he reached the site of the derailment. “What a mess.”

The tracks between Bulgy’s Bridge and the tunnel mouth were a haphazard mess of jointed rail resting on loose sleepers and disturbed ballast. They creaked and groaned ominously under Bear’s weight, and a decision was made to go back to Haultraugh station, run around the train, and push the trucks from behind.

The trucks didn’t like the damage any more than he did, and it was a quietly nervous train that edged up to the ruins of the tunnel.

It looked quite different than before. The decorative stone of the tunnel mouth was being chipped away by teams of men with jackhammers, block after block falling to the ground like stone rain. Soon all that would be left was the tunnel walls, framing a gaping hole in the side of the hill. Above them, men with surveying equipment and shovels were poking around, driving spikes into the ground for soil nets, to keep the ground from shifting. It was a surprisingly hand-done operation, with few machines bigger than a portable generator cart. A steam shovel and bulldozer seemed to be the exceptions, and they sprang into action once the trucks’ brakes had been set.

“Damnit Ned!”

“Sorry Byron!”

Well, sprang was perhaps too broad a term. The bulldozer was quick on his treads, and soon had a pile of rubble ready to be loaded, but the shovel seemed to be swinging his bucket anywhere but the intended location. Stone and dirt flew everywhere, and only after some very stern instructions from the bulldozer did anything seem to get done.

And even then, it was a slow and tedious process. The steam shovel, whose name seemed to be “Damnit Ned!”, was very slow with his bucket, and yet somehow was still dangerous with it. Men jumped out of the way as stone flew from wherever he dropped his arm, and then once he’d filled the bucket, he would swing slowly towards the trucks with the arm at whatever height and angle he felt like. Oftentimes this was lower to the ground than the sides of the hoppers, and it would be only at the last second, after some shouting, that he’d bring the bucket high enough to actually clear the tops.

The trucks were very displeased about this, and “Sorry Byron!” the bulldozer soon had to run interference between the trucks and their desire to not be physically hurt, and Ned, whose feelings got more and more hurt with each round of yells.

“Oi!” He eventually called to Bear, who was waiting for a brick to come flying his way, as the trucks started up a very insulting and ribald rendition of Drill, Ye Tarriers Drill. “Can’t you make them shut up?”

“Can’t you make him do his job right?” Bear retorted. “Or get someone competent? That sounds like the easiest option.”

The trucks burst out laughing, Ned looked even more offended, while Byron the Bulldozer growled menacingly. “Now don’t you get snippy with me, mate!”

Bear, quite fed up with people speaking rudely to him, growled very loudly in return. “I think that I will get as snippy as I want, thank you,” he said to the now pale-faced dozer, before turning his attention to Ned. “Mind my trucks, understand?”

---

With Bear now actively intimidating the workforce, the rest of the loading went much more smoothly. By the end of the day, Bear had made four more trips with seemingly every empty hopper wagon in the yard, much to the relief of the workmen.

“Now, we can lay the rails.” Said the foreman gratefully. “You’ve put us at least a day ahead of schedule. Imagine if we’d had to haul everything out of here by lorry!”

Bear smiled. “I only wish that I could’ve been ready sooner.”

“Ah, there’s that Great Western work ethic at it again! You’re a good ‘un, Bear.” The foreman didn’t notice how Bear’s smile grew strained at the mention of the Great Western.

But the trucks did.

“Hey,” said the hopper closest to him, as the train reversed away from the work site. “You alright? You got a look when ‘e mentioned the-”

“I know.” Bear said quietly.

“Thought that was all your thing?”

Bear looked down, at the sleepers whizzing beneath him. “It was.”

“Was?”

“The Great Western is an idea, a dream.” He said slowly. “And I always thought that it was one of hard work, and perseverance. Doing the job the right way, even if it’s harder that way. We all worked towards that.”

The entire train was now quietly listening, their anticipation and interest flowing through the brake line.

“But,” He continued. “I don’t think it is. At least not anymore.”

“What is it?” A truck further back in the train asked.

“It’s a memory. Of what used to be.” The train slowed as they neared Haultraugh station, and they slid past the Western-styled station canopy, the benches with GWR inlaid into the metal, and the hand-lettered sign that said “GREAT WESTERN RLY” on it. “It’s what they had, back before the grouping. Before the war, even. When you had Kings, Castles, Manors, and Paddington.”

“And the world ended in Cornwall.” Another truck said, the west country accent giving away which railroad they’d been built by. “And had Swindon at the centre.”

“That’s right.” Bear looked sad. “And do you know what that world didn’t have back then? Me.”

The trucks digested this. Quite a few of them were old enough to remember those times, and those that weren’t remembered the bad old days of modernization, where that time period was dragged out back and cut up on the spot. “You think that they don’t want you in their little club?” A truck near the back asked, his voice echoing down the brake line. “Sounds a bit out of character for Ducky and Ollie.”

“Maybe for them,” Bear agreed. “But not Truro, and he is the Great Western. If the Greatest Westerner acts like I’m not, then…”

He trailed off at that point. The trucks wanted to say something comforting, as they were quite uncomfortable with this quiet and introspective sorrow, but at the same time, they couldn’t help but agree. They’d seen how Truro had treated Bear. It made sense now - the Great Western was a Victorian idea, one of steam and steel, polished brass and crack expresses to the west country.

A diesel had no place in it.

“That’s alright,” A voice spoke up from somewhere in the middle of the train. It was an unexpectedly perky voice, and the rest of the trucks wondered if they were going to have to bump someone severely. “You don’t need those rotters anyway. You’ve got us, and the rest of the island. Who needs the Great Western when you’ve got British Rail?”

It was such a shockingly naive statement, from such a young truck, that a laugh was forced out of the rest of the train as if by magic. What a stupid idea! BR, being the better option! Ha!

However… as they kept rolling towards Arlesburgh, everyone had much the same thought:

Hang on, he might be onto something.

British Rail wasn’t perfect, or even good, but it was… home. It was their home. Their family. It was what they had, and sometimes that’s all that could be asked for. Bear’s thoughts were slowly spinning into a whirlwind of ideas. “That’s right. I do have you all.”

#ttte #sodor #sodor shenangians #fic #christmas story

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joezworld · 12 days ago

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joezworld · 12 days ago

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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.

#ttte #sodor #sodor shenangians #fic #christmas story

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