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weirdowithaquill · 2 months ago

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Traintober 2024: Day 14 - Screech

Before Sodor:

When he came out of the works, James was a very different engine to the one who went in. The regular, boring, utilitarian Class 28 who had been pushed in was gone, and out came a prototype. Hughes classified James as a ‘Class 29’.

“You’re a very special engine,” Mr Hughes said, watching on as James was fired for the first time. “I’m hoping your rebuild will bring all the successes I am hoping for.” That made James feel very special. He’d been plucked at random from his shed for the overhaul, chosen from in amongst a group of twelve of his class, as well as another six Class 27s who’d been doing their absolute best to be picked. But it had been James; of all the engines on the entire railway, it had been James.

“I’ll do you proud, sir!” chirped James excitedly. Mr Hughes smiled gently, and stepped to one side to continue to watch the proceedings. James was carefully steamed up, his slightly larger boiler warming quickly. Every part of him felt new and precision machined. His firebox was large and his cylinders strong; his superheater warmed him right through and left James practically bursting with the need to get out of the workshop and prove himself. His fire burned brightly, his steam pressure shot up. The men grinned as James easily passed all their tests, the foreman marking off boxes on his list with the smallest hint of a smile.

James felt his brakes being taken off, and then his regulator being very slowly opened, prompting him to hiss steam as he inched forwards. But as the brakes were put back on with an odd screeching noise. James frowned.

“Something feels a bit off, sir,” he said slowly. “What brakes was I fitted with?” The foreman winced out of James’ view, and went to speak only for Mr Hughes to place a firm hand on his shoulder. The Chief Mechanical Engineer shook his head slowly, a dark look in his eyes.

“It’s a new design!” Mr Hughes called out. “We want to test these before we give them to other engines, and considering how much stronger we hope you’ll be, you seemed like the best engine to trial them on. They do screech a bit though, but don’t be alarmed.” James beamed!

“Oh sir! I knew I was going to be special. Look at me – don’t I look smart!” “You look very nice in our livery,” agreed Mr Hughes politely. “Now we need to start running tests. Your crew and the inspector will take it from here.” With one final meaningful look at the foreman, Mr Hughes placed his hat atop his head and strode away.

James didn’t watch him go, his eyes instead set on the trucks and coaches that littered the yard. “I can’t wait!” grinned James, feeling his driver open his regulator once more after taking off his special brakes. They started him off on some light shunting duties, testing out his response to the controls. In the distance, a foreign whistle blasted through the works as another freight train blasted through at speed. James raised an eyebrow.

“Who’s that?” he asked. “We don’t usually get outsiders here.” “The railway is trialling a foreign engine to see how they could adapt it,” the inspector replied clinically. James hummed, considering the new information before continuing his shunting. Every time he braked, his brakes screeched, and he slid just a little more than usual.

“Inspector,” James began slowly after the ninth time, “these brakes seem a bit weak. Why don’t they stop me sooner?” The three men in James’ cab shared looks out of his line of sight. They seemed to have a silent conversation in the span of several seconds, before the inspector finally responded.

“They’re a dynamic brake,” he said carefully. “They’re a little slower to apply, but they are made of an extremely strong material that won’t wear out as much.”

James felt better after that. Had he been even a little older, he wouldn’t have accepted the reply as easily – after a certain period of time, most engines grew a sort of sixth sense around their motion. They could detect if something was wrong easily, and work to fix it. James had barely seen his second year in service when he was unceremoniously picked to be rebuilt; his youth had made him a prime choice. The older engines whispered about unification and grouping in the back of the sheds, thinking their shed masters were unaware that they knew of what was brewing. In return, their shed masters did their best to hide the full extent of the truth and quash the rumours.

James was ignorant to it all as he was rigorously tested. He worked hard at everything: he banked trains some days, hauled freight on others, and even pulled a couple of fast passenger trains! Each day brought another checkmark on the inspector’s form, and each night brought a new shed with unfamiliar faces. James never slept at the same shed two nights in a row. He went all over the network, seeing all the sights and meeting many engines.

None of them said much to him.

