#lake state railway

[welldigger62]

Chasing Trains in Bay City Michigan-

This first one is from Lake State Railway 👇

It is a short train headed to Saginaw Michigan

Some well drawn graffiti is on this car ☝️. There were three in a row with graffiti. The next train is from Huron & Eastern Railway 👇

This one was headed to Durand Michigan. This train had a couple of autorack cars in it.

I met my friend in Bay City and rode around with him because he knows the streets better there.

More graffiti on some cars in this train too. ☝️

This is my buddy snapping the first train we chased. Right after I took this, he literally was running to chase the train engine to get another shot 😂 😂

Yes, I am proofreading this crap, trying to catch the ‘autocorrect fixes’ like I missed in a couple of posts lately. 😠

That’s how I spent my morning. What interesting stuff are you guys up to?

[maa-pix]

Santa and Mrs. Claus wave hello as the Lake Sate Railway's Santa Train pulls into Roscommon, Michigan, on December 7th, 2024.

Screen capture from Michigan Central Lines' youtube video:

[thalialunacy]

I thought I had left my house in such good shape before I went on a nine-day vacation, and was so proud. Yeah no there was asparagus in the (cold) oven the whole week. #thatADHDlife

At least the oven wasn't on? Go team?

Anyway, it's been fun and I knitted a ton, but dang I missed my cats and am glad to be home.

1) Moses Lake, 2) Dry Falls, 3) Soap Lake, 4) it's called POP here, 5) a cute way of helping people pronounce the town name of Chewelah, 6) from an exhibit on Frank S. Matsura, 7) my BFF since 1991 and me, 8) my mom at a railroad museum, 9) me and my mom and some other tourists on a tiny train ride, 10) my mom at Camlann Medieval Village

[rabbitcruiser]

The Lucin Cutoff, a 102-mile (164 km) railroad line in Utah, was opened on March 8, 1904.  

[oooshinyphotography]

Sometimes things just line up, like this BNSF train and Long's Peak.

Train Below The Mountain.

Barr Lake State Park, Brighton, Colorado. 1-5-23.

Canon 6DmII F/6.3 1/640s ISO-100 Tamron 150-600 @ 428mm.

[inky-duchess]

WorldBuilding Ask Game

Here is a little ask game for WorldBuilding in your WIP to pad out one country or all of them! Use it for yourself or ask a friend and spread some love. Focus on a particular section and have fun!

Geography

What does your world look like? What's the biome? Are there different ones?

Are there any oceans? If so, are they accessible? Are they a reliable source of travel and food?

Are there any rivers in your world? Any lakes? What's the longest river? Deepest lake?

Is there a safe supply of drinking water? If not, why not?

Are there mountains in your world? What's the highest one?

What is the weather like? How does this effect life?

What animals inhabit the world? What animals are indigenous or considered exotic?

What are some natural features your world is famous for? Is your world considered beautiful?

How many countries in your world?

How are countries divided? By natural lines or by agreements?

Population

What's the population like? Is it large or sparse?

Is there any factors in population density? Do more people live in a certain area more than elsewhere? Why is that?

Are there different peoples living in your world? If so, how do they get on?

How important is nationality? Are foreigners tolerated? Or are they unwelcome?

What countries get on? What countries hate one another?

Are there any important cities? Why are they important?

What's the architecture like? Are there any outside influences?

What's a typical building material? What's considered an expensive feature to include?

What is infrastructure like? Are roads and railways in good condition?

Is there public transport? Is it reliable?

Government

What system of government does your world adhere to? Is it popular?

Where is the seat of government?

Are there different governmental agencies?

Are there political parties? If so, what are their goals?

How much control does the government have over the average person?

Can your people vote? If not, why not? If so, who has/hasn't the right to?

Are there any parties or organisations that oppose the government?

How does the government crack down on sedition?

Are people allowed to criticise the government? If so, how? If not, how do they get around it?

How are laws made? Who makes them?

Is there any odd laws in your world?

What are some punishments to crime? Are they considered fair?

What crimes are unfathomable for the people?

Who handles justice? Is justice obtainable for all?

Are there any police? What's their reputation?

What role does the military play in your world?

Who controls the army? Head of state or government as a whole?

Is it considered a good career path?

Who can join the army? Are there any restrictions?

What is your world's stance on war? Are there any neutral parties? Or particularly warlike ones?

Commerce and Trade

How is trade done?

Is currency universal or dictated by region?

How is your economy going? What effects it?

What trade is your world known for?

What are some exports? What must your world import?

Are any goods considered luxurious?

What services are available in your world? What services are niche?

What sort of work is common? Is work readily available?

Who is expected to work?

Are workers treated fairly or unfairly?

Are there any ways workers are protected? If not, what are some consequences?

Is your world more reliant on technology or on labour?

Is agriculture possible in your world? If so what can your people grow?

How big is industry? What goods can your people make?

What resources can your country exploit?

What are some barriers to trade and commerce?

Is your nation known for quality? Or Quantity?

Who does your country trade with most often? Who do they boycott?

Are there any major ports in your country?

Are there any banned goods? If so, is there a black market for their purchase?

Society

How society expect one to behave in public? Are there different expectations for different people/genders/ranks?

Is there a social order? Can one move up the ranks?

Is there any considerations made on account of rank, gender, age or position?

What is considered a social faux pas?

Are there any gestures or actions that are considered rude or socially unforgivable?

What would utterly shock somebody to see somebody do?

What are some opinions that are normal for your world but can be considered subversive in real life?

How can one rise up the status ladder? Is there much trouble to do so?

What denotes a person's place in society?

How is life different in cities compared to life in the countryside?

Daily life

Where would someone go to buy their weekly shop? Is food easy to come by?

What would be the daily routine of the wealthy? The common man?

How is hygiene handled in your world? Where does one go to spruce up?

What would be some day to day tasks one might face?

What is the favoured means of travel?

Are there any problems in your world that could effect a daily routine? Potholes? Gigantic spiders? Acid rain?

What ammenties would an average person expect to have access to?

Where would one go if they are injured or ill? What's healthcare like?

Do people feel safe where they live? Are there any places somebody might face danger?

How do people communicate? Is it difficult? Why?

What do people do for fun? What's considered normal fun versus hedonistic?

What pastimes are common? What kind aren't?

Is education valued?

Is there access to education? If so, for who?

Are the population educated? If so to what extent?

Family Life

What is the typical family set up?

Is extended family important?

Who can be considered family? Who can't be?

Is marriage considered a duty? Or is it more of a personal choice?

Is divorce possible?

Can people adopt children?

What happens to orphaned children?

Are children important? If not, why not? If so, why?

What are some typical toys children play with?

What are some games children play with one another?

How is in charge of household chores?

Is there a hierarchy in families?

Are children expected to take on certain roles?

What is the living situation like between the different ranks? Are the roles different?

What's considered the proper way to raise a child?

Culture and Languages

Are there multiple cultures in your world? How do they differ? Do they mesh well together?

How are cultures similar? How are they different?

Are there any traditions in your world? How important is tradition?

What are some rituals your culture undertakes?

Are there any special days? Events?

What are some traditional values in your world? Does it effect daily life?

Are there traditional clothes for your world? Are they something somebody wears on a daily basis or just on occasion?

Are there any rules around what people can wear?

What would be considered formal dress? Casual dress?

What would happen if somebody wore the wrong clothes to an event?

What languages are spoken in your world? If so, how do they sound?

Are there any dialects? If so, how do they sound?

Are most people monolingual? Or bilingual? Or multilingual?

Are there any languages that are closely related?

What is considered a universal language?

Religion

Is religion a thing in your world?

Is religion a staple of life or just a small part?

Does religion affect politics, personal lives and affiliations?

Is your world sectarian? Or ruled by religion?

What are some influences religion has on daily life?

What sort of religion is it? Monotheistic? Polytheistic?

What are some myths your people believe in?

What common rituals does one undertake on a day to day basis?

How does one please a deity?

Where do your people pray? How do they?

What symbols would denote a follower of a certain belief system to a stranger?

What places or objects are considered sacred?

Are there religious orders? If so, who can join?

Is there tolerance or violence over religion? If so, between which faiths?

Food and Drink

What are some traditional dishes in your world?

What would be a basic diet for the common man?

What's considered a delicacy?

Is there a societal difference in diet? What are the factors that effect diet between classes?

Is there any influence from other cuisines? If not, why not? If so, to what extent?

What would a typical breakfast contain?

What would lunch be?

What would be a typical dinner?

What meals are served during the day?

What's considered a comfort food or drink?

Are there any restrictions on who can eat what or when?

Are there any banned foods?

What stance does your world take on alcohol? Is it legal? Can anybody consume it?

Are there any dining customs? Are traditions?

Is there a difference in formal meals or casual meals? If so, what's involved?

Are there any gestures or actions unacceptable at the dinner table?

How are guests treated at meals? If they are given deference, how so?

Are there certain rules about how one can prepare food?

Are there any restrictions on eating with certain people?

How is food generally prepared by?

History

Who are some notable figures from history?

Who founded the country?

Is history looked back on with fondness? Or do your people rather forget?

Are there any heroes in history? Any villains?

What are some highpoints in the history of your land?

What are some points of history nobody likes to speak about?

Does history effect your land, people, culture, language in the present? If so in what ways?

What historic monuments are still around in the present day? What has been lost?

How do people learn about history? Do they learn the truth? Or just an abridged version?

What's a historical event that is important to the story?

[welcome-to-green-hills]

Do you think that we’ll explore the town of Green Hills, Montana in the series and Sonic 3? Like slice of life stuff or more history? I don’t think that there’s a whole lot to the town other than it being described as a “dinky backwater town.”

Hi Honey! ❤️✨

Believe it or not, the town of Green Hills is very fruitful in its foundation! It may not feel like it, but there’s definitely a rich history of when the town was established. (Whew! Now y’all get to see how big of a nerd I am. That’s either a really good thing or a bad thing). I’ll hyperlink all of my sources/claims to specific information so y’all can review it at a later date. Hopefully, this add a bit more detail than what the Sonic Wikis have for the films.

Down below are bullet points and photos of Green Hills, Montana:

Green Hills was founded in the early 1800's by a group of explorers surveying and mapping that state of Montana. The rugged explorers took nearly 30 years in making a complete map of the state and claiming the area as home. Green Hills is located in the middle of the state and known to have fascinating geological features. The town was called "Green Hills" due to the unique shades of green found in its flora. Essentially, the town was founded by chance because it took so long to survey between 1806 to 1835.

One of the town's founders, Morgan McConnell, specifically wanted to build a town in the heart of Montana because of the area's geological feature--checkered patterns. Morgan McConnell was credited for charting nearly a quarter of the state, including the town, and coined as as THE explorer of Montana. His favorite location to sit and work at was the Devil's Pinkie (the ledge that Sonic stands at in the first and second film). Unexpectedly, McConnell fell off of the Devil's Pinkie and died. According to town legend, McConnell's name echoed through the valley ranges for hours after he died. It's unknown if these are still heard in the area today.

Between 1870 and 1883, the town of Green Hills became one of the firsts settled areas along the Northern Pacific Railway. The transcontinental railroad system stretched from the State of Minnesota, the Pacific Northwest, and along the main line opening at the Great Lakes. A town plaque describes Green Hills as a "golden spike" by former USA president Ulysses S. Grant and viewed as an important hub. The town is credited as a supply depot, as well as known for bringing in large immigration populations. The railroad system is still a crucial necessity of the town today.

The first settlers of Green Hills, Montana didn't start making their migration to the area until the 1860s. The settlers were faced with hardships of the land, lack of infrastructure, and brutal winters. Families were known to mingle together in small dwellings and form small communities. Polygamous families were common until Christian morality arrived to the area in later years (Welcome-to-Green-Hills, 2021).

Main Street features the town's first general store, a feed and gardening supply store, and post office.

Green Hills, Montana takes pride in country hospitality. The warmer months have communal events such as hoedowns, harvests and festivals, fishing derbies, farmers markets, and horseback riding events. The business district features Dr. Maddie Wachowski's veterinary clinic, antique shops, a brewery (AKA, the Beer Gardens), a stationary shop, a butcher's shop, and the Mean Bean Coffee Shop (the slogan: "drink mean"). (Tails Channel, 2021).

The Green Hills Community Theater is a town gem. It was established in 1905 and has been known to put on spectacular and successful productions for over 100 years.

The Green Hills Bulletin (the local newspaper) says that they've been the hot spot for a classic car show for the past twenty years, have a "Dog of the Week" section, a local artist guild that does mosaics for the town, recently had a worker's strike on repairing the railroad system in town, and are in the middle of a movement for accessibility laws for disabled residents.

In the first movie's novel, Green Hills is known for its massive Blueberry festivals in the fall. This is an event that's welcome to all of the farmers in the state and neighboring states. Tom is known to actively take part of the festival.

In the 1900's, the town saw an influx of United States veterans occupy the area. It's seen as a "retirement community" to those not actively serving.

The town as a population of nearly 2,000 residents, as implied by the "Welcome to Green Hills" sign at the speed trap.

There's definitely more that the town has to offer in terms of history. When I have the chance, I'll give this post some more attention and add to it. Until then, enjoy some historical facts about our Dinky Backwater Town!

[munsonsprincess11111]

Missing munson.

Eddie munson x hopper/byers!reader

Summary: it's the end of the school year and Eddie gets called to miss Kelly's office. That same day Eddie goes missing. This is sad. The ending is happy though. You've been warned

Friday.

The last time you'd seen Eddie. He was in a bit of a bad mood because he had to go to miss Kelleys office. You was meant to see him after school but his van was gone. You walked to the trailer park and he wasn't there. Then he didn't show up for hellfire.

Or band practice Saturday. Wayne hadn't seen him. By Sunday your dad found you inna state and you told him Eddie was missing. Hopper took you to the station and made you give a statement on everything that happened on Friday.

By Tuesday there was a search party looking for Eddie.

They checked, the hide out, lovers lake, reefer Rick's, the hole Woods by the school. But still nothing. It was now Thursday. Eddie had been missing nearly a week.

Currently, you, Gareth, doug, and Jeff, are walking along the old railway to where there was abandoned vehicle's better known as hawkins dumping ground shouting his name. Hopper gave you a walking talking to communicate with him and other police incase anyone found anything.

There was a team searching in lovers lake. Hopper, Powell and officer daniels where heading to bennies abandoned building. Wayne was in the woods with his work buddies. Joyce Byers and Jonathan where on there way to the old lab.

Jonathan knew Eddie from high school obviously so Mike, Dustin, will and lucas did too. Them four where biking around neighbourhoods seeing if they could find him. It's like he just disappeared.

"Fucking hell Eddie Common." Gareth shouted. Before you could react, Jeff back handed him and shook his head. Eventually, you all made it to the dumping ground and stared at the old motors.

"Gareth come check that truck and car with me. Doug and Jeff check the bus." You say numbly walking over to the truck. Everyone splits and walks off. You had been so out of it. Not sleeping. Barely eating. It was bad.

You open the old truck door and climb into the drivers seat leaning across to look in the back. Nothing. You jump out slamming the door. You walk around to the trucks trunk and open it. Empty. You close it and lean on it as the others check the other vehicles.

"Y/N!" Doug shouts and you spin around. He looks worried and panicked. You nod.

"Get hopper!" HE shouts. Your heart drops. You feel sick. You bring the walkie up to your mouth but no words come out. Your eyes well up and you hand the walkie to Gareth.

"Shit it's OK. Hopper. Daniels. Powell Joyce I don't care who he's here we need help. Now!" Gareth shouts down the walkie.

"Were on our way!" Hopper shouts back down the walkie. You feel numb. You feel sick. But in your state you remember a important point.

"Tell them to check his pulse." You whisper loud enough for Gareth to hear.

"Shit yeah your a genius." Gareth says running over to the others. Time feels slow. But then doug shouts. "He's got a pulse oh thank fuck!"

You let out a breath you didn't even realise you was holding in. Moments later you hear sirens and your dad's vehicle pulls up abruptly along with Powell and daniels in another police car and an ambulance. The three boys get out the bus and tell hopper he has a pulse.

You slowly walk over to Gareth, doug and Jeff. You all stand there not knowing what to do. Two paramedics dealing with Eddie. Before you can speak to your dad Joyce pulls up with Wayne instead of Jonathan. Wayne jumps out of the car and jogs over to hopper to get him to fill him in.

