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weirdowithaquill · 11 months

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Traintober 2023: Day 29 - Out of Service

Oliver Wasn't the Only Engine in that Siding:

Oliver the Great Western Engine is thankful for the second chance that Sodor has given him. Every day, he wakes up and says ‘good morning’ and ‘thank you’ to Douglas before starting his day’s duties. Douglas never really understood the custom.

“Ye dinnae need tae thank me ilka day,” Douglas said one morning. “I do though,” Oliver replied quietly. “It’s important to me… to everyone. You saved us when we had no one to turn to, and it’s because of you that I’m here today. That alone is worthy of my eternal gratitude.”

Douglas left it at that, and puffed away to start his day.

Once Douglas had rounded the bend out of sight, Oliver released a sigh he didn’t know he had been holding in. The Caledonian couldn’t possibly know.

There are two days that Oliver will never forget: the first is the day that Douglas rescued him from the Other Railway, but the second…

The second is the day he arrived in that scrapyard; two months prior. He’d been out of coal, unable to find even a single lump of the black fuel source. He’d been captured by a smirking diesel, who’d dragged him up to the Barrow Scrapyard and left him in a cold, damp siding with his coach Isabel and his brakevan Toad. The trio thought they were alone, until an old, scratchy voice broke the silence.

“Welcome to the ‘out of use’ siding,” wheezed the voice. Oliver looked back. Behind him was a row of old, rusty engines. They were not Great Westerns like him – they were ex-LMS stock. The one who had spoken was a grimy Fowler 4F, who was missing both his tender and his dome. He stood right behind Oliver, but ahead of six other engines. Two were Jinty tank engines, one was a Black 5, one was a Stanier 8F, one was an Ivatt 2MT tank engine – and the last was Pettigrew D5, from the Furness Railway.

The other engines didn’t say anything. They just sat there – silent hulks leaving growing shadows on the ground.

“Hello, little runaway,” smirked an oily diesel. Oliver looked up to see a large, grease-smeared Class 28 rumble up alongside him. “We caught you at last.” Oliver glared defiantly. The Great Western engine refused to give the diesel the pleasure of a reply.

“Heh, not a talker?” sneered the diesel. “No matter. We’ve got a little treat in store for you. You’re last on our siding, so I hope you enjoy what comes next.”

And with that, men left the works coach the Class 28 was pulling, and made their way over to the first of the Jintys.

Oliver couldn’t bear to look – but he was forced to listen. Listen to the hiss of the blowtorch, to the screech of 1000 degrees slicing through metal, to the screams of the engine as it was slowly; agonisingly carved up and turned into a pile of parts.

The Class 28 shunted the parts into the smelter’s shed.

Oliver wanted to cry, but the look on the diesel’s kept his eyes dry. The glee – the sheer, unadulterated glee – in that engine’s eyes was sickening. Oliver wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing his sick, twisted game was getting to the Western engine.

The scrapper’s had waited a week before returning, with that same smarmy diesel. This time, Oliver got to read the engine’s number off its cab.

D5701.

Oliver noticed that the other Class 28s avoided this one. They looked at this diesel as if he was a monster. Oliver agreed with them. This diesel seemed to take enjoyment from the screams of his victims, listening in for the moment the screams dissolved into whimpers.

The torch worked its way through the engines in the siding. The Staniers and the other Jinty were gone by the end of the month, leaving Oliver with the D5, the Ivatt 2MT and the Fowler 4F. All four rarely spoke – especially not with the other diesels growling and sneering at them. All except the other Class 28s. The rest of that class seemed horrified at their siblings’ actions – and they were the only ones that came near them without bringing death.

D5703 rumbled up beside Oliver one evening, looking around fugitively. “Tonight, the Midnight Goods comes across from Sodor,” she hissed quietly. “We’re going to try and redirect their engine this way – but you need to grab their attention.” Oliver couldn’t find the steam to reply.

“We’ll try,” croaked the Fowler from behind Oliver. “Thank you.”

The night wore on, and the four engines, Isabel, and Toad all waited for signs of a Sodor engine puffing past. Instead, D5701 growled past, dragging D5703 behind as she hissed and hurled insults at her unfeeling sibling.