“Good evening!” James would try, only to get a lot of side-eye and subtle glances. James thought they were too impressed with him to speak! Or at least, he did at first. As the days stretched out into months and nothing changed, James began to feel the looks more acutely. The other engines weren’t impressed. They weren’t jealous of his potentially revolutionary design or the way that Mr Hughes sometimes came specifically to see him. They weren’t envious of how James got a special number and they weren’t in awe of how smart he looked.

They just didn’t like him. They thought him an imposter, an oddity. A weird Frankenstein’s engine made of a unique boiler, an unusual pony truck and unconventional brakes that just wouldn’t stop screeching whenever James tried to stop. James figured the screeching had to be from the metal brakes clamping against his steel wheels.

The screeching came from his wheels sliding along the rails.

Seasons changed. James wasn’t invited into sheds as often anymore, sitting out in dirty old sidings in between the endless trials. They hadn’t ended, though James wondered if that was because he was succeeding and they wanted data in the wet and cold and maybe even the snow if it dragged on long enough… or if he was failing.

The foreign engine was still around somewhere too. James never saw it, but he heard it. When down south, he’d discovered that the whistle belonged to the Great Western Railway, which ran along the distant south-west coast of England. The few engines of that railway that he managed to see looked very smart, with dark green paint and great brass safety valve bonnets that shone like spun gold in the sun. They all looked very sleek and impressive – James felt gangly next to them. But when he asked about the foreign engine, he was always redirected away from an answer.

Winter came, and with it the rumour mill grew louder. Finally, James learnt an uncomfortable truth: the railways were being grouped together into four. When he heard, he asked Mr Hughes what it would mean – Mr Hughes didn’t reply, and instead booked James in for a general service.

The foreign engine left before the year was out, but James spent Christmas in the works sleeping to stave off the cold while the men switched out his brakes. Apparently, they weren’t working as well as hoped, but the trials were being extended to get an idea on what that meant.

The inspector no longer went everywhere with James. Instead, he turned up once a week and asked James weird vague and cagey questions before leaving again. Sometimes it was even a different inspector, especially as James was shuffled around again, heading further inland and into the territory of their rival—no, former rivals. James wasn’t part of a company that rivalled the old Midland Railway anymore. He was part of a company with them.

The Midland passenger engines had very shiny paint. They didn’t have the same gorgeous brass that the Great Western engines had, but instead they had the most eye-catching red paint James had ever seen! It was glorious – it sparkled in the sun and was vibrant even in the pouring rain.

James remained in black. His lining was neglected, and it slowly faded away. James wondered when he’d get a repaint. He had been hurried rebranded as being part of the new ‘LMS’ with an equally new number, but that had been done in under a day by a trio of bored-looking men. The new number sat stark on James’ tender, and he instantly hated it.

James only pulled trucks and shunted now. He didn’t get to pull fast trains or passengers or go lots of different places now. Instead, he was assigned to a shed in the middle of nowhere along a busy line, sleeping in a dirty berth on a dirty siding in between unimportant mineral trains from one junction to another. Monotony crept in slowly, James completely forgetting about his abnormal brakes and becoming immune to the screech they made when he stopped. Every day was the same, every journey the same. The Midland engines didn’t speak to the L&YR reject, steering well clear even as they slowly opened up to their old rivals.

And then one day, a new engine arrived at James’ shed. It was a design he’d seen dotted about, and it looked like a stronger version of his old class.

“I’m here to take over,” the engine grunted. James balked. “But what am I to do?” he spluttered. “I don’t know mate,” sneered the engine. “Maybe you’re time’s up. There’s rumblings in the factory that they finally finished the mogul design.” The engine looked James over, and snorted. “Oh, you’re the rejected design they built. Poor thing, there’s not much left for you now Hughes is retiring.”

James was rendered speechless for just long enough for the new engine to shunt some of the trucks into a line.

“I’m not a reject!” he exclaimed. “I’m the prototype! The class is based on me you nitwit – my design’s the future of this company.” The engine just chuckled, looking James over once more, before his eyes darted to James’ brakes.