Joyce walks over and hugs you. She just holds you. You don't cry at first. Until the paramedics bring Eddie out of the bus. That's when you broke. The first time you'd seen him in nearly a week. Worried sick. And he's unconscious being wheeled into an ambulance.

Wayne jumps in the ambulance and hopper is due to escort them so they can get there faster to evaluate him better. "Get in." Hopper says to you opening the passenger door. You nod and get in strapping your seat belt before hopper pulls away.

"Hold on kid." HE says driving to the hospital.

-

The waiting room was hell. You was sat next to hopper. Then Wayne came walking out looking relieved. "He's awake. Has been for 30 minutes. He went on a bender. He failed school again. Instead of talking to someone he ran away cause he didn't wanna get an earful." Wayne explains to you and your dad.

You wipe your eyes. Your not sure if there happy tears cause he's here, he's alive and he's talking. Or sad because he felt like he couldn't talk to you and did that to himself.

"But I told him y/ns out here and he told me if I don't come get ya he's gonna walk out here n see you himself." Wayne chuckles. Hopper does too and shakes his head. You nod and stand up. You look to your dad and he gives you a nod.

You walk down the hall and get to the room they put Eddie in. "I'll give you two some alone time." Wayne says walking back off. You open the door and walk in eye going straight to Eddie. He's laying on the bed. Machines beeping. He looks exhausted. But he smiles as he sees you.

"Hey baby." HE says weakly. You step in more and close the door. You take a breath in walking over to him. You run a hand through Eddie's hair. Your eyes water. He's here. He's safe. "Take it Wayne told you what happend." HE says. You nod.

He reaches up slowly and takes your hand. You hold his back as a tear runs down your cheek. "Never do that again. I was so fucking scared." You choke a cry saying to him. He nods and kisses your hand.

"I promise." HE says weakly letting your hand go to wrap his pinky around yours kissing it. You laugh slightly when he does this.

"I'm here OK. I don't care you failed. Nor does Wayne. Hell nor does my dad. Next year will be your year ok. I'll help you study extra hard. You can steal my old notes I don't care. Please just never do that again. I thought I fucking lost you." You say as tears run down your face.

He pulls you on top of him and holds you. He kisses your head ans just holds you. Eventually you stop crying. Your laying on the bed next to Eddie. His arm around you, your head on his chest. "I love you." HE mumbles.

"I love you too dumbass." You says back holding his hand.

"I love you more though Eddie." Gareth makes kissing noise from the door. Eddie looks over to see Gareth, doug and Jeff and rolls his eyes.

"Hello to you to." HE says. You attempt to sit up but Eddie holds you down.

"Dude we thought you was fucking dead." Jeff says throwing himself in the chair.

"Yeah we thought we found your body." Doug chimes in leaning on the wall.

"Good news I'm not." Eddie laughs kissing your head.

"You look like shit." Gareth says.

"Thanks man." Eddie rolls his eyes saying.

-

A week goes by when they finally release Eddie. Wayne picks him up from the hospital and brings him to the trailer. As they pull into the drive way you stand from the seats on the porch and walk over to Eddie who's walking towards the front door. He pulls you into his side wrapping his arm around your shoulders.

He's straight in the shower. You grab him a towel and fresh clothes. Eddie flops on his bed nearly loosing his towel. "I missed my bed." HE says laying in his back.

He slips on his boxers and throws the other items of clothing on the floor climbing into his bed. He flings the covers open next to him letting the spot. You take off your bra and jeans climbing in bed with Eddie. He holds you close and kisses you.

"Sorry for scaring you." HE mumbles.

"I'll forgive you. But babe?" You answer and he nods.

"You can talk to me. It can stay between me and you no one else. You don't need to run you've got me." You say kissing him.

"I love you." HE replies nuzzling his face in your neck.

"I love you too. 86. Its your year." You says kissing his head as he nods.

-

And was you right about 86. He graduated finally. A year after you. But he did it. He gave the teachers on stage the middle finger running off the stage kissing you deeply. You held eachother and told him how proud you was.

A week later the both of you attended prom. Hand in hand you walked in. Granted you graduated a year before. And neither of you wanted to be there. But this was the last chance to really piss off the jocks, cheerleaders and teachers. You wore a long flowy black and red dress.

Eddie wore suit pants and shirt but his leather jacket instead of a proper jacket. You took pictures you gave jason the middle finger as you held eachother close. And Eddie slow danced with you.

You sat in the van after and looked at him. "You did it." You smiles taking his hand.

"I fucking did it." HE smiles back.

"I wouldn't have done it without you by the way thank you for everything." HE says kissing you.

"Don't need to thank me. I love you." You smiles kissing his neck.

"I love you more." Eddie smirks. You pout and kiss him again.

Just like any good prom night it ended in sex. Just in the back of Eddie's can by the lake. You layed naked under the covers holding eachother close.

Then there's a bang on the side of the van. Eddie peaks out the window to see a very angry looking hopper. He opens the back door. So you can keep the both of you covered.

"Seriously." Is all he says shaking his head. He lectures you both before walking off. Eddie smirks and kisses you smirking. "I made 86 baby." HE smirks. You nod and kiss him back.

He lays back on his back pulling you into his side. "Best night ever." HE smiles. You smile up at him and kiss him again. "Y"know." You says tapping his chest. He hums in response.

"I could definitely go again..." You smirk. Eddie head shoots up and he smiles kissing you and laying himself between your legs.

"We we're right 86 is definitely my year... wait scratch that." HE says and you look at him confused and he kisses you again.

"It's our year." HE kisses you again before marking you up and making you feel good.

He was definitely. 86 was definitely you twos year.

[steam-beasts]

My TTTE timeline - a concept

1800s

1805 - Construction of the first ever railway on Sodor was initiated. The first ever line to be built was horse-powered, which obviously meant that horses were used pull carts along a plate way from the Balladwail harbour to the copper mines in the foothills of Wardfell, this very tiny railway was simply dubbed "The Railroad". Slate was later on discovered in the hills and were eventually also mined.

1853 - After a few decades of using just horsepower, and having the only railroad on Sodor, the government finally caved in and agreed to help build a standard guage line from Ballahoo to Rolf's Castle in the Kirk Ronan area. This line would then be planned to be extended north to the Mainland. Three box-tank engines were sent to this line to assist with construction, one of which was called Niel.

1863 - The S & M railway soon extended south to the Kirk Ronan harbour in order to export slate and copper from the mines. Soon, the plateway was moved up to a new route near the Skarloey lake and replaced with rails for steam engines. This new railway was named the Skarloey Railway.

A narrow guage engine was ordered from the Fletcher, Jennings & Co from White Haven in England. At this time, Skarloey and Talyllyn had been built and were both waiting eagerly to be bought. However, when the year came around for Skarloey to depart for Sodor, he was quite upset to be leaving his sibling Talyllyn as he and the other had gotten quickly attached to each other. This caused some complications with unloading him at the docks, as Skarloey would have a bit of a tantrum due to being separated from Talyllyn. Neil, one of the box-tank engines had to step in and help calm Skarloey down, and transport him to the new railway. This sparked a new rule to be spread around to other steamwork companies on other railways which was to not let sibling engines get too attached to each other.

1865 - Later in the year, another engine from the same company that made Skarloey was bought and made to work alongside him, this engine was called Rheneas. He was bought not only to double the speed of work at the railway, but to be a companion for Skarloey as he began displaying signs of loneliness and possible depression from not seeing Talyllyn anymore.

1867 - Two years later, Skarloey is sent back to White Haven for a rebuild. He was given an added ponytruck and an enclosed cab for his updated design. Talyllyn was also given these new parts but in a separate room as to not let the pair interact. Rheneas would eventually follow suit (even if he didn't like it a lot). Meanwhile, on the south of the Sodor mountains, coal mines are dug and a town formulated around the hub called Great Waterton. A standard-guage tramway is built from the town, going through Crovan's Gate to the wharf at Balladwail, connecting to the S & M railway.

1870 - In another few years, more standard-guage railways were built. A new line was built up from the wharf at Suddery to Wellsworth and back, then known as the "Wellsworth & Suddery Railway". A fleet of four 0-6-0 saddle tank engines were sent to the railway, it's unknown where these four specific engines are to this day.

Mysteriously, during the construction of what was Sodor's 4th official railway, the slow but steady appearances of the railways and their engines began catching the attention of a bizarre community. One by one, strange men and occasional women would be seen around the railways. These mysterious people were all dressed up in tidy conductor uniforms and would appear and disappear in a cloud of golden dust...but that's what the workers stated, so it's still unclear.

No one's too sure who these strange folks are, or WHAT they are, but the managers say its best not to interact with them to be on the safe side...

1872 - Due to a recent shortage of sleepers in some parts of Sodor, along with the stormy showers wearing away the wood, the decision was made to find the sturdiest and most resistant wood in the world for the sleepers, thus discovering Jobi Wood. Unfortunately, the wood could only be found in the likes of Japan, which was ALL the way on the other side of the globe. This decision gets dismissed until a month later, two hikers visited Misty Island; A tiny neighbouring island located off the east coast, which was untouched by mankind for a century, and was nicknamed due to the heavy mist that surrounded it.

It was there that the two hikers discovered the Jobi wood when trying to burn it for their fire, only to find that it just partially burnt up and mostly still ok. This discovery was later spread, and managers of the standard guage lines were DELIGHTED to hear the news. Another month passes and Sodor gets in contact with an American logging company, known as the Bear Harbour Lumber Company.

A deal was struck and four boats from the company later arrived on Misty Island to begin constructing a new logging station and railway, with help of the Sodor Construction team.

1875 - A few years pass before the railway on Misty Island is officially completed and is named "The Bear Valley Railroad". Later that year, a small fleet of Climax Class A, B, and C logging engines are built at the Climax Locomotive Works in Corry, Pennsylvania and almost immediately are sent to work on Misty Island.

1879 - Up in the west of Sodor, a second narrow guage railway is constructed from the Arlesburgh harbour to the west mines of Peel Godred. This would be the Mid-Sodor Railway, which consisted of four engines, the first one to arrive being Duke. The others would arrive later.

1885 - Meanwhile, a third standard guage railway would be made at Toryreck to serve the lead mines located there, it was named the Elsebridge and Knapford Railway. A fleet of freshly built vertical boiler engines nicknamed "Coffee Pots" are loaned from the mainland. Glynn, a member of the Coffee Pots was designed and hand-built by a young rookie engineer named Richard Hatt and named by him personally. Richard Hatt will play a huge role in the railway's developments later...

Glynn was later bought from the Mainland to resume a permanent service at the railway after working tirelessly day and night. The other Coffee pots would remain loaned.

It was during this year the Mid-Sodor and Skarloey companies would attempt to built a third narrow guage line that went east through the Bluebell valley into Vicarstown, creating a link between it and Peel Godred. But this line would be abandoned shortly after as the Mainland built the Vicarstown bridge that went over the river and into the actual mainland. The S & M hammered the final nail in the coffin by extending their line down to the holiday seaside town of Norramby.

1886 - Back on Misty Island, a near-accident occurs where a Climax Class B locomotive almost gets hit by a landslide in the valley. A young Class C logging loco named Ferdinand luckily notices and pulls him out of the way. Ferdinand, like the other climax locos was initially loaned to the railway, but due to his heroic act, he was purchased and officially became the Bear Valley's No.1 engine.

1899 - Elsewhere, a rack railway was constructed to climb to the top of Culdee Fell, Sodor's largest mountain. Five angled-boiler engines were purchased from Switzerland, and they were odd ones. With the usual grey faces on the front of their smokebox and a second face on the back of their cabs. The railway's namesake, Culdee was trialed the year after before the grand opening and passed with flying colours. On Misty Island, one of the world's first diesel engines is sent to work there – her name was Dolly, and she was mostly used to clear away logs on the rails or to double-head log flatbeds. After a few months of tension, her and Ferdinand warmed up to eachother and became close friends from then on.

1900s

1900 - It is the 20th century. After Culdee's successful trial, the railway was soon approved for opening and opened in May for passengers and hikers. Everything went smoothly, until an accident occurs a couple months later where Godred, the Culdee Fell's No.1 derailed and tumbled down the mountain side, suffering critical damage. He was scrapped shortly after, and the railway was forever left without it's No.1.

1901 - During the first 15 years of the 20th century, several developments to the standard guage lines occured, the Wellsworth and Suddery Railway extend south to Brendam.

1902 - On Misty Island, two new engines arrive and are quite odd looking – A pair of young 0-4-0 twin B.H.L.C engines named Bash and Dash. They are both rather cheeky and annoying, causing disruption at the station and being a pair of little shits to everyone, especially the No.1, Ferdinand who wants nothing to do with them. But trouble blooms as Ferdinand accidentally derails in a more secluded part of the island. Bash and Dash rescue him, and are purchased as a reward, becoming the railroad's No.2 and No.3. The three are on good terms now.

1903 - Back on the Mid-Sodor, a new engine named Falcon is purchased and brought to the railway alongside Duke. On his first run up the mountain with the older engine, Falcon is reckless and nearly tumbles to his death. Duke however, catches him in time and is deemed a hero.

1904 - The harbour at the Elsbridge and Knapford railway becomes hard to upkeep, and is eventually abandoned. The line is moved up to Tidmouth through the headlands, and even though Tidmouth's a small place, it's harbour is surprisingly larger than the Knapford harbour. But unfortunately, a storm destroys the track.

To prevent this from happening again in the future, another track is created going through Knapford and a tunnel is constructed to let the track go on to Tidmouth

1905 - The tunnel is complete and the Elsbridge and Knapford railway becomes the Tidmouth, Knapford and Elsbridge Light Railway. Later on, the Light railway and the Wellsworth and Suddery line fuse to become the Tidmouth, Wellsworth and Suddery Railway.

(Ya'll feeling a bit confused? Good. So am I :,D)

1905 seemed to be the year where multiple changes would occur, as on April, the tracks to Elsebridge would become the Elsbridge branchline. Back to Great Waterton, an unfortunate event occurs where the mines dry up and the people abandon the town to find other jobs. Great Waterton is left to become ruins and the tramway is closed.

1906 - A year later, all the standard guage lines finally fuse together into one big railway, known as the "Northwestern Railway". The Wellsworth and Suddery become the brendam branchline. There is now a plan to create a big station in Knapford that links together the headland line and the mainline together.

1907 - The big station at Knapford is complete, and named "Knapford Station", for obvious reasons. It becomes the railway's top link station. Meanwhile, all the the way in Japan, a rail engineer called Hideo Shima creates a Class D51 2-8-2 called Hiro. Hiro is quite a rarity, he is actually a prototype Class D51 2-8-2 tender engine, he came WAY before any of his brothers and sisters. As a replacement for the retired D50s, Hiro's design was initially a practice design and not yet official, and Hideo Shima and the JR didn't plan on using him as many engines already took up the railway. So a call was made to the Northwestern Railway in Sodor, offering the prototype to take up any freight services or passenger runs.

The offer was, after a lot of persuading, accepted and Hiro was sent Sodor and was loaded off at Brendam Docks, becoming the Island's first ever standard-guage tender engine. Hiro would go on to do passenger runs from Knapford to Vicarstown and many freight runs. Mind you, this all happened near the start of the year.

1908 - Back at Misty Island, an incredible discovery is made – a tunnel. This tunnel however, wasn't normal. It was found that the tunnel linked the small island with Sodor by going right under the ocean bed and out of a tunnel mouth on Sodor that was covered up by years of growing terrain and plants. A very bizarre discovery indeed. The tunnel seemed to be incredibly old as well, sodor historians and geographers theorised that it dated back to the 1600s, where King Godred ruled. The Misty Island tunnel could've been a secret escape passage that allowed kings and queens to escape to safety without being seen by enemies.

The idea was then made to reuse this tunnel as a quicker way to deliver jobi wood to Sodor instead of sending it by boat. A new line was built through the tunnel that would be used to fetch and bring wood from the Bear Valley Railroad. Hiro and Glynn would be first to do this. However, for Hiro, this is the last time he is ever seen before suddenly vanishing the following year.

1910 - Glynn's designer, Richard Topham Hatt becomes the director of the Northwestern Railway.