“Try and help those relics, huh?” he snarled. “Try and derail to bring those disgusting Nor-Westers this way? It’s such a shame that the company wants you gone, little sister.” Oliver watched with wide eyes as D5701 dragged their own sister into the smelting shed. There was the distinct hiss of smelting torches being fired up – and then a single, ear-piercing scream. D5701 growled out of the smelting shed, lip curled up in a snarl.

“And let that be a lesson!” he roared. “There is no escape!” The four steam engines said nothing, didn’t give the furious diesel the satisfaction of a victory.

The next day, the men came for the Ivatt, slicing the young engine up extra slowly.

That was when a second young Class 28 began to visit the trio. D5714 was an unassuming young girl - she wasn’t the youngest of her class, nor the oldest. She just was. She pulled her trains when her Crossley motor allowed her to, and she got her driver to play the radio for her when she couldn’t.

“What is the West like?” she asked Oliver one evening. “Well, it’s wonderful,” grinned Oliver. “Beautiful scenery – and all our coaches were painted chocolate and cream. But… the managers didn’t care about steam. Said we were too inefficient. They were… they were proud to claim their region was the first to… to… to abolish steam.” D5714 gasped. “That’s horrible! The same is happening to my class… they say we’re too expensive to keep running. We aren’t ‘revolutionary’ like the other diesels. Big brother 5702 said our best chance of survival was to learn from the steam engines, and use their wisdom to do better at work. Big brother 5701 wants us all to get into the… the scrapping business. He thinks if we do, we’ll survive on the scrap-merchant’s money. Big sister 5700 was scrapped though… and so was big sister 5703! I saw 5701 drag her off.” Oliver paused, realisation hitting him like a runaway freight train.

The Class 28s weren’t even ten yet. They’d been built in the late 50s! The young girl in front of her couldn’t have been older than eight years old. And here they were, being forced to debate the best way to survive. It was sickening – and it was all British Rail’s fault.

The D5 was the next to go. The poor old engine had been sat in that siding for ten years and had accepted his fate long ago. When the cutters came for him, he simply smiled at them. His voice had been lost during the last downpour, and the rust was creeping up his smokebox. He didn’t scream like the other engines – and Oliver could tell how much that infuriated D5701.

“Why was he so quiet? Are the torches not hot enough?” he demanded. The scrappers all shot the diesel dirty looks. “That engine was meant to have been cut up years ago,” one of them snapped. “You’ve kept him on this siding for nearly a decade, and that’s all you have to say?” Oliver felt sick to his boiler. That old engine had been sat out in the wind and snow and driving rain and baking sun for an entire decade. Longer than most of his replacements had even been alive.

And he could tell that D5714 thought her brother’s words were horrible too. “Don’t mind him,” muttered the Fowler softly. Oliver jumped. The 4F had been silent ever since D5703 had been scrapped. “I… beg your pardon?” “Don’t mind that bully,” the 4F said. “His type has always existed, and they always will. But you can’t let them win.” “How do you know?” asked Oliver. The 4F didn’t reply. Oliver had a sinking feeling that he didn’t want to know.

“The Midnight Goods is due in two weeks,” hummed D5714 the next evening. “I wonder if it’ll be that Scot again?” “Scot?” asked Oliver. “Yes – the last one was pulled by some engine with a Scottish accent. He spent a good few minutes hissing insults at 5701.” Oliver noticed that the young engine was no longer referring to her classmate as ‘big brother’.

That evening, D5701 came for the Fowler 4F. Unlike the others, he was dragged out of the siding.

“Well, old timer?” sneered D5701. “It’s your turn. How does it feel to be scrapped by the very people you once worked for?” “Like a cruel irony,” came the blunt reply. “And one I feel you too will come to know.” D5701 laughed – but his laugh was like shards of glass falling, the laugh of a maniac.

“Me?! Ever be shunted off into a siding like you? You outlived your usefulness as a scrapper’s engine, Fowl one, though that’s to be expected from such a relic.” “And what of you? Even as we speak, they are cutting up your class in the sidings of Carlisle. Five gone, and a sixth being withdrawn tomorrow. I do not envy you, if that is what you want me to say. I do not wish to be you, and I will not argue, or beg, or plead, or scream. There is no satisfaction in that. Not anymore.”