“Oh yes, very revolutionary indeed,” he snorted, and puffed away. James was coupled up to some vans needing repairs, and dragged away from the shed he’d been forced to come to know as his home. He went far further than ever before, making his way well over halfway across the country. He was stopped in an unfamiliar workshop that bustled with hundreds of men and machines to have his LMS number unceremoniously scraped off, before being sent on again the next day. This time, he had a short train of trucks behind him. It grew steadily as he went, as did James’ temper.

“Get in line you stupid things!” he snapped, bumping the trucks harshly as he clattered along what felt like a double-tracked branchline to James. All the engines along the line were being withdrawn and replaced with yet more of the same smug class of tender engine that had stolen James’ job and home. James wondered if he was being drawn towards a scrapyard, tucked away at the end of this line.

Then he passed by an immense empty iron train, and realisation struck. He was in Cumbria. This had to be the famed Furness Railway that he’d heard of one night while in being trialled up in the north. Despite being such a small line, it’s massive industrial traffic kept it independent from the giants baying at its doors.

And look how well that worked out.

James arrived at Barrow-in-Furness with a long line of trucks, a screech of his brakes and a furious temper. His crew stepped down. “Sorry old boy,” sighed his driver, “but this is us. Your new crew will take you from here.” James stared at his driver like he’d lost his mind.

“What new crew? What is happening, driver?! I just lost my shed, I’ve been dragged halfway across the country and I'm surrounded by these smug Midlanders! Tell me what is going on!” James’ driver sighed, taking his cloth cap in his hands and squeezing it.

“Mr Hughes is being replaced soon,” his driver admitted quietly. “He’s decided to leave the company. Mr Fowler is taking over, and he’s agreed with the directors to sell you to the North Western Railway as part of a special agreement they’re making.” James blinked, stunned.

“The What Railway?” he asked slowly. “Wait… the No-Where Railway?! They’re… they’re… they’re getting rid of me?! But I’m meant to be the prototype! What, so they’re just going to use some other mogul design?!” His driver winced. A little shunting engine nearby looked over, perplexed.

“Didn’t your lot decide to base it off a Caley design that was influenced by those Westerners? The 4300 lot.” James went silent, unable to think of anything to say. He was stunned.

A new crew clambered into James’ cab and set off. James was silent as he crossed over the points and onto his new railway. He’d been sold off. He’d been sold off because he was a failure. His brakes screeched as his crew braked to slow at a signal. The trucks bumped and clattered behind him, hissing and grumbling.

“What’s that noise?” quizzed James’ new driver. James sighed.

“Those’re my brakes. They’re made of some special metal Mr Hughes wanted to test. They didn’t end up working as well, but I’ve still got them.” The crew shared a confused look inside James’ cab, but pressed on.

At Vicarstown, an old ‘American’ design from the Furness Railway was shunting in the yard as James rumbled in and began shunting trucks on and off of his slow goods train. The old engine winced at the screech James’ brakes made, then looked up and smiled warmly.

“Hullo! I’m Edward, who’re you?” “12620,” came the bitter reply. ‘Edward’ chuckled softly, rolling over to help with the shunting. “Not your number, your name,” Edward said. “I’m James,” said James quietly. “But only I call myself that.” “Well I’ll call you that too,” promised Edward firmly. James’ crew were quick to agree with the bright blue engine. James didn’t like the colour – it was too similar to Caledonian blue. The same Caledonian that stole his classes’ future with their mogul design.

The pair talked for a little, Edward warning James about the steeper gradients beyond Kellsthorpe Road as he helped the former LMS engine reshunt his slow goods to be easier to separate as the various stations along the NWR. James bumped his trucks roughly as he prepared to set off again. Edward heard the screech of James’ brakes again, and looked down. His eyes practically bulged out of his smokebox in shock.

“James, why’ve you got wooden brakes?!” exclaimed Edward. James snorted. “They’re not wood, they’re a special metal,” he replied harshly. Edward was about to say more when the signal dropped. James snorted away, continuing down the surprisingly steep mainline towards Crovan’s Gate. And Edward had called this the ‘gentle’ part of the mainline!