Remember that "odd community" that I mentioned before? The small crowd of strange conductors had blended into the Sodor population by then, so they were hardly noticed. That was until after a month of becoming director, Richard Hatt is approached by one of them. He was a tall man with elf-like ears and a mustache.

The conductor explained who he and his fellow conductors were, that they came from an unseen railway, a "magic railroad" as a way to put it. He then requests the new director to allow him and his fellow conductors to stay. Reluctantly, Richard agrees to this, and that's how Mr Conductor and his family became involved with Sodor.

1914 - To help with passenger runs and freight services after Hiro's sudden disappearing act, the Northwestern Railway loans a small, elderly dark red tender engine from Barrow-in-Furness named Edward. At the time, Edward was the only tender engine on the Northwestern Railway, and had to do a majority of tasks by himself. But he got help from a couple of the Coffee Pots now and again. He was the top-link express engine and delivered goods trains across the whole railway. With help from the Coffee pot engines, Edward managed to finish the line all by himself. Glynn and two other vertical boiler engines are sent to Knapford to shunt trains as at the time.

A branchline is created during this time, running from Ballahoo to the seaside town of Norramby.

1918 - Edward is purchased by the NWR, and becomes the No.2 of the railway. Glynn, being the only officially bought engine, is still the No.1. Edward is repainted into a NWR royal blue later that year.

1920 - Back to the Mid-Sodor, a new little engine named Stewart is bought and is transferred to the railway via traction engine.

1922 - Several engines from the Mainland are loaned to help out on the railway. A third engine is purchased, a supposed A3 Pacific meant to help out with passenger runs. However, due to poor steaming problems because of an unusually small firebox, he's unable to. The engine's name is Henry, and it turned out he was a squandered design that Sir Nigel Gresley threw away. Despite these issues, the Fat Director kept him out of the kindness of his heart.

But Henry would put that generosity to the test when later that year, he goes into a tunnel due to apparently not wanting to get his livery ruined by the rain. Even long after the rain stops, he refuses to come out like a stubborn big baby. Despite all the efforts, Topham ultimately decides to brick Henry up in the tunnel, remove the tracks and never let him out. Suffice to say, Henry regrets his life decisions.

1923 - The next year rolls by, Edward finds himself retired in terms of Express duties by a new and flashy A3 Pacific from the L.N.E.R called Gordon. Gordon becomes the island's top link express engine, replacing Edward. With all the more modern steam engines coming to the island, poor old Edward is used less and less, eventually left sitting at the back of the sheds. Eventually, a sympathetic crew let him out for some fresh air and he got to pull trains again, along with the express. The Fat director is pleased with Edward, so he awards him with odd jobs to do in Wellsworth. Sometime later, Gordon gets stuck on a hill and Edward has to come and help him up. A few months later, Gordon bursts his safety valve near the Ballahoo tunnels where Henry was walled up in.

Edward comes along to pull the Express for him, but finds himself struggling to do so. The Fat director, who was on the Express decided to try with Henry again. Henry was let out and successfully assisted Edward with pulling the coaches. The three of them became long-time friends after that.

The Peel Godred Electric company constructs a hydro-electric power station in Peel Godred that utilises the three nearby lakes. The only issue was that the bulky equipment they used was too big to fit the line clearances on the Mid-Sodor, so they switched to standard guage lines instead. The company struck a deal with the Northwestern to build a branchline from Kildane up to it. The gradients were steep, so electric engines with currents supplied from the power station would run it. With that, the line is made and a junction is created at Kildane with facilities for the electric engines and a line that stretches up to Kirk Machan. This line takes you from the NW to Culdee Fell. These changes would seal the Mid-Sodor Railway's fate.

1924 - In early January, a 5th engine for the NWR is bought. He is a sleek black Class 28 tender engine from the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, and his name is James. He was bought and assigned to goods trains, but was personally not fond of it. The only problem with James (asides from his obnoxious personality) were his brakes; For some reason, James had wooden brake blocks which made braking a little risky for him as they could catch fire. During the time of James's arrival, Glynn goes missing. After an island wide search, the NWR finds itself left without its No.1.

In the late summer after Glynn's disappearance, and without a station pilot at Knapford to handle the coaches and shunt in the yard, the Fat Director tries to find a replacement. He was initially planning on buying an E2 tank engine in 1916, but other Railway directors had purchased them all. It was until he discovered that a new E2 was very recently built and grabbed at the chance.

Phone calls were made and a week later, an E2 tank engine arrives on Sodor, his name is Thomas.

Almost immediately, Topham and Edward notice something off about Thomas's appearance; Despite being an E2, Thomas was much too small, probably just a tiny bit smaller than a Jinty or a Pug class. E2s were, I kid you not, MASSIVE, just a little taller than a tender engine, whereas Thomas was the opposite. Asides from his size, there were other complications with his design if you compared it with the blueprints.

At first, the Fat director thought he was scammed like he was with Henry, but after a talk with the supposed E2's crew and a look at his blueprints, it turned out that Thomas really WAS an E2. Thomas's build was just delayed due to the war and so had to be postponed, but when his build DID happen, it was rushed. However, the reason for his homunculus appearance is still unknown, as he refuses to say why.

Moving on, Thomas became Knapford's new Station pilot. He was although, newly built and was still trying to find his way around the railway. But luckily, Edward decided to come forth and mentor him through tough times.

1925 - Thomas eventually gets bored of being a station pilot and finds himself yearning for something different. One day he complains to Edward about this and the elderly K2 offers Thomas with taking his goods train to Wellsworth. Since it's his first time, Thomas has some... difficulties with the trucks, but manages them in the end. The Fat Director is there to see him with Edward's train and tells him off, same with Edward.

Thomas's promotion from pilot duties would coincide with the deal struck between the NWR and LMS that year. This deal allowed the NWR to extend their services over into the Mainland and so, a bridge was built over the wide river that separated the island from the Mainland. Sometime later, an incident occurs where James's wooden brake blocks fail and the trucks send him barreling through Wellsworth. Thomas tries to prevent him from crashing out in the farm fields but fails and James derails. Thomas acts quickly and fetches the Breakdown train, he is then considered a Really Useful Engine. As a reward, Thomas gets the Ffarqhuarr branchline and a repaint into the NWR blue like Edward.

He later encounters Glynn, the lost coffee pot engine who was sitting behind thick foliage that hid him rather well. Glynn had caught wind of his bravery and asks Thomas to take his place as No.1. So, by Glynn's request, the little blue tank engine has a number #1 painted on his side-tanks. James arrives back from the works later that year in a splendid new red livery.

Thomas's branchline runs from the Elsebridge station to Ffarqhuarr, the Ffarqhuarr quarry had recently opened, so the Fat Director believed Thomas would be the right engine for the job. In the early days, Thomas does many things on his branchline such as; fishing, leaving his guard behind, getting rescued by Terence on his first snow day on the line and racing Bertie. James pilots at Knapford for a little while before the director allows him to pull passenger trains.

1926 - A year passes, and Knapford still has no station pilot. The big engines start getting sick of shunting their own trucks and coaches, and decide to initiate a strike. They would nevertheless, begin regretting it as the Fat Director would keep them stuck in the sheds. Because of them refusing to do their jobs, Thomas has to come back and help Edward with the extra workload. Luckily, the Fat Director acts accordingly and purchases a small green saddle-tank engine he named Percy.

Percy takes up pilot duties, and the big engines are let out of their berths at Tidmouth once more. The Fat director even lets Thomas and Edward take a couple days off, saying as they had to handle most of the work.

1928 - After a series of accidents and warnings from Duke, the No.2 of the Mid-Sodor, Smudger is broken up and reduced to a generator at the back of the shed. Falcon and Stewart are quite horrified at this change.

1934 - Henry's steaming problems are becoming more and more frequent each week, and the Fat Director gets fed up with trying to fix him. It's until Henry's fireman recommends trying Henry with Welsh coal, and it seems to do the trick.

1935 - The year after, Henry pulls the Flying Kipper – a non-stop fish train to Manchester. However, due to an iced over signal, Henry ends up barreling into a siding where he has a high-speed collision with the back of a goods train. His crew and the guard and crew of the engine pulling the goods train were, by a miracle, not badly injured. Henry, needless to say, WAS badly injured. Henry is then sent to Crewe, where he is overhauled into a new shape and gets a bigger firebox. Henry returns that summer a better and stronger engine, and has had no steaming problems ever since.

1943 - World War II has begun, and over on Sodor, a couple events occur on the Skarloey railway. The railway's two main engines, Skarloey and Rheneas are over 70 years old now, and are starting to show their age. Skarloey unfortunately goes out of commission, and with no money due to wartime to overhaul him, Rheneas is forced to run the line himself.

1945 - Over on the mainland, Wilbert Awdry, a clergyman and priest writes and publishes the first ever Railway Series book that tells the many stories of Henry, Gordon and Edward, also known as "The Three Railway Engines". During this year on Misty Island, the Bear Valley Railroad encounters a sudden bankruptcy and immediately closes down. The company abandons the island so fast that three of their logging engines get left behind; Bash, Dash and Ferdinand, including a couple of its young lumberjacks.

1947 - A couple years after, the Mid-Sodor Railway meets its demise and closes after the mines are flooded. Most of the remaining engines that worked there are sold off, including Falcon and Stewart who are auctioned off to the Aluminum works at Peel Godred, while Duke is left in the sheds, tarped up and abandoned. Smudger is still a generator at this time and remains at the back of the shed, what's left of his body rotting away to time. It's just... haunting to think he's probably still there to this very day.

Later that winter, Thomas intentionally breaks his snow plough one day due to how uncomfortable it feels and as a consequence, ends up crashing into a snow drift later on. Luckily, Terence the Tractor comes by and rescues him, showing that you can never judge a book by its cover.

1948 - All four railways on the mainland join forces and become a national network called British railways, this officially makes the Northwestern Railway the Northwestern region of British Railways. The Fat Director is awarded his baronetcy for his services to the railways and becomes chairman of the Regional Executive, thus gaining the title "Sir" and having his nickname changed to "The Fat Controller". On his branchline, Thomas meets Bertie the Bus and races him to the Ffarqhuarr station.

Clay beds are discovered near Brendam and the Sodor China Clay Pits are formed. Two little Bagnall saddle tank engines called Bill and Ben are brought to Sodor and are sent to work there. They pull the clay trucks from the pits to the Brendam Docks. With Brendam Docks becoming revitalised, the line to it find new use, and so Edward is sent to run it.

Later on, Edward is taking a train of scrap to the new Peel Godred Ironworks, built at Peel Godred. The NWR built a branchline through the Mid-Sodor, north of Abbey and through a valley up to it. On his way there, he meets Trevor the Traction Engine, who's due to be broken up the following week. Edward refuses to let this happen, so he convinces the Vicar of Wellsworth to save him.

1950 - Deep in the bowels of one of Sodor's biggest forests, two young best friends, a boy named Burnett Stone and a girl named Tasha make a remarkable discovery when they find an old, dying driver and his engine at the cliff face of a mountain. This discovery will change how these two children view engines forever..

1951 - Sir Topham Hatt takes his family on holiday to East Anglia, where they meet an elderly J70 steam tram named Toby, and his faithful coach, Henrietta. The family takes a liking to the pair and by the children's request, go for passenger rides along the tramway. Sadly for Toby and Henrietta, they both knew these were the last passenger rides they were ever gonna give...or so they thought.

Later that year, Thomas gets in trouble with a policeman because his wheels aren't covered, so he can't get on the tramway to the quarry. Sir Topham Hatt remembers Toby and writes to his controller, then purchases him and Henrietta. Toby and his coach arrive later, and he becomes the railway's 7th engine. Back on the Skarloey, Rheneas finally reached his limit and his valve gear jams while he is on route with a passenger train. He reaches the station by good luck but is in need of an overhaul. With both of the main engines out of action, two new engines are brought to take over; Stewart and Falcon. But now, the two had been renamed "Peter Sam" and "Sir Handel". The pair had been auctioned off to the Aluminium Works four years prior and had been repurchased and named after the owner and controller of the railway respectively.

That Christmas, a landslide occurs and blocks the tunnel that Mrs Kyndley's cottage is situated near. Mrs Kyndley was sick that day, but after seeing the landslide, she quickly grabbed a red blanket and waved it out of her window, knowing Thomas was coming. She flagged Thomas down and stopped him just in time. After Mrs Kyndley's heroic act, Sir Topham Hatt came and thanked her personally at her cottage.

1952 - The next year rolls around on the Skarloey railway and Rheneas is finally sent to be overhauled, being absent for 9 whole years. On the NWR, Edward is sent away for an overhaul after rescuing a runaway James who had his controls messed with by some foolish boys. While waiting for his turn to go to the works, Edward and Skarloey converse, with Skarloey filling him in on everything that's happened on the SR.

After Sir Handel derails, Skarloey is let out of the shed after years of not running, despite a leaky boiler and warped firebox. He breaks a spring during his first-in-a-long-time passenger run, but gets the passenger train to the next station. The railway is so pleased with him, that they agree to send him for an overhaul. He leaves, leaving Sir Handel and Peter Sam to handle the railway themselves.

That same year, before Edward left for his overhaul, Gordon refused to pull a goods train and ran off the turntable into a ditch. He managed to make up for his mistake though after rescuing a reckless Thomas who fell down a dilapidated mine at Toryreck. That Christmas, the fat controller hosted a Christmas party to thank Mrs Kyndley for her act of heroism last year. Everybody gets a little drunk while being surrounded by a bunch of sentient trains with faces. 1952 was a big year.

1954 - The newly-crowned Queen Elizabeth || travels around the whole of Britain to greet everyone, including Sodor. Gordon is chosen to haul her coaches. Sir Richard Topham Hatt retires, leaving his son, Charles Topham Hatt to inherit the railway.

1955 - On his first year of becoming controller, the Fat Controller's first act is to reopen service at the old Knapford harbour. Work begins immediately that year, and Percy, Thomas and Trevor are enlisted to help with restoration. With Percy not stationing at Knapford, the Fat Controller purchases another engine from the mainland to take his place. The new engine is a Pannier tank from the Great Western region named Montague, but is nicknamed Duck.

After Percy proves to be quite good at the harbour, he is relocated to work at Thomas's branchline, and Duck becomes the new official station pilot. Duck is purchased and becomes the railway's 8th engine, but the Fat Controller graciously lets him keep his Great Western livery and nameplates.

Due to the new construction of the harbour, the map of the Ffarquhar branchline changes; the south harbour junction closes and a new one is opened north of the river. A new line for passenger services is built over the old dryaw line, and so the old one closes, but then it is revitalised for goods services.

Probably everyone who read this all so far;

During the time when Percy is helping to restore the harbour, he meets Harold the Helicopter at the Dryaw Airfield and doesn't take a huge liking to him. Soon enough, the old Knapford harbour is finished and opened for service.

Later that year, the Ffarquhar branchline caught in a heavy downpour and suffers flooding near Elsebridge. Percy is filling in for Thomas at that time, but braves the flood and gets the passengers home.

1956 - At the Knapford harbour, Percy brags to Bill and Ben about the time he braved the flood to get Thomas's passengers home. Bill and Ben were amazed, Henry...not so much. At this time, the foundations of the key had sunken, making the rails slope down. There is a danger sign to warn engines of this, but Percy was too big-headed to believe it, even a warning from Thomas doesn't make him wary. Out of stubbornness and seeing what he can get away with, Percy one day gets some troublesome trucks to push him past the sign, but this doesn't end well as he ends up plunging into the sea. Percy got humbled that day U_U

A month later, a horrid storm beats down on Sodor and destroys a forest situated between Wellsworth and Crosby. Henry is dismayed at the news. To cheer him up, Toby, Terence and Trevor help to clear up and repair the damage.

Meanwhile at Barrow on the mainland, an engine derails, leaving Gordon to step in to take their train to London.

The railway series books are proving to be a massive success, and the Fat controller gets letters from children on the mainland asking if his engines are real. So, he gathers his eight famous engines and they all embark on a trip to Houston station for a rail gala. Several BR engines fill in for them on the railway.

Sir Topham Hatt | passes away in his house, leaving his son, Charles to inherit the baronetcy and become Sir Topham Hatt ||.

