#VR H-Class H220 “Heavy Harry”

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

Heavy Harry moodboard

I did a thing and made a moodboard of Harry, bits and pieces that reflect what he is and what he is fond of...

(The Victorian Railways seriously put out a poster about demonic vandals... I want a copy of it so bad!)

[daisywithnomakeup]

Just a few pics of H220 Heavy Harry I snapped back in 2023 and early this year

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

This big bastard right here, Victorian Railways H220 ‘Heavy Harry’.

One of the few three-cylinder 4-8-4s in existence, the biggest engine on the former VR network and one of the heaviest engines in the Southern Hemisphere, and he knows it. Once he crashed Flying Kipper-style into a waiting goods train, which forced that first train into the rear of yet another train.

He also once did burn outs at the bottom of Avenal Bank, digging holes in the rails while doing so; further cementing his hoon ‘bad boy’ engine reputation.

Come to think of it, a lot of his history echos Henry’s a bit (one of a kind engine with boiler issues, major accidents, a trifle touchy, fits of anger and melancholia, likes flowers).

In the Australian TTTE AU I made, the VR had engines with faces just like Sodor and ran more or less the same time until the end of steam more or less wiped out VR steam engine culture and consigned engines to museums or preservation groups… or the scrap roads. Harry was on the scraproads from 1956 to 1961, he has a sense of wounded bitterness about that which never left.

Then he was able to take human shape from ‘65 onwards and has been a hooligan ever since.

His real life basis, VR H-class Pocono H220, at the Newport Railway Museum.

I think I figured out why hardly anyone comes by here to chat! I’m too much of a hermit! I have nothing else to do (kicks aside my Christmas crocheting lists and wips) tell me about your ttte oc and I will try and draw them!

(First slot is reserved for Morgan of course!)

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

Railbastards (Newport Works Sharpies)

H220 Harry and R707 Cerbs hang out at a seedy railway station in Melbourne sometime during the 1970’s, one which they probably made really seedy… hence the presence of that ‘Demon Of Destruction’ poster.

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

Traintober 2023: Out Of Service

Heavy Harry’s Last Train

1956

A sad day for Harry, for he was to pull his final revenue raising train to Melbourne before his overhaul. But the way things were going, everyone doubted if he would actually get it.

He had slept overnight at Seymour before the trip, which was OK because Newport had taken on a charnel house-like atmosphere. The scrap roads filled with exhausted, sad locos ready to be taken apart. It was basically his second home anyway.

Is this the day I finally get to cry? It would be an acceptable excuse to do it.

The tears would not come. He felt drier than the Simpson Desert. Numb.

His cylinders on the other hand, always felt slightly ticklish. And not from those weird happy butterflies he got in them when he saw VR Hudson R700 Nucklevee again, but bad sort of ticklish.

Steam was leaking into them, his regulator was probably broken in addition to his sore, in-need-of-replacement boiler and if it wasn’t for the Westinghouse brake, venting as much steam as he possibly could through his cylinder cocks, safety valve and his sheer willpower in locking them, he would careen off by himself with an 800 tonne load.

He did not want this to happen.

Please, please, please I need my overhaul so bad! Even if you put me in mothballs, at least make me safe!

That’s not going to happen isn’t it?

I’m now an actual danger to myself and people. You can’t really be this negligent, VR? Say it ain’t so? Its one thing to let us get caked in filth, its another thing to lag behind on overhauls just because you want to be rid of us.

You don't care, do you?

I’m about to have my last ride and I’m actively a danger to everyone. I’m trying so very hard…

He was washed and cleaned for his final ride, which didn’t improve his mood a jot but at least he didn’t look as shabby as he did. His paint did shine a little duller though, whether from sadness or from neglect was difficult to tell.

“How are you, Harry…”, asked Driver

“Not great…” he said as if under water.

“I can understand… its a sad day for everyone…”

“I’m shit scared… my regulator is leaking…I can feel the steam in my cylinders even with the regulator shut… I don’t want to do this…”

“Lets try get through today, Har’, we’ll work our darndest to make it safe and get you home...”

“I’m not going to get that overhaul, won’t I…”

“I don’t think so, boy...”

30th of April, 1958

“What are they going to do with me? I’ve been sitting here for two years...I’m bored and antsy… and I haven’t heard from the Historical Society in weeks… Do you have any news, Driver?”

“I’m so sorry, Harry...there’s no nice way of saying this… you are being withdrawn…”

Harry didn’t quite hear Driver say these words, terrible overwhelming fear and confusion flooded his smokebox.

The physical pain that was in his boiler that was now constant but low, suddenly stabbed him and he exhaled sharply.

“No reprieve?”

“No, big fella”

Driver squeezed his knuckle coupling sadly, in an attempt to give him comfort.