Crovan’s Gate was their works station. It also had a tiny little railway on a ledge above the mainline which skuttled about its own yard before vanishing off under a bridge. A tiny little engine with a nameplate declaring him to be ‘Rheneas’ was dozing in the sun beside the line. James screeched to a stop beside the little engine with trucks to be unloaded for the little railway. Rheneas jumped!

“You sound like you need your brakes checked,” Rheneas said. His accent was thicker than anything James had ever heard – it sounded faintly Welsh, but with Manx and maybe Scots in it? James wasn’t sure what to call it. “They’re a special metal,” James replied darkly. “You all keep asking me like my designer wouldn’t give me the strongest brakes he had.” Rheneas looked confused, but said nothing until James was back at the head of his train. Then, he spotted James’ brakes.

“But… those are wood,” he said carefully. James let off steam furiously. “THEY ARE NOT WOODEN!” he roared. Birds scattered from their trees. “I am sick of hearing that! Leave me alone!” bellowed James, storming off with screeching trucks in tow. The trucks were aggravated, annoyed, tired and then James had insulted Rheneas, one of the nicest engines on the island.

They had seen James’ brakes; they knew the truth. And they knew exactly what to do to prove it to James too…

Back to the Master Post

#weirdowithaquill #railway series #thomas the tank engine #traintober #traintober 2024 #ttte james #james the red engine #l&yr #ttte edward #wooden brakes #prompt: screech #very long post

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joezworld · 3 months ago

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Traintober Day 6 - "The Comedy"

Hey it's Traintober! I have a couple of things written for this - more will be revealed if/when circumstances allow.

This one is just written for me: "What if I re-wrote arguably one of the worst Chris Awdry stories but also made it extremely topical? What's that? It's basically a shitpost?"

Yah anyways this is Drip Tank but it's also not.

Dripping

The Present Day - 2024

“Chaps,” Thomas said one evening as he arrived back at the sheds. “What is ‘the drip,’ and how can someone have it?”

“No.” Percy said firmly. “We’re not doing this again. It was stupid last time and I won’t be made the fool a second time.”

“This week.” Toby murmured under his breath.

“What was that?” Percy glared. “Was that a constructive comment telling Thomas that we’re not playing dictionary games in public ever again?”

“Thomas, in what context did you hear that?” Toby ignored Percy.

“I don’t know,” Thomas explained. “It was a group of children standing on the platform.”

“Oh, so it is like last time!” Percy was irate. “We. Are. Not. Doing. This. Again!”

Thomas ignored him too. “They were talking about someone getting a new jacket, but it didn’t seem to be a bad thing. I think it was a compliment.”

“So it’s a compliment now?” Toby was curious.

“Maybe.” Thomas looked pensive. “They could have been trying to be mean, but I didn’t get that sense. The boy they were talking about wasn’t even there.”

Percy wondered why he continued to like them all as much as he did. “Just, just, stop, you two. This is idiotic. Just ask the kids in the morning when you take them to school. Then we’ll know.”

He paused. “Wait. Have Henrietta ask them when you take them to school, Toby. Then we’ll get the actual reason.”

“I’m taking them in the morning, thanks very much.” Thomas said cheekily. “So I’ll ask.”

“You?! Since when do you take the kids? Since when does he let you?”

“Since they’re resurfacing the main road tomorrow.” Toby said. “All the children are going by train because the buses are too big for the detour. “Unless you would like to take Henrietta, Victoria, Annie, Clarabel, and one of the big main line through coaches on the first down train tomorrow?”

Percy quickly backpedaled, much to everyone else’s amusement!

The next morning, Thomas scanned the platform for someone he knew. He didn’t have Toby’s encyclopedic knowledge of the line’s children, so he had to wait for someone… there! “Rachel! Rachel Kyndley!”

Rachel Kyndley was definitely too old to count as “children” - she was commuting to the University in Suddery, for goodness’ sake - but Thomas definitely didn’t recognize anybody else.

“What’s up, Tommy?” She said, blissfully unaware of the question she was about to be posed with.