1957 - The famous 100mph record-breaker engine, City of Truro visits the railway and has a lovely time with the other engines on their railtour. Gordon himself tries to go 100mph, but to no avail, loses his dome when going over a bridge.

A few months later, an 08 diesel shunter named Diesel (what a beautiful name) is trialed on the railway. Diesel doesn't take a liking to Duck after he plays a trick on him and spreads false rumours around the yard that lead to Duck being sent away to bank trains at Wellsworth.

One day, Duck crashes into a newly opened Barbour shop at Crosby after being chased by runaway trucks. Turns out that all along, Sir Topham Hatt || knew about Diesel's scheme and sent him packing, much to Duck's relief. From then on, Duck was allowed to sleep at Tidmouth once more, the big engines greeted him warmly.

Back on the Skarloey railway, a new maintenance diesel named Rusty is brought to the railway to help mend the old dilapidated tracks. They end up discovering the disused line that goes through the Bluebell Valley.

1958 - A new engine from a factory on the mainland called Duncan joins the Skarloey fleet. He instantly dislikes Rusty. Shortly after, Peter Sam suffers an accident that damages his funnel. Skarloey returns from his overhaul that year, and just in time as a group of BBC producers arrive to broadcast a live documentary about the Skarloey Railway.

Back on the NWR, parts of the railway were starting to show their age and problems began to rise; a few tracks on the Ffarqhuarr branchline had been warped from the heat and Thomas ended up derailing because of it. So, Sir Topham Hatt sends everyone to work at different areas until the issues are fixed. Percy and Duck are sent to work at Brendam Docks and have the unfortunate experience of meeting Devious Diesel, who hasn't changed a bit. Turns out he was given a second chance, but fails once more. A few months prior to this, a circus visited the NWR and one of its elephants ran away and hid in Henry's tunnel.

After the commotion with Diesel, Duck discovers his love for the sea.

1959 - On the mainland, steam is slowly dying and being taken over by diesel, being dubbed "a new era" for British Railways.

Sir Topham Hatt purchases a Caledonian engine from Scotland to help out on the railway as it's growing and needs more handling, but is dumbfounded and utterly confused when two arrive, the twins' names are Donald and Douglas. Sir Topham Hatt had purchased Donald, but Douglas stowed away with him as he knew he would be doomed to become scrap. The Fat Controller finds himself stuck on what to do, so for the time being, he trials both of them.

The twins prove themselves to be useful after saving a derailed Henry on a snowy day. After some persistence from the other engines, Sir Topham Hatt agrees to keep both of them. They become the NWR's 9th and 10th engines respectively.

A few months pass and the Fat Controller decides to build a new station near the old port at Arlesburgh. This ends up resulting in the creation of a new branchline from Tidmouth to Arlesburgh, with plans to stretch it up through the fish town of Harwick and along the west coast. Duck was requested to run it.

1960 - We're starting off with a literal crash into the 60s as Thomas crashes into the stationmaster's house during their breakfast at Ffarqhuarr. Despite the crash mostly not being his fault, he gets scolded by Sir Topham Hatt and sent to the Works to have his buffers mended. In Thomas's absence, a new diesel railcar named Daisy is brought to manage the passenger service. She is selfish and spoilt at first, but gets humbled a month on after Percy endures a bizarre derailment that lands the branchline in quite a predicament. Luckily, Thomas is back from the Works by this time, so it's not all terrible.

On the same year, the mascot of the Bluebell Railway on the mainland, Stepney, is withdrawn from service. Also on the same year, Boco arrives on the island and gets harassed by Bill and Ben. He joins the railway later after Edward suffers an accident that gets his side all ripped up and taken to get repaired, becoming the NWR's second diesel.

The branchline from Tidmouth to Arlesburgh is completed and the village of Harwick celebrates by holding a fun fair. Toby is chosen to be the attraction, but by the time he goes there, plans are changed and he just went up there for nothing.

1961 - Peter Sam's funnel finally breaks one snowy day after it gets hit by a fallen icicle. He gets it replaced by a new, special funnel, a Geisel Ejector. It proves to be a success.

Finally, Rheneas makes a gallant return to the railway after his 9 year overhaul

1962 - Stepney brings a rail tour to Sodor as a big marketing event for the Bluebell Railway. During his time on Sodor, Sir Topham Hatt trials a Class 40 diesel called Derek. Derek ends up breaking down while going down the line to Brendam and Stepney and Duck double-head the train in his place. Stepney departs Sodor the next day.

1963 - Culdee, the namesake of the Culdee Fell Mountain Railway returns after his overhaul in Switzerland and gets to know the new faces brought in to the railway, one of them was called Lord Harry.

Lord Harry would later rescue a climber at the Devil's back, a part of the mountain known for often having bad weather. In return for his heroism, he gets his name changed to Patrick after the climber he rescued.

On the mainland, Alan Peglar rescue Gordon's brother, The Flying Scotsman, from scrap. Sadly, all of Gordon's other siblings aren't lucky.

1964 - On Thomas's branchline, the Ffarqhuarr quarry acquires it's own small diesel shunter named Mavis. She's young and confident, so she believes she can do everything herself and insults toby. But after Diesel gives her bad advice, she eventually gets her just-do and learns to never take advice from Diesel, who was miraculously still on the railway.

On autumn that year, Percy crashes into a lime cart that gives him a ghostly white appearance. He uses this to his advantage to scare Thomas after he states his disbelief of ghosts. During this time, the Norramby branchline is in need of an engine to run it, so Rusty is tasked with finding one.

Rusty stumbles upon Stepney on their way through a scrapyard one night, and helps him escape. After Stepney is rescued, he is purchased by the railway and sent to run the Norramby branchline for a while. Eventually, Stepney gets bored and decides to go visit the west side of Sodor by the Fat Controller's invitation. During his time there, he makes Thomas jealous, double-heads the Express with Duck, escapes from the Ironworks and gets chased down by Caroline. He leaves for the final time after that with a proper send off.

1965 - The Skarloey celebrates its 100th anniversary of being open, with the brand new opening of a loop line around the lake of Skarloey. The current owner of the Skarloey Railway, Sir Robert Norramby, hosts the celebration. Before the opening, a talk with Duck about dukes sends Peter Sam into a crisis, panicking about the fact that his Duke may have gotten scrapped. He learns his mistake but he and Sir Handel start to talk about him frequently.

An incident at Knapford occurs when a beehive is found within the station and a swarm of bees attack the passengers. James gets stung on the nose by one and the swarm latches on to James's boiler. After several attempts, the bees finally let go.

The NWR decides to reopen the Arlesburgh harbour as an addition to Tidmouth, thus extended Duck's branchline.

1966 - A discovery of ballast is made at the old Mid-Sodor mines. Subsequently to this, all of the railway controllers come together to create a miniature guage railway that runs along one of the old track beds of the long-abandoned Mid-Sodor Railway.

1967 - The next year, the Arlesdale Railway officially opens for services and a new controller is hired, he is Mr Fergus Duncan. The engines brought on to run the line are Rex, Mike and Bert. There is also a miniature diesel named Frank, but passengers of the railway rarely see him. Duck meets them while visiting one day.

Two clergymen visit the railway one day and have encounters with them, one of which is Wilbert Awdry, author of the railway series and his friend, Teddy Boston. Awdry decides to write a book about Rex, Mike and Bert, but leaves out Frank which gets him upset and crashes into the back of the shed in retaliation.

Meanwhile, Gordon catches wind of the fate of his siblings on the mainland and enters a severe depression because of it. To cheer him up, Sir Topham Hatt calls Alan Peglar and they arrange a meeting between Gordon and his last surviving brother, the Flying Scotsman. Henry gets jealous of Scotsman's two tenders, but after getting tricked by Percy, learns that one tender is good enough

During the FS's visit, two diesels are trialed on the railway. One of them breaks down and the other gets to stay. The new third diesel is nicknamed Bear.

On Duck's branchline, new sheds are built adjacent to the Arlesdale railway. Douglas has his own adventure when he's delivering a midnight goods train and comes across Oliver, who's marked for scrap. Oliver and his brakevan, Toad are trying to get to Sodor to escape getting scrapped. Douglas decides to help him out and brings him back with him.

Upon meeting him, Sir Topham Hatt purchases Oliver and he becomes the railway's 11th engine, joining the twins and Duck at the Little Western.

1968 - The end of steam traction arrives, and the Island of Sodor becomes the only place in Britain with a steam-powered railway.

1969 - Peter Sam and Sir Handel won't stop talking about Duke, and this gets the two clergymen intrigued and wondering about his whereabouts. They, Mr Fergus Duncan and the duke then band together to find Duke. They search the remains of the Mid-Sodor Railway, and the search reaches an end when Teddy Boston falls through the roof of Duke's old shed and lands on top of the old engine, who turned out to be asleep for 20 whole years and wasn't aware of how much time passed.

He is rescued, restored and brought to the Skarloey Railway where he reunited with Peter Sam and Sir Handel.

1970 - The Arlesdale railway unveils its own newly made steam engine, Jock. Jock was built by the railway itself. Meanwhile, the ever-growing Brendam Docks acquires a new crane named Cranky. When a storm hits the island, Cranky gets knocked over, he's raised, then knocked over again...then raised again.

1971 - A branchline from Kirk Ronan is built up to Kellsthorpe, the branchline has a big canopy station as its terminus that overlooks part of the island. Gordon's brakes failed here and he ended up crashing through the station wall on its opening day, getting the "better view" he wanted. He makes up for it and is rewarded with his own window.

1972 - Signalmen and late night railroaders had begun reporting peculiar sightings of a mysterious female steam engine with a maroon pink livery steaming around during the night, leaving gold dust trails along the tracks she glides along. They say it's like seeing a ghost, and they can even hear her whistle echo throughout the night. Due to the bizarre descriptions of these sightings, the controllers and mayor all pass it off as "foolish folklore" or just a hoax.

After these rumors cleared up, Henry was taking a midnight goods train to Peel Godred where he encountered Old Bailey, the original stationmaster for the Mid-Sodor station at the crossover. The Sodor Preservation society restores the station, and anoints Bailey as its keeper.

Sometime later, the lake adjacent from the station is drained and the old Mid-Sodor tracks are pulled up, making way for tarmac to be paved down to create a road link, but it's not done too well.

1975 - On the Skarloey Railway, Duke is sent for a lengthy overhaul. When he'll be back? No one knows...

At some point, the NWR took charge of the Norramby line from the previous manager, and Sir Topham Hatt gained ownership of Stepney. He allowed Stepney to revisit for a little while by helping out Toby and Mavis at Ffarqhuarr Quarry. After helping out, Stepney takes a wrong turn when returning to his shed and ends up at the Ironworks where he is taken by Arry and Bert, who try to scrap him. Luckily, Sir Topham Hatt rescues him in the nick of time. Later in the year, the Skarloey's owner, Sir Robert Norramby decides to go on a global trip around the world and leaves Sir Topham Hatt in charge of his railway.

1979 - After Gordon breaks down before pulling the Express, Thomas, Duck and Percy are enlisted to triple-head the train.

The China Clay Pits meanwhile suffer a catastrophic avalanche, making everyone evacuate. Bill and Ben act quickly though and rescue everyone before doom struck them fatally. The clay pits end up closing after this and Bill and Ben relocate to Ffarqhuarr Quarry.

One early autumn night, Oliver is temporarily assigned to pulling the mail train, but ends up taking a wrong turn into a abandoned line and crashes into an old shed at Arlesdale end. He is saved later on by the Fat Controller, who takes an interest into the old area and decides to refurbish it for visitors. He acquires the rights and relocates Toby there to help finish construction. The old shed that Oliver crashes into is refurbished as well into a new shed for Toby and Henrietta. The line now belongs to Toby.

1981 - On Toby's line, the Great Dam breaks due to heavy rain and unleashes a flood that nearly kills Toby and his crew. In the warmer months, the dam is fixed and the line is fully complete and open for service with its terminus at Callan on the Little Western.

Sometime later, Toby and the Hatt family venture into the abandoned mining network at the tail end of Thomas's branchline. There, they come across the ruins of Ulfstead Castle and the gold mine. Both are restored and Ulfstead Castle is opened for tourists. During restoration, an old engine from the Mid-Sodor era called Bertram was discovered and was sent to pull tourists around the gold mine after restoration was finished. A connection between Ulfstead and Arlesdale end was built, creating a loop. Arlesdale End became a through-station.

1983 - Thomas and Percy travel up to the Ironworks and come across an old coach dubbed "Old Slow Coach". After a fire breaks out at the worker's hut at Tidmouth Hault, Old Slow Coach is repurposed into a new permanent housing quarters to replace it, and is quite happy. But when Mrs Kyndley's daughter gets married later, she becomes part of the good luck package.

Around the month of August, Sir Topham Hatt decides to reopen the old boulder quarry at the Mid-Sodor. The plans are changed when a seemingly sentient boulder terrorises the little engines and deals significant damage to the site. Sir Topham Hatt then figures that the boulder some sort of warning from God and ultimately decides to abandon the quarry.

1984 - Sir Handel gets into trouble for some unknown reason and Sir Topham Hatt sends him to the Shadow Re– the slate mines as a punishment for an undefinite amount of time. On the same year, a television series based off of the stories from the Railway Series is created by a lady called Britt Allcroft and a man called David Mitton. The series is named "Thomas the Tank engine & Friends" and uses model versions of the engines. The series is narrated by the Beatle himself, Ringo Starr.

1988 - A blue Class 07 diesel-electric shunter purchased from the mainland travels all the way to Sodor to work as a quarry diesel with Mavis and the tank engine twins. He works there for a short while, but longs to be by the sea, and so he is relocated to work as a shunter in the yard at Brendam Docks. His name is Salty.

The Elsbridge is getting weak and is in need of renovation, and so Sir Topham Hatt puts up a weight limit for the bridge. Thomas is too heavy for the bridge and so is relocated to Wellsworth with Edward for the time being, but returns next year.

1989 - The Skarloey gains a new maintenance diesel named Fred to help out Rusty, but going into present-day, no one sees him anymore. On the NWR, the railway gains a new Crane-tank engine named Harvey.

1990 - The National Railway Museum in York invites Thomas to take part in a Rail gala. Thomas leaves the next day in his own power, and Toby, Daisy and Percy take care of the branchline while he's gone.

1992 - Thomas returns from York and Henry is send to Crovan's Gate for an overhaul. He comes back early after a locomotive crisis and isn't fully repainted yet. Later that year, Sir Charles Topham Hatt retires, leaving his son, Bertram to inherit the railway. On his first act as controller, he rescues three engines from being scrapped; Murdoch, Arthur and an elderly, yet youthfully spirited Stirling Single named Emily.

1995 - While on route to Brendam, Thomas breaks down and his crew come across a shed, where inside is an old steam lorry named Elizabeth, after she gets let out, Elizabeth helps Thomas reach Brendam. She was Sir Topham Hatt |'s first ever vehicle, but was eventually left in a shed. The Fat Controller was so pleased with the discovery of his grandfather's old lorry that he paid for her to be restored to full beauty. She now works on the roads close to the narrow guage lines.

50 years have passed by since the first Railway Series book, and a big celebration is held at Tidmouth to celebrate it.

A high-speed train from the mainland carrying Prince Charles arrives at Knapford to celebrate the occasion.

1996 - Utter horror and tragedy strikes the rails as a feud between two drivers named P. T Boomer and Burnett Stone leads to Burnett's wife, Tasha getting killed after she and their steam engine are pushed off of a partially dilapidated viaduct by Boomer's equally malicious Class 46 Warship, Diesel 10. As said, Tasha is tragically killed in the fall, but their steam engine is still clinging to her life. Burnett leaves Sodor the next week to repair his engine and is never heard from after that.

2000s

2000 - The events of my TATMR rewrite occur. Just think of the og TATMR but the American test audience didn't screw it over.

2004 - Sir Topham Hatt || dies peacefully in his sleep, leaving the current Fat Controller to inherit the baronetcy, becoming Sir Bertram Topham Hatt |||.

2005 - (My planned CAE rewrite) The station at Kellsthorpe Road is rebuilt into a bigger station with a bay platform. During construction, Thomas prevents runaway trucks from crashing into it. Above the Kellsthorpe Road, the ground is prepped for the construction of a new airport for holidaymakers and tourists.