“What is to happen to me, Driver…”, he said in a voice that was barely above a murmur.

“We don’t know…the preservationists are working on something… but it will take time…”

That emotional pain that was already there, more of it was being added. But he had to push that aside and think.

“What will you do, Driver…”

“I’m a railwayman, and always have been…

“There’s no place for us in the brave new world of swappable roles they are going to create… easy to drive, easy to train, which was what I suspect was going on the entire time they were doing this diesel introductory thing anyway...

Not a word of thanks for the work and love we put into you and yours, Harry…

I’ll never forget you, big fella…”

Harry wanted so very badly to cry, but the pain could not flow outwards. Instead, it settled back into his cold firebox and burned as bitterness.

The pain in his side flared, as if expressing what he could not.

He just cast his eyes downward and sighed.

There is no light at the end of this tunnel, just another, even bigger fuck-off train ready to barrel through you and out the other side, leaving you in pieces all over the track.

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

For Greeniebeanie96

For @greeniebeanie96, thank you for drawing my big bloke! Have a drawing of Marija playing with Harry in monster form!

Lots of love, Gunzel XXXXXOOOOXXXXXXXXXX

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

Ohhhhh I love how you drew him! I’ve been looking at him for weeks! Thank you so much mate! 🚂🚂🚂🚂🖤🖤🖤🖤

3rd attack for @engineer-gunzelpunk (18+) !!! still love your dude so much

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

‘Now That You’ve Told Me, Can You Go Away?’

‘As you wish… my prince’

Seconds from disaster…

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

Heavy Harry monster engine form comparison chart

Here's he, in his various sizes... the in-between form in my AU is called the "switch" (because an monster engine in this form can go both ways, as engine and as monster), and yep... he, like SpookyHenry, is demonic...

(I kinda noticed that his size and weight in human form is a bit obscured ... 7.1 ft. 550 lbs), he is pretty massive in all his forms as befits the heaviest loco in Oz.

CW: Blood

Yes, he is a big fucker.

This one is a bit of a work in progress...

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

Harry in the style of @rouxipanda's humanoid engines. I just couldn't help myself, I just really, really like how you depict a humanoid engine, Rouxi!

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

May I give you a IRL train interview from the old Melbourne newspaper The Argus?

I don't know who to send this ask so I'm gonna leave it out here for the public because it just came to me out of the blue: locomotive literature

And I don't mean literature about locomotives, but rather literature written by locomotives

Train biographies detailing their lives on the railway and documenting how things have changed since they were first built

Ghost writers publishing literary works written by trains

Trains with human editors sitting on their buffers as they write down what their engines say and making adjustments for those especially picky or who's words cannot be transcribed because they will be banned otherwise (looking at you Duncan)

Just

Train authors you guys

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

New Things

I got this neat little railway coin of my loco. I love finding Harry related stuffs here and there; this particular one seems like a fairly recent output.

There’s other railway coins around of different trains and locomotives as well.

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

Railway Yards With Chaotic Auras

This picture of H220 exiting the Newport Erecting Shop sometime around late Jan/early Feb of 1941 has kind of a ‘Railway Series’ vibe to it. A bit of ‘confusion and delay’, maybe?

@sodorsteam’s Rook is the face model for that domeless sad D2 on the right!

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

Traintober 2024 Day 3: The Film (Idiot Box)

Cerberus (left) and Harry (right) at the Newport Workshops some time in the ‘90s

Jeremy Sims and Ben Mendelsohn in ‘Idiot Box’, 1995

Just a redraw of a film still featuring my big idiot in a crass shirt.

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

Blimey! This is the third video on Heavy Harry on Youtube I've seen recently! Thanks Jayde! 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🚂🚂🚂🚂🚂🚂

Heres the other two!

Heavy Harry!! @engineer-gunzelpunk Look! It's the boi!

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

And last but not least, some H220 arts...

Here he is, chilling with @sodorsteam's Rook in his pjs, while SpookyHenry sits in the crook of his arm.

He argues with his driver over Lithgow coal which is too ashy for his big self and requires cleaning his firebox, sometimes two or three times in a single journey. The special coal he prefers is Maitland coal, the high quality anthracite thats similar to Welsh coal.

""C'mon on Harry, we have to use this coal!",

""NO!"

"Its good coal, Har! Highly calorific!",

"Well then, you eat it then! Go on, take a big fucking bite of it!"

"Harry, stop being such a big baby...". "I'M NOT A BABY!"

And now a couple of pictures other people have done, top fellas both!

A commish of my big lad from @ohjeeztrains, thank you soooo much Moff I love it!

"You'll have to excuse me truculence, I just think you are a wanker..."

From my very good mate, @sodorsteam!