“Do you know what “drip” is?” Thomas asked innocently. “I’ve been hearing children talk about it, and I don’t know what it means.”

Rachel made a series of facial expressions, before burying her head in her hands. “Who said this to you and why?”

Thomas explained what he’d heard, and Rachel took a long blink. “I’ll be back in one second.” She walked away, towards the carriages.

A minute later, she came back with a younger boy in a blue satin jacket with “MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS” written across the front. “Is this who they were talking about?”

“I believe so,” Thomas said after a moment of thought. “They said his jacket “had the drip,” but I don’t know what that means.”

The younger boy made an indescribable facial expression. “Rachel, I’m not doing this.”

“Yes, you are, Roy McColl.”

“No!”

“This is your fault!”

“Mine?!”

“If you don’t help I’ll tell your sister!”

“And I’ll tell yours!”

The two stared at each other. “Fine!” “Fine!”

The young boy started first. “So, what d’you wanna know, Thomas?”

“What is drip, and how do you have it?” It really was not a difficult question, and if they took much longer they’d be late setting off.

The boy - Roy - took in a deep breath. “It’s my jacket, see? It’s got drip, which means that it looks real fly. I got that rizz right now.”

Rachel looked defeated. “Roy. Think about what you just said.”

“What? It’s the truth, innit?”

“You explained a word that he doesn’t know with two other words that he doesn’t know.”

“He doesn’t know what rizz is?”

“I don’t know what that means!”

“Uhghh, fine.” He thought hard for a second. “Drip is… like when you look real good, innit? Like you’ve got some clothes that look real nice, gives you a bit of a swagger. Fly is sorta the same thing but it’s like what old people say - maybe more good looking and not a swagger thing, understand?”

“If you think that old people say “fly,” you’re going to have a rude awakening in about five years.”

“I thought that only helicopters and airplanes could fly,” Thomas chipped in unhelpfully. “I guess I’ve learned something.”

“Roy…” Rachel glared.

“Alrigh’ fine!” He recoiled. “So fly and drip mean that you look real nice and fresh. Like, you look good and all that.” He explained again. “You got me?”

“Okay…” Thomas said carefully. “What was that other thing?”

“Am I really gonna tell Thomas the Tank Engine what rizz is?” The boy said quietly.

“You brought this on yourself…” Rachel said darkly.

Thomas looked on expectantly. Seeing young people get so flustered about this sort of thing was one of the few perks of getting old.

“So, rizz is when you got that charisma, that charm, that style. You know, if you ever wanna get with someone, you might wanna rizz them up, be a real gentleman about it.” Roy said it with an ever-increasing look of dread, as though he had never heard the words spoken aloud until they were out of his mouth and unable to be retracted. Rachel Kyndley looked like she wanted to die on the spot. Inside his cab, Thomas’ crew were in hysterics.

Thomas wasn’t sure if he should be worried or impressed that this explanation made sense. “So, drip and fly are similar in that they mean you look good, and rizz is when you’re particularly charming?”

A strangled noise from the platform said volumes, and his crew were now bent over in laughter.

“That’s almost -” Whatever Roy was about to say was cut off by the guard’s whistle. “Oh, well looks like I’ve gotta go-”

“Nope!” Thomas’ driver gasped out between chuckles. “If you don’t get this right now, we’ll never know for certain. Get in here!”

“I don’t think that’s strictly necessary-” Rachel started.

“You too lassie!” the fireman chortled. “This is the funniest thing I’ve heard all year!”

“I-uh, well-” Rachel hemmed and hawed, wondering if she could do a runner and then call in sick.

“Oh, come on dearie!” Said Clarabel, who had been watching the proceedings with amusement. “We’ve all been so curious!”

“Oh my god.” she whispered, and followed Roy into the cab with a sense of impending doom.

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Later

A few days later, Thomas headed off to the works for his annual inspection.

“Nothing’s too wrong,” The manager of the steam shop said as he went over the list. “We do want to get you in for a new coat o’ paint, though. Starting to look a little tatty ‘round the corners.”