The construction sparks a rivalry between steamies and diesels as the construction requires nearly every single engine on the NWR. As the construction begins, a bad storm delays the build and destroys the suspension bridge over the River Hoo (I dunno how to spell it 🥲). It was quickly rebuilt, and mainline services resumed. The storm had also demolished the original Tidmouth Sheds, and so the engines all had to relocate until it was rebuilt.

Thomas stayed at Knapford Sheds with Emily, who had taken a sudden switch in personality during that time (seriously, she became a gODDAMN BI–) and didn't take kindly to him staying there...at first.

Tidmouth Sheds gets rebuilt with an extra berth for Emily, who stays there permanently.

2006 - The expanding Skarloey Railway was becoming too much for Sir Topham Hatt ||| to handle, which makes sense since he was in control of two whole railways. He hired a man called Peregrine Percival, more commonly known as the Thin Controller, to run it.

A bunch of loaned engines from different railways arrive to the island for temporary services on the NWR. These engines are Molly, Dennis, Neville and Mighty Mac. The bridge for the Peel Godred across the mainline falls into disrepair, and during its reconstruction, Neville missed the warning signal and nearly ran off it. Thomas catched him just in time.

A new statue of the main Tidmouth engines (and Toby) is put on display at Abbey Station.

Around June on the Skarloey, Sir Handel makes a return from the slate mines after his extended, and isolated stay.

2007 - Gordon attempted to beat his speed record again, but gave it up to help out Henry. He eventually did break it, and Sir Topham Hatt awarded him with special coaches. Toby's old shed at Arlesdale End was rebuilt with a new roof, and his old roof was made into a little birdhouse up front.

Another engine from the Mid-Sodor called Freddie was found...somewhere, and brought back to former working order. He reunites with Sir Handel, as he and him are old friends.

Meanwhile, a new breakdown crane named Rocky comes to Sodor, and Edward just hates him for some reason . Why did Edward not like him, you may wonder?

I don't know.

More engines are brought to the island like Rosie, who at the time was absolutely obsessed with Thomas. A engine called Whiff is purchased to work at the recycling plant. There was also Billy, but he's in the Shadow Realm now.

2008 - A snow slide blocks the Skarloey Railway and Duncan has to be transported via road by a snub-nosed lorry called Mage, who takes him to the transfer yard, south of the sheds. In early July, Duncan gives Thomas the wrong directions to the wharf to get him lost. Thomas instead ends up finding the ruins of the long abandoned Great Waterton. He brings Sir Topham Hatt to see it, and he is thrilled with Thomas's great discovery.

Reconstruction of the town is made at once, with Thomas in charge. A new, bigger tank engine called Stanley is brought on to fill in for Thomas's branchline duties and ends up staying at the railway.

A big celebration is held later on for Sodor Day at Great Waterton.

During the same year, a new quarry site is made near Daisy Halt. The quarry is dubbed "The Blue Mountain Quarry". A little Irish engine named Luke is picked up from Ireland by a boat setting course for Sodor to work at said quarry. While on the boat, he meets a Cuban engine named Victor who speaks a different language. As the two are being loaded off at Brendam, Cranky accidentally knocks Victor into the ocean while unloading Luke. After a couple months, Victor is sent to the Steamworks at Crovan's Gate and is repaired. He now works there.

2009 - The Duke and duchess of Boxford build a summerhouse in Sodor while their private engine, Spencer helps with reconstruction. Thomas and him race, but the race ends when Thomas gets diverted down an overgrown siding and discovers Hiro. Hiro had been abandoned by his crew due to him breaking down, with the empty promise that they'd be back. Attempts to restore him prove successful and he gets on the next boat to Japan, bidding everyone farewell.

However, he comes back later that year as the railways in Japan had become overrun with speedy bullet trains, and he preferred the slow and steady nature of Sodor more.

2010 - Imagine Misty Island Rescue but it actually makes sense and the characters, including the Logging Locos, have genuine personalities and aren't bad. Oh yeah, and I gave the island the most logical reason for existing as I could.

2011 - Diesel 10 returns to Sodor with a second chance given to him by Sir Topham Hatt. However, he hasn't changed a bit, as he gathers as many diesels as he can to the rundown Dieselworks in Vicarstown to plot his revenge on all the steam engines. Mainly, Diesel 10 plans to kill Thomas himself for helping Lady escape from his grasp all those years ago. Diesel 10 then attempts to try and derail Edward, set Henrietta on fire with Toby watching, attempts and fails at sending a truck full of explosives into Tidmouth Sheds and crushes one of Thomas's side-tanks, causing a leakage.

Diesel 10 then gets pursued by a few of the steamies and invades the Steamworks. After another life-threatening situation, Sir Topham Hatt confronts the warship and punishes him severely, taking away his wheels and his claw. Diesel 10 now sits at the Arlesburgh beach as a beach hut. He's absolutely ruthless.

2012 - Back to the Blue Mountain Quarry, the Skarloey fleet now works at the quarry as it is part of their railway. Paxton, a diesel who was unwillingly forced into helping Diesel 10 during his fiasco, pulls the slate train from the quarry to Brendam. An accident puts him out of commission and Sir Topham Hatt puts Thomas as the temporary slate hauler.

Thomas ends up finding out about Luke and after hearing his sad story, attempts to find the truth. Diesel catches wind about Luke and views him as dangerous, he then tries to rat out Luke with a reluctant Paxton following behind. You know how the rest goes ;)

After the blue mountain situation is resolved, Sir Topham Hatt's rail inspection car, Winston discovers something VERY special; It was Sir Topham Hatt ||'s old birthday carriage that he used to go around in as a boy. It gets refurbished and is pulled by Edward for Sir Topham Hatt's upcoming birthday. Nevertheless, Sir Topham Hatt becomes tearful when he sees it, a rediscovered remnant to remember his father by.

2013 - Sir Robert Norramby returns from his global trip, and along the way, it's discovered that he purchased Stephen, formally known as Stephenson's Rocket from the National Railway Museum. The Earl reveals that he wants to reopen the tourist attraction at Ulfstead Castle and have Stephen be the main feature of the attraction. Before the grand reopening, Stephen ends up getting lost in the mines beneath the castle and ends up discovering King Godred's crown. He is soon rescued and the crown is brought back to the estate, where it is put on display.

A collision between Gordon and Paxton occurs at Knapford and a stone from Paxton's trucks flies out and punctures Gordon's boiler. At first, Gordon ignores it, but then he soon finds himself constantly low on water. Meanwhile, a new dock engine called Porter is brought on to help Salty.

At the Ulfstead Estate Railway, Stephen is tasked with bringing ingredients for the afternoon tea. Spencer makes fun of him, but Stephen ends up with the last laugh.

Henry and Hiro are enlisted to double-head a big goods train from Ffarqhuarr to Tidmouth Harbour. Unfortunately, they struggle along the way due to bad coal. But in the end, they got there eventually.

Two years after the Diesel 10 fiasco, Percy finds that the out-of-commission diesel, Sidney still hasn't been put back into service and proceeds to help him get his new wheels. Sidney gets his new wheels when Christmas rolls around and visits the engines at Tidmouth to thank them personally.

2014 - After years of heavy reconstruction, the Sodor China Clay Pits are finally approved for a grand reopening, and Sir Topham Hatt sends Thomas there as there is maintenance being done on one of the bridges at his branchline. Along the way, Thomas meets a newly purchased oil-burning engine named Timothy, who he met after being pranked by Bill and Ben. He then meets a very enthusiastic steam shovel locomotive named Marion.

After a few days of working at the pits, a storm comes and Timothy warns Thomas of the unstability of the clay cliffs during bad weather. Out of stubbornness, Thomas doesn't listen and he goes down a line that traverses through the cliffs while the storm is at its highest. A landslide occurs and luckily, Bill and Ben swoop in and save him. The rest will be in my rewrite in the future :)

Later that year The Fat Controller purchases Duck's old slip coaches from the Great Western Railway after he talks about them to the other engines.

2015 ‐ The Earl constructs a new dinosaur park at the estate after getting inspired from the dino skeleton in Wellsworth. The dinosaur park can now be seen on one of the estate railway's routes. A little diesel boxcab named Phillip is purchased and brought on to be Knapford's new station pilot after Duck abandoned it years ago. He takes a liking to Gordon, who doesn't share the same sentiments.

He then races the big engine and wins, and doesn't stop talking about it, much to everyone's annoyance. Some months later, he rescues James from a rather nasty fall.

One of Sir Topham Hatt's workers, Albert has a baby who gets named after Thomas after Thomas babysits him.

A new branchline from Harwick to Arlesburgh is being built, and many engines make a return, even Donald and Douglas who came back after a hefty overhaul to help with construction. Thomas is also sent to help as a punishment for a coach mishap and is replaced by a cocky, over-confident big tank engine named Ryan who does his branchline duties. Thomas tries telling Sir Topham Hatt that he had nothing to do with it and that Gordon was teasing him. But no one believes him.

At Harwick, an incident at the site occurs where the ground collapsed and Thomas goes down a cavern (this gives me flashbacks). When he hits the bottom, Thomas discovers a 4000 year old pirate ship. The ship is raised, moored and put at the Arlesburgh harbour as a part of the maritime museum.

Judy and Jerome, the breakdown train that was used to hoist James out of the fields all those years ago are old and are hardly used anymore due to Rocky taking charge in rescues. They are finally relocated to Harwick, where they handle all derailments from there.

2016 - Thomas travels all the way to Vicarstown, where he meets the Flying Scotsman for the first time. Scotsman reveals that he has been invited to a rail gala happening on the mainland, sparking jealousy from Gordon. Several of the sudrain engines are invited to the event, and Gordon streamlines himself in an attempt to become faster than Scotsman. He gets upset about not being recognised as an A3 Pacific which nearly hinders the start of his race against other big engines.

He loses after nearly exploding because of his missing safety valve, and the Flying Scotsman makes fun of him for it since Gordon was claiming he'd win. Pretty cruel thing to do. Gordon now began despising his only brother the more he was ever talked about or mentioned.

Meanwhile, on the Kenya-Uganda Railway in Kenya, a little orange tank engine named Nia abandons her goods train to go hide in an old mine tunnel.

Back on Sodor and right Before Christmas, Marion discovers Glynn, the old Coffee pot engine from the original Tidmouth, Knapford and Elsebridge Light Railway days. He is taken back to the Steamworks for restoration. Sir Topham Hatt comes to visit and Glynn mistakes him for his Sir Topham Hatt, Richard Hatt. The current Topham is is Bertram. After some explanations, Glynn offers to take Sir Topham Hatt to the Christmas eve fair at Ulfstead, in which he gladly complies. The Fat Controller drives Glynn to the estate where he join joins Stephen from now on.

2017 - A new modern gantry crane named Carly arrives on the docks to help Cranky as his age was catching up with him. Also, Big Mickey breaks his silence. Meanwhile, Rosie, a little pink tank engine gets repainted red and relocated to Vicarstown to pilot trains.

James tries to create a world record as the fastest red engine on Sodor, and his brakes end up failing and he crashes into the Tidmouth Sheds. He is taken away for repairs and the others have to find other places to sleep while the sheds are being fixed. Edward decides to permanently move into the Wellsworth sheds as it starts at his branchline. Gordon really hates this change and tries getting him to come back, but to no avail.

Sometime later, Thomas steals James' goods train to Bridlington, but ends up getting lost on the mainland and imprisoned by the Steelworks engines, Frankie and Hurricane, and their boss. James and Percy go to look for him, find him, and save him.

2018 - A yellow rally car named Ace arrives on Sodor to get the next boat to Africa. Thomas meets him on a passenger run, and Ace tries convincing him to go to Africa. Thomas, at first, is unsure. He may have wanted to see the world when he was still new on the railway. After some more persuading and to be honest, flat out pressuring from Ace, Thomas sneaks away from his branchline and gets on a boat to Africa at the Tidmouth harbour. He takes Annie and Clarabelle with him.

His departure to Africa takes a few days and during those days, everyone panics about his whereabouts. Thomas arrives on Africa and follows Ace. But along the way, he's mistook for a goods engine and is forced to pull a goods train to Dar E Salaam. On his 5000 mile journey, he comes across a little tank engine named Nia blocked up in a mine tunnel.

He helps her get to a nearby Steamworks for repair and continues on his way. However, Nia comes back to Thomas, who is struggling up a hill and helps him out as thanks and joins him on his journey. The two go to a few countries while chasing Ace and get into a few mishaps along the way. The two return to Sodor in one piece and a welcome back party is initiated.

A few months pass, Nia stays in Edward's berth by invitation and Gordon isn't happy with it. Gordon only gets more mad about the changes when Henry decides to move to Vicarstown to have his jobs done quicker, and to have time to visit his forest. Gordon lashes out about the changes and takes it out on Sir Topham Hatt and Nia. The sudden changes are messing with Gordon, but everyone dismisses his feelings as him overreacting. Gordon is just forced to suck it up.

2019 - A quick rise in tourists coming to the island puts a bit of pressure on Gordon, tiring him out as schedules are a lot tighter, and so he has to pull the Express much earlier and much more than usual. So, Sir Topham Hatt purchases a Bulleid Light Pacific named Rebecca. Gordon does NOT take kindly to Rebecca, especially when she takes Henry's old berth. Meanwhile, Nia begins to pick up feelings for Henry.

A storm destroys the school in Harwick, and Duck finds an old coach named Dexter, who becomes restored into a new schoolhouse for the kids.

2020 - A few years had passed since the birth of Albert's son, Little Thomas who has come to see Big Thomas. Henry meanwhile, begins hearing about a stray canine nicknamed "The Railway Hound", as the dog is only ever seen walking along or resting beside the tracks. Concerned for the dog's safety, Henry goes looking for it along with Thomas. They eventually find the dog and Little Thomas adopts it.

Many events would follow suit; Emily gains a shiny new brass nameplate on her smokebox and gets her number at last. A technology fair is held at Ulfstead Castle, introducing a new bullet train named Kenji. Kenji stays on Sodor before going back to Japan, and after a rough 10 year stay on Sodor, Hiro leaves for Japan.

In winter, things take a turn for the worse when Nia takes the Flying Kipper when Henry's filling in for another engine. She crashes into a goods train near Kirk Machan due to faulty signals, sliding into a cold ditch along the way. Thankfully, James pulls by with the Judy and Jerome and hoists her back up to safety. She is then sent to the Steamworks for an indefinite long repair.

2021 - Nia returns from the Works in early Spring with a new safety valve and a better firebox, everyone welcomed her return. A month after, Queen Elizabeth || writes a letter to Sir Topham Hatt, inviting him to London for a special reward for his services to the railways. By the specific request of Prince Charles, Edward and Thomas get to come along with their controller. Along the way, the trio encounter many mishaps ànd end up getting dirty.

During the journey, Edward and Thomas have several encounters with Diana, who rudely keeps taking their spots for coal refills and water fills. After she bursts her safety valve, the two help her get to London Station and to their utter shock, Diana turned out to be the Queen's private engine and she was pulling the Queen and his son during the entire trip.

Prince Charles tells Edward and Thomas how he loved to read the books about them as a child and personally rewards them both with medals. Sir Topham Hatt gets a medal too, of course.

Alls well that ends well...

Or is it...?

[dr-spencer-reids-queen]

Catching Out: Part Two

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~1.8k

Summary: Spencer has his suspicions about your parents but you refuse to even listen to him. There is nothing going on with your parents... right? No, they’re normal parents that are just overprotective of you. Spencer is just being paranoid.

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill

Author’s Note: So, I know in previous episodes I had mentioned the reader's birthday is in February, but I forgot that when I wrote this episode. I have decided to change it to April since I've also based some other episodes around her birthday being in April. So, from now on, the reader's birthday is now in April.

I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there are any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them. If you’ve seen the show, then it’s the same level of angst unless otherwise stated

x

The nearest train tracks around the Modesto home are only a mile away, given it's close enough for the unsub to get off the train and watch the couple he killed for a few nights. There are freight haulers at the train station, and they are willing to talk to you, Derek, Emily, and Rossi when you arrive.

"The guy we're looking for is using freight trains to get around. He targets homes within a mile of the tracks," Derek says after he explained what's going on.

"Bulls and 'bos don't usually cross paths."