D5701’s engine roared at this, backfiring with a massive Bang! A fireball shot up, and he surged forwards, bumping the Fowler hard enough that the old engine went sailing into the smelting shed, joints creaking and groaning before suddenly giving way. The Fowler 4F’s axles shattered beneath him, and he toppled cab over wheels to one side, parts snapping off and smashing down all around the husk of an engine. D5701 smirked.

“You’ll be next, Western,” he said. With that, he rumbled off to deal with scrapping the remains of the Fowler 4F. D5714 sidled up next to Oliver.

“I have a plan,” she said quietly. “But I need you to have at least a little steam. Can your crew build a fire?” Oliver blinked. His crew was somewhere in Barrow – probably trying to find a way to speak to the Fat Controller across the bridge – but he hadn’t heard from them in well over a month. “If you can get them to me, we can probably get something started with all the overgrown weeds…” Oliver replied. D5714 smiled. “Good. When the steam engine arrives, I need you to get their attention, no matter what. Oh! Or if it’s D5702. He’s also a Sodor engine. If you can do that, I can distract everyone else.”

Oliver felt a smile slowly grow on his face. “Thank you,” he whispered. D5714 smiled. “It’s the right thing to do,” she replied. And then she was speeding away before her psychopathic brother could reappear.

Oliver’s crew were back the next day, tugging weeds out of the ground and laying them out in Oliver’s firebox to dry out. They took a floorboard or two from Toad as well. Even so, it was dangerous work. D5701 kept rumbling over to gloat, counting down the days with a manic grin that split his face in two, revealing a row of pearly white teeth. On any other engine, that smile would have been natural, reassuring – D5714 smiled like that sometimes, when Oliver told her about all his adventures back on his branchline – but on D5701, it just seemed sinister.

But he was nowhere to be found the day before the Midnight Goods was due to arrive, in spite of it being the day before he planned to scrap Oliver. D5714 was smirking when she pulled in.

“We’re in luck,” she said. “5701 is stuck at Carnforth due to some faulty points. It gives us an even better chance.” And with that, her driver pulled a sack out of the diesel’s cab and tossed it to Oliver’s driver. The driver opened the bag and gasped.

“Coal!” “It was the last in the bunkers on the branch,” D5714 said. “So use it wisely.” Oliver beamed. “I can’t thank you enough,” he said earnestly. “Is there anything I can do for you? Anything at all?” D5714 thought for a moment, then smiled shyly. “I would like… a name.”

Oliver stopped dead, stunned. “You don’t have a name?” “Not many diesels do,” D5714 replied quietly. “British Rail says it encourages deviant behaviour – but I heard that all steam engines have names!” “We do,” said Oliver proudly. “I’m Oliver… and you… what do you think of Eleanor?” “Like that American woman?” asked D5714. “The one who helped found the United Nations?” “Yes,” Oliver replied. “Eleanor Roosevelt. I met her when she came to Britian during the war. One of the most amazing people I’d ever spoken to. She wanted to help everyone… a lot like you.” “I… I like it.” “Then pleased to finally meet you, Eleanor.” Eleanor blushed, and was about to leave when the pair heard a disturbingly familiar horn echo through the yards.

“Quick! He’s coming back!” hissed Oliver. Eleanor sped away, and vanished just before D5701 finally returned. Oliver’s crew hid in Isabel, daring not to make a sound. “One night left, steam kettle,” sneered D5701. “I’m going to enjoy tomorrow.”

With that, he rumbled away.

Night fell. Oliver’s crew began building a small fire in Oliver’s firebox, having first checked his tanks had water. They were in luck. All was still in the yards.

Then, suddenly, the fire alarm rang out, just as a sharp, deep, Caledonian Railway whistle boomed in the distance. Oliver could see in the distance that the main sheds were on fire – and D5714’s plan was suddenly in motion.

Oliver could only hope that his crew had built enough of a fire to make steam.

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#fanfiction writer #railway series #weirdowithaquill #thomas the tank engine #railways #traintober 2023 #traintober #ttte oliver #ttte D5701 #Class 28 Metrovicks #scrap #tw character death #prequel to Enterprising Engines 'Escape'#ttte douglas

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