Thomas was not one to turn down a new coat of paint, and so a few hours later he was being sanded and stripped of his old paint, ready for the new coat. In the corner of the paint shop, a few of the workers were hunched over an old Ford Anglia, polishing it to a strangely-sparkling finish.

“Allrighty,” the paint shop foreman said, entering the room with a few swatches of paint. “We’ve got some new variations on the old blue and red. See, this one is going to show up much better in bright sunlight, while this one is - well, we’ve managed to get a hold of the retro-reflective stuff that they put on road signs; might make you a touch easier to see in the dark, if we do the red lining with it.”

Thomas looked at the samples, before turning his attention to the car in the corner. “What are they doing with that?” he asked. “It’s so… sparkly.”

“Oh that?” The foreman said. “It’s someone’s project. I think they’re mixing in pearl with some metallic blue. Really makes it shine, doesn’t it?”

It was shiny even from across the room, and Thomas felt an instant, impulsive attraction to it. “Can you do that to me?”

The man was taken slightly aback, but nodded. “Sure we can, but, are you sure? It’s not exactly something that you can take off once the novelty wears off.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine!”

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Later still

A day later, they rolled Thomas out of the paint shop to a flurry of camera shutter noises. The paint shop crew had jumped at the chance to “tweak” Thomas’ paint, and he sparkled in the sun like a pearlescent gemstone.

The younger members of staff were especially pleased. Most of the time they had to work within the constraints of “history,” and “tradition,” and “but I’ve always been this colour,” so seeing their creativity on full display was very rewarding.

“Wow,” Thomas said as he inspected a picture of himself. “I look great!”

“You really do, mate.” One of the painters said as he took a selfie. “We gotta see if we can get Gordon or someone to do this.”

“Oh, he’ll never go for it,” Thomas rolled his eyes. “I don’t think he could handle this level of drip.”

Dead silence followed this.

“What?” Thomas looked around. “Did I say it wrong?”

“No, and that’s the scary thing.”

--------

Later still

Thomas’ new paint was the talk of the Island for several days. Most of the opinions were positive, however some engines had a less-than-complementary view on the situation…

“Who does he think he is?” James grumbled to nobody in particular at the big station. “Gallivanting around in this shiny paint like that, it’s likely to cause an accident!”

Gordon, at the next platform, raised an eyebrow that said volumes, but otherwise stilled his tongue.

“Oh please!” Tornado said from the platform on the other side of James. “He looks so good in that paint. I’d say that you’re just jealous.”

“Jealous? Me?” James retorted at a suspiciously high pitch. “I’m just pointing out the obvious here! If everybody keeps looking at him they’re bound to run into something sooner or later!”

“And it’ll be worth it…” Tornado whispered in a sing-song voice, leading her crew to roll their eyes in unison.

“Don’t mind her,” Said the driver, who Gordon idly noted was one of the youngest girls he’d ever seen on the footplate. “She’s just blinded by Thomas’ incredible drip.”

“Completely rizzed up.” agreed the fireman, who looked like a child. “Totes delulu.”

“Mood.”

Any further conversation was cut off as the signal dropped, and Tornado steamed away, lost in her own imagination.

James continued on indignantly. “And that’s another thing! People just keep saying things about him like they’re supposed to make sense!”

Gordon looked at him out of the corner of his eye. “Nobody will tell you what any of it means, will they?”

“No!” James wailed. “And I have no idea why!”

“One wonders…” Gordon said snidely.

“Oh, as if you know what an “on point drip” is!”

“I have better things to worry about than the idle slang of children.”

“Oh, so they won’t tell you either!”

“I never said that!”

“Oh really? Then please, professor, educate me on what drip could mean in relation to Thomas! Has he sprung a leak?!”

Just then, Edward emerged from under the station canopy, and drew up to the signals. “What, Thomas?” He said conversationally. “Personally, I think he looks fly as hell, but then again I’m a boomer, so I could be tripping.”

He looked like he wanted to say more, but the signal dropped. “Ah well, gotta bounce, TTYL!”

And he puffed away, grinning widely.

Gordon and James took about three seconds to process that.

“Edward, who taught you those words?”

“Edward! Get back here and tell me what that means! EDWARD!”

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