"Bulls and 'bos?"

"They call rail cops bulls. We call them 'bos, as in hobos."

"You're saying you rarely see hobos around here?" Rossi asks.

"I see them plenty. To tell you the truth, I'm nothing more than an armed scarecrow. When they see me coming, they get the hell away. Their biggest problem is with each other. If you get two of them in one boxcar, it usually gets ugly."

"So, if a 'bo jumps off one of these trains in a new town, is there someplace he goes first?"

"The jungle. That's what they call the camps. A local one's a couple of hundred yards that way," the man points to where it is.

"Do you happen to have a vending machine in here?"

"Yeah."

Rossi thinks if he has food for them, then they might be willing to tell them what they want to know. Your phone rings, and you step off to the side and answer your boyfriend.

"Where are you?" he asks.

"We're just off Highway 99. We just got done talking to the freight haulers. I think I'm going to drive back up to you and leave them down here. Though, I can tell this area is nothing but crops. There are neighborhoods on one side, and the other are all crops."

"They are farmlands. You can't see that from standard road maps."

"The railway track runs parallel to Highway 99 most of the way. I think I'm seeing a lot of what the unsub saw."

"Most of central California is one big valley. It's a flat basin surrounded by mountain ranges on all sides, supported by rivers, lakes, and aqueducts. It's ideal for farming."

"Well, I don't know what it gets us, but I think we should at least factor it into the conversation."

"I agree."

"I'll see you in about an hour." You hang up on him and approach Rossi who has a couple of candy bars in his hand. "I think I'm going to drive up to Sacramento. You two can handle it down here, right?"

"Yeah. We got it."

"I'm going to come with you," Emily says.

By the time you two get to the headquarters in Sacramento, they are ready to give the profile. Spencer told Hotch and JJ about the farmlands, so they have a better-sculpted profile to give.

"Let's get started," Hotch announces. "I'd just like to reiterate that this unsub is not getting around on Highway 99. His travels are linked near railway lines."

"He's targeted five homes and killed eight people in six weeks. We're looking for a male, indigent transient between the ages of twenty-five and forty-five. He's fit enough for the physical demands of train hopping, or 'catching out' as they call it," you inform.

"He'll be bruised from jumping on and off trains, and he might also be beaten up from just defending himself in any kind of turf war. He may look homeless, but he's taking clothing from his victims' homes. So, he'll be the only transient on the tracks in clean clothing."

"The trains and the rail yards are his home. When he gets tired of these, he chooses a house to make his own," Hotch says.

"He'll have a pronounced red, dry rash around his mouth and nose. It's what's commonly referred to as a 'sniffer's rash'."

"How do you know that?"

"He takes household cleaners and sniffs them," you explain. "We believe he's abusing them as psychoactive inhalants. He'll use nail polish remover, glue, paint thinner, lighter fluid, or whatever is the cheapest high available. They're referred to as 'tollyheads' because they derive a high from sniffing toluene, a chemical solvent. Once inhaled, the effects are felt instantaneously."

"We believe he's living out a fantasy in these homes. The fantasy is that it is his house for the night. He spends hours enjoying the comforts of his victims' homes. Upon leaving, he takes clothing, money, jewelry, and small electronics. If you get close to him, you won't miss him. He will smell like a combination of human filth and paint thinner."

"Please spread this around to the other departments in neighboring cities. Thank you."

The profile is disbanded, and you look at JJ who takes a seat tiredly. She places a hand on her stomach, and both you and Spencer walk over to her.

"Are you okay?" you ask and sit next to her.

"He's kicking a lot today," she chuckles.

"In the third trimester, there's an average of thirty fetal movements per hour. Babies kick to explore movement and strengthen muscle," Spencer explains.

"Have you ever actually felt a baby kick?" When he shakes his head, she grabs his hand and places it over the area where her son is moving. "Do you feel that?"

"Doesn't that freak you out?"

"No, not at all. Why? Does it freak you out?"

"Very much so."

"Okay, I see how it is," you nod.

Spencer looks at you with a weird expression, but you don't say anything more about it. You and JJ lock eyes, and she knows exactly what you're thinking. JJ's phone rings, and she answers it when she sees it's Penelope.

"Hey, Garica."

"Bad news alert."

"Hold on a second," you tell her. "Guys!" Hotch, the detective in charge, and Emily walk in when you call them. "Go ahead."

"Earlier, I had Garcia look into all unsolved burglary homicides in central California while paying particular attention to small farm towns."

"I found his DNA in three more cities."

"How did I miss this?" the detective sighs.

"Small towns don't always link their evidence up to state or national DNA databases. It can happen when unsubs cross jurisdictional lines."

"What are the cities, Pen?" you ask.

"Tehachapi, Vacaville, and Orange Cove. They're all farm towns, and all super far away from Highway 99."

"Thanks, Garcia. Could you look into the farm life surrounding those areas? The sales of the crops, maybe?"

"I'll hit you back when I have more."

JJ gets up and waddles over to the fan that is blasting. The air conditioner must either be out or not working well. Being pregnant is hard enough, so you want to make this as easy as possible for her. You grab some cold water and a damp cloth and approach her with a smile.

"Here. It looks like you need it."

"Thank you."

She takes the water and gulps half of it down before placing the cloth on her forehead. You kneel next to her chair and look at her stomach with a smile.

"May I?"

"Of course."

You place your hand on her stomach, and she moves it to the spot where her son is kicking. Your eyes light up at the feeling.

"I'm not going to lie. I kind of miss this. It was different before, of course, but when I felt my daughter kick for the first time... It didn't matter how old I was or what happened. At that moment, I felt pure joy."

"How is she doing?"

"She calls and texts me, but she has her own life. She knows I'm here if she ever needs me though. With your baby, though, I am going to be the best aunt ever. I'm going to spoil the shit out of him." You realize your mistake and smile shyly. "Sorry. I don't mean to cuss around him."

"Would you consider having babies with Spencer?"

You look behind you at Spencer and Emily, and you can't help the smile from forming on your face.

"In a heartbeat," you say truthfully. "I'd be very lucky to have his kids, and they'd be lucky to have Spencer as a dad. I can picture it now. He'd play chess with them, but our baby girl would want to play with her dolls instead. He'd read them bedtime stories and dance with them to the music on an old radio. He'd perform magic for them because they'd laugh and he'd never want to stop making them laugh."

"You're happy."

"I am. He makes me feel like I'm the only woman in the world. It's why this is so hard with my parents. My dad doesn't like him, and it hurts me. I know he'll come around eventually, but I just wish he'd get there sooner."

"It'll be alright. I know it."

Spencer looks behind him at you and JJ in thought. Emily sees the look he's giving you, so she nudges him.

"Are you considering it?"

"Considering what?"

"Having baby geniuses one day?" she smiles.

"With Y/N? In a heartbeat," he says truthfully. You two have been together for over two and a half years. He's not ready to be a dad, but he knows that one day, he'd love to have some with you. "I'd be very lucky to have kids with her one day."

Penelope calls Spencer back, and he calls in you, JJ, Hotch, and the detective.

"I've noticed in the cities, including the new ones we've discovered that there's a spike in the sales of certain crops during the time the unsub is there. In the last week of August, the apples in Tehachapi spiked. In the first week of September, the tomatoes in Bakersfield rose. In the second week of September, the fall squashes in Fresno were high."

"He's in town whenever there is a big harvest. If this unsub is riding trains from town to town during big harvests who doesn't have a car or permanent residence, then we're looking at a migrant farm worker."

There is news of another murder close to where you are, so you quickly head over there. The murder is still fresh, so the victims are still lying on the ground in their bedroom. You can't look at the victims without seeing the unsub beating them over and over again.

"He left a shirt on his male victim again," Hotch says.

"That's not all he left." Spencer holds up the newspaper that was printed a couple of days ago. The headline reads 'Modesto Couple Victims of Highway 99 Killer'. "This was printed before we released to the press he's using trains to get around."

"He's taunting us, telling us he's smarter than we are because we got his mode of transportation wrong. The more confident he gets, the more he's experimenting with his ritual."

"The first few murders were five to eight days apart. This one was just one day since Modesto. If we don't find him soon, he's killing another couple tonight."

"Okay, this couple is Hispanic. The previous couples were Caucasian. He switched his victim profile," you say.

"I don't think he knows or cares what race they were. I think this house was just an easy target."

Spencer's phone rings, and he places them on speakerphone.

"Yeah?"

"So, we got something," JJ says from the office. "The jewelry stolen from the home in Sacramento turned up at a pawn shop in Modesto. Garcia just sent you a picture from the security cam. The employee said he was about 5'8", slight build, late thirties, and has dark skin with a red rash around his mouth."

"Circulate the picture, JJ," Hotch says.

"I'm already on it."

x

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[amadholes-lostre]

State of California

I already implied multiple times how different yet imperative California is now in the BNHA-AU. How now there is a new ethnicity due thr mixture of Latin and Anglo (mostly Latin culture) culturr including a new language, how there is a new religion originate from here that now dominated Latin America, and just how different it is from today.

California is still have some similarity from today however; Sacramento is still the capital city with Los Angels still the most populous, it has the highest population (more than 80mil) and most powerful economy in the Union, and still important in the West Coast. Texas is still in second when it comes to population (around 50mil) and population, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. California also has the highest rail passengers by state alone, maybe similar to Japan ridership. It is likely it is only beaten by the Northeast corridor, but that region should have a population already at 100mil.

Geography

There is not much change when it comes to geography. It is not like there suddenly are topical rainforests (California actually has temperate rainforests). However, thanks to activists, technology, and laws, many damage to the environment by the Climate Crisis were alleviated. Many Redwood and Sequoia trees managed to reclaimed historic range and then some. There are bisons roaming California, too, with extinct animals brought by to life like mammoth and ground sloth, and mythical creature. California also change their agriculture practice, emulating how Dutch cultivated their products, using greenhouses, hydroponic for efficient water saving, etc. I not going get into more detail (go watch a YouTube about Dutch farming), but this method allowed majority of Central Valley be reclaimed by nature, making the land looks like what it did in the 19th century: Lake Tulare is now permanent, marshlands and has a huge delta.

California also deurbanization (actually desuburbanization) many sprawling cities across the state. For instance, the cities I used to live in -Brentwood and Discovery Bay - are now gone, paved out. Many cities, especially in CV, have greenbelt, which also act the limited of their jurisdiction. I also think, with the Climate Crises alleviated, sea levels will drop by a meter or so, so now half of San Francisco Bay, especially south of San Mateo Bridge, is gone, mostly just salt marshes (and no, there are laws forbidding development on it).

There is a bit more rain due to El Nino and La Nina weather system now having a precedence. Like 2-3 years Nino and then 2-3 years Nina. So there could be a drought season. However, those also mean there's a lot more run, even during the mid-spring to mid-fall in Nino. Tropical storms are not uncommon during Nino, at least 1-2. This also means California will lose like a quarter of their desert are gone, so Antelope Valley and San Bernardino Valley biome are similar to Central Valley.

Cities

Bit difficult to talk about cities since some cities changed their name, some new ones, and that I need to make a map. I gonna try to convey the city position by only referring high population, North to South.

Redien- (Redding)- 500k. Know for rail connecting to Redwood Empire Corridor and to Oregon, high percentage of non-Kalifornáns, and high population of Therians/Lycan (Enid lives here).

Bí-Sierra (changing the name)(Chico) - 400k. Know for: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yebu -250k. Know for: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sacramento - 5mil. Know for being the capital, HQ of Golden State Railway Company.

Metropolis of San Francisco - 17mil. Know for the birth of Califity, Memorial of Califia, Angel of the Bay Statue (looks like a Japanese woman wearing a kimono, also know as Liberty of the West)/Museum of Asian and Latin Fredoians between early 19th century-1950s and Beyond.

Amid-Tu-Rifã (changing the name)(Stockton)- 500k. Know for looking like Venice and Amsterdam.

Tuolumne-ín-Estanislao (Modesto) - 500k. Know for: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Santa Cruz - 120k. Know for beaches and UCSC.

Salinas -1.2mil. Know for just having an HSR train.

Monterey -90k. Know for the aquarium.

Lafenia [Lafenã means Lavander in Californin (Madera)] - 3.5mil. Know for having the HQ of Rolosron (Golden Iron) Company (focus on rolling stocks), SU Laféna (focus on urban design, transportation engineering, and architecture), and vocation on public transit course.

Fresno - 3.2mil. Know for not being Fresno anymore and a dry port (ironically, it's adjacent by a massive river).

Nés Nakiśa (City near Visalia, between Tulare and Tipton)- 2.5mil. Know for being named after Nakiśa the Lover, the Innocent, and the Miracle-Worker.

Nés Anaís (Bakersfield)- 3.7mil. Know for being the birthplace of Anaís, the Lover, the Guardian, and the Martyr.

Santa de Nagasaki, also called Sanagi (in Santa Maria Valley) -6mil. Know for being a cyberpunk-like city (dont know if that's a good thing or not), cyberware and powered suits industry, and the few pro-hero academy in the world meant for non-quirks. It was a former city-state between the Dark Age to 2200s.

Santa Barbara- 200k. Know for just being a nice city.

Metropolis of Los Angels - 24mil. Know for the Gate of Angels (mixture of Brandenburg Gate and Arc de Triomphe, at San Fernando City), Los Angeles Central Station (mixture of Penn Station and Grand Central Station), Los Angeles Grand Park/The Meadow (bigger than Central Park and Golden Gate Park, at the former city of Compton, adjacent to LA River), The Sequoia (think Tokyo Skytree, have branch-like Observation deck, 670 meters tall, somewhere between Mid-Wilshire and Koreatown).

Rifãsíd (Riverside)- 500k. Know for ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

San Diego- 9mil. Likely just the same as today.

All together, this brings it up to 78 mil people. There are other cities, towns, and villages in California like Eureka, towns around Lake Tahoe, and others around, but theses cities are considered either major, well-know, or important. All these cities, with the exception of Santa Cruz and Monterey, are connected by NAHSR, and Sacramento and Los Angeles are connected to the Continental wide Maglev network. I gonna explain California railways network later.

Most of the cities kept today boundary, however demolishing many of its sprawling suburban housing. Like I said before, most cities city boundary are tangible by its greenbelt, and they can't, by state-law, develop pass it unless their km density passed 25km, which many city, especially in Central Valley, haven't pass it. Actually, many cities in the Valley have an average of 250km land areas, with average of 12k km2 density.

Many cities, but especially to SF and LA, have patches of urban forest. Not parks meant for recreation, but forest that is meant for nature. SF and LA have many patches of those urban forests, many usually 1 km² but could be higher than 100 km². They used wildlife crossing to connect them all.

Many cities looks like a mixture of futuristic architecture (I will talk about that later) and somewhat traditional-like like Isabelan architecture (eclecticism of Spanish Colonial and SF-like Victorian architecture, need to talk about that). However, Sanagi is just straight-up cyberpunk city, like I will call it Capital City of Cybernetic, with having an unusually higher percentage of Non-Quirks. Non-Quirks are more likely to installed cyberware than Quirks, to the point majority of their bodies is cybernetic. (Lets not kid ourselves, with BNHA having robots the size of skyscrapers and artificial islands in the middle of the ocean, yeah they will stereotypical cyberpunk technology.)

Economy

I think I hinted this before, but California, and frankly majority of the world are what I considered social democracy, or at least, some form of socialist. In California (and Fredoia), almost every necessity goods or service like water, energy, internet, healthcare, public transportation (including airlines), etc. is own by the government. Meanwhile, some that considered necessity but needs some in-hand by the people like housing (majority of it), foods, etc collectively owned either by neighborhoods (districts), groups, or guilds. Now I think about it, it kinda similar to Post-War Britain, especially how it comes to Attlee policies.

In California, the state has a market socialism and guild socialism (Democratic Socialism). There are companies that are controlled by employees; democratically elected company leaders, a 1 to 5 ratio wages, input how the company should be headed, etc. Half the company stock is owned by the employees, and the other half is owned by the local governments, which is then controlled by the people. They voted how the stock revenue should be allotted and apportioned accordingly (either funding for transit, schooling, maintained, etc.). However, sometimes, thanks to public banks, they will give denizens the money through all the stocks in the city.

For guild, sometime a mixture of labor unions, company of laborers, or craftmanship. Many cities have guild in it jurisdiction. For instance, and this I have an idea for a while: biking is considered a one major ways of transportation in California. Because of that, bikes is a huge industry in the state, bikes repairers and retailers are common in cities. A guild that focus on biking will required those to join to and gain a permit. The permit is meant for laborer protects, universal bike parts, . Meanwhile, customer who have a warrant for the city bike guild could go to any bike repair: if they broke their bike kilometers away from their usual repairers, they could go to a close by repair shop and have it fix free thanks to the guild warrant.

Another city guild/company is like a group of crafter who also works together, but unlike something like a bike-like guild, it act more like a company whose own/control/manage by the city, like for construction company. It will be more efficient since the city will have experience with laborers, more efficient in talks and shit, and if there is unneeded constructions, many laborers will simply be put on paid leave (which kind of unnecessary because California is always either building or maintaining something lol).

Agriculture is owned by small farming communities. Honesty, they likely lived in Tipi-like housing similarly what I talk about in my last post. Their farming is just straight up just like the Dutch, which give higher yields for hecto without needing to use more lands. The government will give the community findings and buy their products so to keep foods extremely low. the government will then sell it, low price, to merchant/retailers who then sell it to consumer in again, low price. However, 1/3 of foods product in California is grown by urban farming.

The majority of housing is collectively controlled by locals/tenets. I based it on Singapore town council and House and Development Board. I know that anyone who knows about this is probably not a good thing, but the other synonymy or trying, think of example is Homeowner Association, which is worse. Each city (or ' special wards' for metropolis cases) have districts, which democratically handled housing (and other buildings). They also have delegates for the city council. The district receives tenets rents and is handling it by either paying utilities, repairs, or insurance (not like insurance company, "just-in-case" like natural disasters, hero/villain's battle, etc.). Prices are dependable on housing types (a duplex will be more expensive than an apartment, while a town house be more expensive than a triplex), rooms (if you have kids, the price will be lower), floors, material of the building itself, and construction method. But price are all fixated, meaning if there a housing that have all the characteristic in two different location, and one is consider far more desirable for its surroundings, the two housing are still the same price. In today markets, we usually handle this by outbidding another buyer, which increases house prices. This is the reason why San Francisco is so expensive. Instead, California housing is handled by a lottery system, fairness by fate instead of higher monetary. Some participant are allowed to have some advantage depending on their situation: if they live in the district/city majority of their life, if they have a family, they lost another lottery, they are about to be homeless soon, and such. Ironically, Frinsica (San Francisco) is still difficult to get a house there, lol.

In housing there, people either rent or buy housing. By renting, it usually cheaper- if we using today renting price, an average price for like an one room apartment will likely be $150 per month (people have limits of free utilities until hiting that limit. Parking isn't included and is optionable since like more than half of California doesn't have a car). It's for people living short-termin the area, occasionally students for either high school/college who doesn't want to live in dorms/SRO, newly adults, or people who simply want an easily life (which is not stigmatize in California). However, it usually has a maximum limit of how long someone could rent there (usually 5 years), so people are either evicted or pay an expensive extension. Buying a hosing is also preferable and also cheaper than today. I don't know what is considerably an average price, but likely a triplex unit will cost $150k (you not owning the entire building, just the unit. You do collectively share it with two other owners). Buying is likely similar to how Singapore housing (go look at a YouTube video, lol). One thing to note is that the owner cannot sell their unit or rent it to another tenet. They could only sell it to the district, which would likely be the same price with 5% add. The owner could allow their unit to be inherited or allow friends/families/associates to live in it, but that likely it. Selling or renting it will defeat the purpose of a lottery system.

There is a national bank, a public bank owned by the federal government. Each state have their own banks which connected to the federal bank. The benefits is there is no monthly fees, withdrawing money from other state bank atm without fees, easier gaining loans with lower interest rate (great for starting business ), better retirement account which also connects to social security. However, there is a limit how much someone could have in their account before they start paying a monthly fee: $100K, and the fees gets much higher along with the saving account. (Also, it is common for people to have two retirement, the average lifespan is 160 years, and there are also quirks that allow some people to have longer lifespans).

For artisan guilds like for writers and artists, there is likely an universal-like wage so writers/artists could allow to do their craft. However, there is likely a quota/requirement so they actually do what they meant to do.

For exports and well-known sectors, it likely will be the same as today with some key differences. For one, they know for rolling stocks, specifically for HSR, metro rails, and trollies. The company that handles it, Rolosron, is located in Laféna. Another is Kalimé, or sometimes called Kaliniśon, animations production in California. It has their own unique style, similar to anime in Japan: inspiration, and how I think it will look like are SPOP, Gurihiru works, and some comics like Specter Inspector. Produced in either Los Angeles or San Francisco. Cyberware is also well-known, many of which are produced in Sanagi. Maybe also biking manufacturers, revenues from Califinitan pilgrims, and likely that it.

Half the main energy source are renewable, including solar energy, wind energy, ocean tide, and hydroelectricity. The rest is nuclear fusion plants, and when I mean plants, I mean there are only four plants in the entire state (they needed imported huge amount of tritium gas, also yes, there are still fission plants). There are also room-temperature superconductors, which it is not as common so its usually use for either fusion reactors, transmission tower (almost all California's wind power comes from the Great Plains), energy storages for cities. They are also getting into the noireau (metallic hydrogen) industry.

California working hours is 6 hours, and could only work for 4 days. Cause of this, they have 3 day weekend. In Califinity, they viewed that person must time in three order: Friday for resting, Saturday for indulgence, Sunday for praying. They also get 2 four weeks vacation and 1 three weeks of vacation.

Transportation

YEAH! This is the one I waiting for; I keep indulging about California having an intricate rail network. For now, I gonna talk about non-rail transit because I dont fuck around with trains.

The majority of California used rails for transportation, with Los Angeles rails having 28mil passengers in a city of 24mil (wondering how, go look at Tokyo transportations section in Wiki). However, there are many people who also use either the bus or are preferable to either walk or bike to their destination. There are people who uses cars, but it a privilege to use it, and expensive too: there is congestion charge, parking fees, registration fees for battery cars, high taxes for either ammonia or noireau fuels , and high tolls for using Interstate/Expressways (maybe like $1000-1500 for per year, and higher for freight trucks) (many freeway/interstate were demolished in inner-cities however).

Not only that, many cities have streets design that are similar to Tokyo and European cities: having few boulevard that connect the city in boarder scale, but have streets that either one-way, or pedestrian only zone.

This kind of street are very common in California cities.

California owns a state-enterprise airliner, Golden Airline. There are only 5 major airports in California, 3 that deal with international (as in, non-UNEC member)/intercontinental destinations): San Francisco International Airport, Los Angeles International Airport, San Diego International Airport, East Bay Transcontinental Airport (Oakland Airport), and Santa Ana Transcontinental Airport (John Wayne).Not only are there fewer airports, but intrastate flights are banned in the state. Thanks to federal law, constitution, and UNEC, flights are also banned to Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Navajo-Hopi, and the State of Baja California.

Rail

California owns a state-enterprise that deals with rail passengers called Golden Railways Company (HQ in Sacramento). Actually, it is one of seven subsidies of Amtrak, which is far larger than today, to the point there has to be smaller companies to deal with railways. The other is Lone Star Railways (Texas and California are the only states to have their own railway companies; HQ in Austin), Northeast Railway Company (Northeast region including Maryland and DC, HQ in New York City), Russet Railway Company (Midwest States that isn't under Lakotah lands; HQ in Chicago), Cascadia Railway Company (Oregon and Washington states; HQ in Olympia, WA), South Railways Company (can't think of a good name lol, compassed all other Southern States; HQ in Atlanta, GA), and Sunwest Railway Company (Southwestern States including Idaho, Montana and Wyoming (any left over lol); HQ is maybe either in Phoenix, Santa Fe or Denver).

California has a massive railway network; it's possible to go to any destination via rails in the state, via regional corridor like the Redwood Empire Corridor (talk about that soon), or intercity/hsr. California two important corridors; the Golden Corridor that goes through Central Valley all the to San Diego (and connects to other states and countries), and the Southern Range Corridor (also called Salinas) that started in San Francisco, goes through Salinas Valley, to Sanagi, Santa Barbara and then Los Angels.

The Golden Corridor used the legacy route of CAHSR, a project that, despite its flaws, was fundamentally crucial for the state. I gonna digress for a bit but people bitching about how the route "should be shorten" or go pass certain cities missed the point. California does not have a good connection with its cities. Yeah, there is Amtrak, but the issue is that it is too slow for conveniences, many of its tracks are owned by freight companies, and there are no direct routes for SF-Fresno-LA. The reason why there is such high population in Central Valley is thanks to CAHSR (and other things). The only reason there is some route change is because there are always things to improve on, some cities are just gone, and there are other routes that don't need HSR.

(What the majority of GC looks like)

There is some new routes and changes of route. For one, it goes further norths to Chico, Redding, and then to Oregon. Another is the corridor at SF-Jose. Right now, CAHSR will share with Caltrain, using the same rails. It is great because it electrified the rails. However, there are some flaws. There are still level crossing, which, admittingly, some are being constructed to have grade separation. Another issue is that it has double-track railways, and it's in the middle of an urban environment.

A few decades after Califia's death (maybe 2080s to 2090s), California has somewhat of a rail revolution, transforming the state railways. For one, the state converted half of state route 101 (SF-Mountain View) into quadruple-track railway. The benefits that it allows HSR trains to go faster, allowing other trains to share (the Bay Area has a RER/S-Bahn trains), and is more separate from urban neighborhoods. The corridor split off from MV: one goes to San Jose Central Station (dual-track again), another still going along US101 than merging with IS880 (still a quad-track). The former Caltrain corridor is converted into a BART line (which is owned by BATA- Bay Area Transportation Authority/likely succeeded Seamless Bay Area). Once the corridor enters SF, it follows the same route of US101 (there is now freeways in SF), which, instead following CAHSR terminating underground, it goes to SF Central Station at the former IS80 above ground. It's a through-station and follows into SF-O Bay Bridge, which either goes to Oakland 16th Street Station, or continues to Sacramento. The Bay Bridge (Golden Gate Bridge and San Mateo Bridge too) itself is similar to New York Manhattan Bridge and Brooklyn Bridge: railways in the bottom, 3x3 road, and a pedestrian/cycling route atop.

(Where SF/Frinsica Central Station will be located. Also note this is the only way for cars to enter the bridge. Also, i am hitting on my image limit, lol.

For the majority of the corridor, from Sacramento to San Diego, the majority is quadruple-tracks. Well, maybe six-track if you count Maglev, it fellows the Golden Corridor. Also, San Francisco is the largest city in Fredoia that doesn't have a maglev station (lol, lmao even). Some cities are gone, so the corridor does not stop there. Kings/Tulare is Nés Nakiśa, the one near Visalia, and then to Nés Anaís. If a city is adjacent along the corridor, it will have a station, but the HSR will bypass it. There are also minor corridors that connect to the Golden Corridor. Best metaphor, the Golden Corridor is an artery that connects capillary.

After Bakersfield, it bypassed Palmdale and continued to Burbank/LA. Like I said before, Palmdale is connected to the Golden Corridor and does have it own Corridor, its only that HSR does not go there. After LA, it continue down south; it does not go west to San Bernardino. Instead, it continues journeying to Anaheim and then cutting through Chino Hills towards Riverside. From there, it either goes to Las Vegas and/or Phoenix and/or Jeddito and the rest of the country. Or it continues to San Diego, Tijuana, Mexicali, and then all the way to Mexico City. It is quite common for Californians and Mexicans to travel for either places thanks to UNEC having a open border policy.

(Notices how once stopping at Riverside, it either goes south, north, or northeast). (Also, I mention before and forgot to said it here, HSR can go up to 450 kph (average likely 400 kph). How they achieved this, other then making sure the corridor is as straight as possible is by: having wireless power transfer beneath the tracks (not eroding the overhead lines), concretene (concrete that has graphene mixed in it) to withstand the vibration and have longer lifespan, and nistíl (neo-steel which is my own idea; just steel itron mixed with graphene) which also withstand the vibration, friction, and have a longer lifespan).

The Southern Range Corridor, or the Salinas Corridor, is another corridor that meant for HSR. The Golden Corridor became extremely congestion: not only regional and HSR trains are using it, but also interstate and international trains frequent the route. So GRC constructed another corridor (likely in the early 2200s) to alleviate the main corridor traffic. It also has many cities in this region, especially Salinas and Sanagi, that don't have proper train lines. The corridor started from Gilroy. Instead ofgoing east, it goes south, going to Salinas. Then it goes southeast through Salinas Valley, continuing all the to Paso Robles. Then it goes south through the mountains, going through San Luis Obispo, then stopping at Sanagi (Santa Maria Valley). It then goes southeast again to through another hills, stopping at Santa Barbara, then through the mountains again to Ventura, goes to Oxnard, Camarillo, and then to Los Angeles Central Station.

(What the corridor looks like)

Now, the Golden Corridor and Salinas Corridor aren't the only corridors, but those two are the most important, having HSR lines and high traffic. There are other corridors in California, local/regional ones that connect to either corridors. Small traffic yet crucial. One corridor I want to talk about is the Redwood Empire Corridor.

(red is dual-tracks and blue is single-tracks)

The Redwood Empire population, minus anything south of Santa Rosa, is around 750k. Once past Santa Rosa, the corridor goes in a counter-clockwise. The red that goes east-west allows the line to form a 0-shape route. There is like an average 15-20 on the line. I got the idea from Not Just Bikes video about Switzerland. Thanks to this, there are far more people who travel to Redwood forest, especially in spring and summer. There are other corridors in low-populated regions that use similar routes.

The state entire uses clock-fast scheduling- arriving or departing either at 0s or 5s- and pulse timetabling.

There are different categories and types of rail trains, basing it off from Germany and some from the UK. The reason why those two is because it's the only one I can find in Wikipedia, lol. Usually based on how important the hub is, intermittent trips, number of passengers daily, and huge the building is. If I properly made a category list, LA and Sacramento will be 1 (having a maglev stop) while San Francisco and Lafénia will be 2 (not having one. Also, being the last stop before an important junctions is the reason why Lafénia has such a high population).

Education

Before I startn I need to remind everyone that the average lifespan is 160. This means that people ages slower, including sexual maturity like some animals like giant tortoises and bowhead whales. So there people in their 50s who looks in their 20s, or in their 90/100s who looks like in their 40s, similar like Aragorn from lotr (this also means women/afab are averagely 2-3 inches shorter than men/amab, and menstrual cycle is 60 days. Average Ostrace age is usually 200-250 excluding Kitsune and Sanguinarians). So schooling lasts a bit longer than today. (Also, California schooling is implemented country-wide with some difference.) There are laws that require schools to be surrounded by pedestrian-only streets. School days are Monday-Thursday. Some schools also have Friday but it is only half-time

There is 4 levels based on age:

Elementary school, also have daycare :0-8

Primary School: 8-12

Lower Secondary School: 12-16

Upper Secondary School (referred to as Liséa in Kalifornán): 16-20

Elementary schools are far more common than the other 3 schoolings, with an average 1 elementary per 1.5 km. The reason is that is so young children could be closer to their schools. It compassed pre-school, kindergarten, and Grades 1 and 2. Elementary teaches students their primary language (Kalifornan), basic math, and such. An average elementary will likely have a body of 100-200 students, with teachers having a class of 8-10. The elementary playground will also act as a local park. Elementary students are also called Ducklings due teachers picking up their students and herding them to schools like a parent duck and students wearing bright coats.

Primary schools are a bit more widespread due to students being supposed to act more independently, maybe like 1 per 5-10 km. Students are supposed to learn their second languages (usually either English or Spanish, but in some cases, a different language if the neighborhood has a large non-Californian population). An average class has 10-12 students with 500 per school, and students stay in the same class all day. Parents pick their child schools. Schools last 8:30-1:30

Lower Secondary School is widespread too, with 1 LS per 10-20 km. Students again will learn another language, learn more complex subjects, and such. Average classrooms are 12-16 and like PS, students shared same classes. Students are allow to pick their schooling when entering Lower School. School last 8:30-2:30.

Upper Secondary School (or Liséa in California) is far more widespread, with 1 per 20-40 km. Unlike the last three, students do not share classes but go to classes individually. UP acts more like a university than the other schools. Students may learn another language, but it is not mandatory. Not only students may choose their schooling but they could go to another city's schools if desire. It is common for students from small cities and towns to go to bigger cities like SF and LA for schooling (staying at either schools' dorm, social single-room occupancy, or renting an apartment). Students also gain a counselor who guides them for post-US life and careers, especially if it's related to their quirks. It is dependable on the student's schedule, but Schools last 8:30-3:30.

From Primary to Upper School, all students are required to wear an uniform. However, dress code is only not strict but students are courage to customize their uniform, embracing California social individualism. Gender restricted is illegal, and students, regardless of gender, are allowed to wear either pants or skirts. In fact, it is common for boys and masculine genderqueers to wear skirts during summer classes.

Classes scheduling is dependable on cities and their school district, but there are causes where classes have hybrid scheduling of Block and Timetable, with all 8 classes the first Monday, and A/B for the rest of the week. However, some classes, like language and math, are required to be held daily. A school year lasted from late March-Late June = 4/5 weeks vacation= Early August-Late Nov./Early Dec. = 4/5 weeks vacation = Early Jan - Mid/Late Feb = 2/3 weeks vacation = New School Year.

There is a new legal status called Minor. When a student/child reached the age of 15 years-old, their legal status will be listed as Minor, a transition from childhood to adulthood. Under this status, they enjoy far more privilege than they did as a child:

Allow to consume alcohol that is under 5%.

vote in local election.

Go to doctors without parents permission and do minor procedures like HRT

Watch +16 movies at the theaters.

At age 20, they allowed to do:

Voted in State and National-wide election and run for local office.

Consume all levels of alcohol.

Watch +20 movies at theaters.

Allow to do major medical procedures like gender-assignment surgery.

At age 25, they allowed to do:

Run for state and national-wide lower-chamber office (upper chamber and executive branch is 35).

Join the military.

Allow to work in Pleasure Guild (adult films, sex workers).

Drive and operate machineries like cars, trucks, trains, planes, etc.

Culture

The majority of Californians are an ethnicity I already talked about, Kalifornán. Kalifornáns formed (how does a new ethnicity happen?) due to many other Latins ethnicities' culture, especially Mexicans, shared, borrowed, and merged their culture together with Anglo in California. The language, again called Kalifornán, formed from Spanglish. Kalifornáns is primarily found in California, but many are also found in either US states like Arizona and in Mexico states like Baja California.

Kalifornáns are usually energetic and cheerful, more so than non-Kalifornáns. They greeted one another with hugs and kisses on cheeks, regardless of gender (even in formal greeting, they do so, though only with other Kalifornáns). Informal and casual parties are common, lasting into 1-3 am. When guests come over, the host usually serves coffee like cafecito and some pastries. It is just like other Latin Americans' etiquette.

Small street parties are also more common, usually starting around 4-6 pm. Its due to how permits are not really required, only informing a police officer and asking permission of either store or restaurant owners if they throw one. This creates a stereotype of how Kalifornáns are always throwing parties.

Different gender and sexuality are far more acceptable and common in California, with at least 30% self-identified being queers. Even men who consider themselves cishet will wear skirts if the day is hot, and wear bright colors and showing off skin (think timothee chalamet venice film festival outfit).

In beaches and film, breasts are not stigmatized, and it's common for women or genderqueers with breasts to be top less (though some wears a wrap around their shoulder). Non-genital nudity in media is also non-censor and is known to be shown in media below rated-16. Breasts are not sexualize in California, they are more interested in hips, waists, thigh, and butts.

Kalifornáns celebrated their Quinceañera, regardless of gender. For Kalifornáns, especially Califinitans, a child reaching 15 years old, a Minor in legal status, is considered the second most important birthday of their life (behind their Awakenday). This age is considered a transition of childhood to adulthood, and so, many people celebrate their coming in age day. For girls is called Quinceañera, boys is called Quinceañero, and for nonbinaries and other genderqueers is called Quinceañere. It is commonly to celebrate Quinceañera-children all together in the end of the month, usually at a Califinitan temple, and the government pays half of the celebration.

It is common for Kalifornáns to have mini-vacation once a month or so, using their 3-day weekend. They usually preferred traveling 2 and a half hours away from their home, using HSR (hence the high ridership). It's also common for Minors, even young as 15, to have mini vacation by themselves or with friends. It also common for them to visit family or friends if they attend school in another city.

Kalifornáns usually started parenthood between their 40s-50s, usually having 2-4 kids. Parents use their parental leaves for childrearing; parental leaves could be used for up to 3 years, and both the workplace and government pay for their leave ( the workplace is only up to a year). However, it is common for parents to stay home up to six months, where either parents (or ternary or more parents) will agree upon a schedule where one either: work half day and the other take care of the child, one work full day while the other care, or do a hybrid with mixing both schedules. It's very common for families, friends, and amises (will explain that later) to help rear the child, including the community, too. Thanks to technology and different social norms, there are different ways to begotten a child: artificial wombs are becoming the most popular way, though queue are long. (For artificial wombs, gestation is much larger -16-18 months, but the benefits are that infants are more developed compared to natural ways. They will be born as a 6 months old infant and soon start crawling a month later). Vitro gametogenesis is already mainstream. Another method is synth-organ/glan: synthesizing tissue that does certain functions that can't be found in human biology initially ex: having a specific gland to filter carbon dioxide, or having freckle-like bioluminescent marks. Meaning, it is possible for ciswomen to have a synth-penis that produces estrogen and gamete and, likewise, for cismen.

In Kalifornáns, and frankly, Califinitans too, there are considered 3 important important group that fomrat into structures of an individual: families, friends, and lovers, and they all central around the person. In Califinity, one of the most important holidays (expect the day Califia death/transcendence) involves around this, celebrated in the first 3-day weekend of June (it is no coincident why it is in June). So, while romantic is important, platonic-ships are also very important. One such instance is called amís. An amís (or amise/amisa/amiśo) is someone most dearest, closest friend. A word that is similar to it is the Japanese word Nakama. Rarely will people have more than one amís. It is common between amís to have a civil union while also romantically marry to another person. Amís are known to be intimate, including cuddling, small kisses, and hugs (sex is uncommon but not unheard of). Amís will also raise child together, and sometime they will be both child biological parent. There is a genre in media that is meant for amís.

Snippet culture

Can't really think of categorizing this so I gonna type it out. Kalifornán parents don't genderize their child name. Since Kalifornán uses some Spanish rules, including grammatical genders (-a is feminin, -o is masculine, -e is nonbinary/genderqueer, and no vowels mean gender neutral; likely will use ä,ö, and ë), the parents uses gender neutral, and it's up to the child if they want a gender suffix.

It's common for children to call their parents by their first, especially if they're same-gender. For instance, Anne Boonchuy will usually call her mom Mami Oum. However, sometimes, they will have a nonbinary/gender neutral informal parent word, Parí (pair-e). Same uses if both parents are same-gender or one happens to be a genderqueer.

This isn't only done by Kalifornáns but also country-wide, but it expects for both couples to take each other's name, like how Latin Americans do so. For example, Anne Boonchuy full name is Anne Asnee-Boonchuy (Asnee is Oum's surname). Usually, women keep their mother surname and men likewise. Same-gender couple, like a sapphic couple, both will keep their mother surname and again likewise for gay men couple. Nonbinary/genderqueer couple or partner is a bit difficult, but they usually choose what name to keep or keep if one of their is nonbinary/genderqueer. There are also new surnames. (Disgressing a bit, but Emma Nolan full name is Emma Emdis-Nolan. The -Dis suffix means "daughter," and Em- is shortened for Emma. Also, she has two mothers, but she still gets disowned due to being a non-quirk (oof). Also, she has six other sisters).

There are some new dishes, one is which is sandwich/taco-like. It's similar to roujiamo (Chinese sandwich, which half the bread is halfway slice before stuffing food into) with using arepa (or any other flatbread). The bread is slice halfway, and then hallowing it inisde. Then, the ingredients uses spiced and shredded grilled meat (usually chicken), shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, cutted green onions, maybe diced of white onions, and condiments of sour cream, and either BBQ or thousand islands sauce.

The majority of Southern California are non-Deitist Califinitans, and Northern California are Deitist Califinitans (especially in the Bay Area and Central Valley).

Romantic relationships with age gaps will likely be more common due to longer lifespan, especially if dating an Ostrace. Yoko Tanaka is likely twice the age of Divina, though Sanguinarians ages even slower than an average Ostrace. It will not be surprising if, say, a young Japanese lesbian dated a Kitsune and found out she was alive when Matthew C. Perry went ashore on Japan.

There is a balcony culture, similar to what Montreal has. Since most people in California don't own a single detach housing anymore, and that many housing has a balcony, people will convey their balcony in their own liking. An average balcony is likely a bit smaller than an average room, half which jutted out from the building. There are a lot of hanging plants, many of which are flowering that dangle from it (I based it on Cartagena historic district), and it is common to see people having conversations from across one.

Popular sports are association football that doesn't revolve quirks, girdfield that use flyers (flying broomstick) and non-mage-kind could play, and Metaball, which is the most popular sport in the world. Metaball is a quirks sport, meaning a person needs to have a quirk in order to play. The rules are malleable depending on players, but everyone is required to use a soft exosuit. Capture the Flags is also popular, which is mostly a pro-hero game that heros, usually forming a team based on their cities and playing against each other. The game could escalate very fast, and it is popular on pro-hero academies.

Don't know what else to talk about. The justice system is vastly different, like police officers (other than requiring to have some sort of degree) can't carry lethal arms. The US has a gendarmerie force, the National Guard, which revolves usually against highly dangerous quirks (justice systems are not allowed to use the term "villian")(raiding, capturing, and transporting), internal security, and all that stuff. Pro-heros operate differently than Japan, which are like private cops. Pro-hero is another branch of the National Guard, meaning it's a gendarmerie, different from that they focus more on their quirks individually. Pro-heros usually are put in team, squad, and operate individually and occasionally as teams like Justice League and The Avenger. The highest ranking team in the US is called Liberty Paladins, which usually involves protecting both the prime minister and president, dangerous missions, and stuff (California hero team is called Golden Costodian). Also, during the time of war, Peo-heros will act and operate like soldiers.

Pretty much that it. I planning on changing the US name, somewhat similar to Saoirse, got inspired watching a sex scene of Saoirse Ronan with Charlotte Murchison and I kinda like that name.

[welldigger62]

Was in Bay City Michigan talking with friends and this loco pulled to and stopped so the conductor could throw a track switch. I figured okay, I’ll take a snap. These things are huge when you are right close to them.

[just-an-emily-existing]

“You were nothing more than a child's toy on your little “Backyard Railway” Edalyn”

That was enough to set Edalyn off the edge. No one would talk shit about her railway and get away with it, even if she was being abused, she still took pride in being a part of the Disney owned Grizzly Flats Railroad. Her railway heavily influenced Walt Disney's love for trains and she was not letting someone tarnish that title. They had been arguing for what felt like hours that started out as just some playful jabbing at each other's hardships, which led to more personal insults, and then to flat out rude remarks about each other whether it be about their trauma, looks, how they act, ect. But with this particular insult, Edalyn could tell Dane meant it, with his rude and sneering tone, his condescending smug grin, the way he effortlessly strode up to her with confidence, knowing she’d back away, it was all very overwhelming, so she quickly got defensive.

“Excuse me? Say that bullshit again to me.” She said in a low, but powerful voice. Dane chuckled at her anger, he knew she was trying to keep her cool, but her hands were shaking as she balled them up into firm fists. He grabbed her wrists, squeezing them tightly. He then went right next to her ear and said in a whisper,

“You are nothing more than a child's toy-”

But Edalyn didn’t want to hear the rest, she broke free from Dane's grip and pushed him away very forcefully, turning away and crying silently, grabbing her arms, all while holding her head down and shaking. Dane realised he went a bit too far, seeing as all she could think of was her old controller.

“E-Edalyn I… I didn't-”

“I don’t wanna hear it Dane… How dare you.” She said in a low but powerful voice. Dane was getting nervous. He didn’t say a thing. This seemed to anger her more.

“What, not gonna say anything after that Dane? Come on tough guy, say that bullshit again to me.” She said, approaching him swiftly. Dane didn’t move. Now they were face to face. Edalyn grabbed his ear and whispered,

“Say it again.” A shiver went down Dane's spine. He knew he'd pissed her off, but couldn’t seem to control himself.

“I SAID YOURE A FUCKING TOY!!! YOURE NOTHING MORE THAN A WORTHLESS, DISPOSABLE PLAYTHING!!! YOU MEAN NOTHING TO THIS WORLD!!!” He screamed at the top of his lungs, leaving an echo across the lake and beyond. Edalyn had no words, she couldn’t believe her ears, and nothing could explain what happened next. She felt an indescribable burning feeling in her core that blossomed into a blue rose of fury, rage, and sadness. It made her feel hot and heavy, like a weight had been dumped onto her shoulders, but yet, she felt like she could jump to the sky.

Her eyes turned from a bright red, to a blinding blue, and glowed like the sun, which soon turned into pure flames, and so did her hair, it would rise and flicker which each step she took, while also leaving little burn marks from her heals and small blue embers in the path. Her clothes however, we’re fine, but the world around her was not, it would soon know her fury, just like Dane. He looked at her in terror, he had never seen her like this and was frozen in place. For once, he was struck with fear just like his victims, and quickly broke into a cold sweat. As Edalyn walked towards him, she said nothing, only looked at him with her burning eyes.

Dane tried to teleport away, but Edalyn caught him instantly with a firey fist. The fire burned him as he screamed in agony. Edalyn smiled a wicked smile as she began to laugh maniacally. Never before had she seen Dane in such a state but now she loved it, she wanted him to writhe in agony just like she did when he was taking over her mind.

Edalyn brought him up higher as she started to burn his lake to the ground. She started lighting trees, bushes, anything her fire could reach and touch, it was in flames in seconds. Dane tried using his water magic but to no avail, her fire would only burn his water and hurt him more. He then tried to control her mind but that was even worse! All he could see in her mind was blue flames and angry, horrid thoughts, fantasising about murdering Dane, and burning the whole island with him! He suddenly passed out from being in her mind.

“Awww what’s the matter Dane? Can’t handle the consequences of your actions?! WAKE UP YOU MONSTER!!!” She screamed loudly but he didn’t, he only lay limp in her fist, burning away. She dropped his limp body in his lake to cool him off. She then directed her attention to the lake and began to destroy it. She continued to laugh as she let her magic run wild, burning every single hing in her eye's range.

Meanwhile Dane was having a horrible nightmare… He was in front of a fireplace with a beautiful red fire glowing a warmth so comforting he felt like he could sleep in it. But it quickly changed to a purple glow, then blue, blue fire? Oh no… no no NO NO!!! The fire soon burst out of the brick cage and turns into a feminine figure that’s all to familiar. His dearest, Edalyn. The firey figure would then raise its hand to smack him down. Dane tried to run but forgot what it’s like to be in a dream. He couldn’t run, and soon the figure grabbed him and threw him in the fire.

*gasp*

Dane soon would wake up to him being in his lake which understandably, he’d frantically swim his way out of and ride above the water to see

His lake, in absolute shambles. Everything had been burned to the ground and only a blue trail of embers were left. He then remembered Edalyn. He had angered her so badly she took it out on his lake. He quickly swam to the shore of his lake and put out the embers, but still followed them, leading him out to the rest of Sodor.

“She went all the way out here? *sigh* Only Lady knows what she’s done now.” Dane followed the embers out to the Narrow Gauge Railway to see the Narrow Gauge engines fighting off Edalyn! Dane quickly assessed the situation and ran to them. First being Peter Sam

“Hey! Are you ok?” He asked, helping him up. Peter Sam was burned badly and crying.

“No! Edalyn's destroying our railway! What did you do to her?” He asked, his voice cracking with every word. Dane looked at him with a cringed face.

“Nothing that wasn’t my fault” He then shooed him away and started to help the others escape. Next he went to Sir Handel.

“The fuck did you do now?! Edalyn's gone more crazy than you dickhead!” Dane sighed as he told him something. He looked and nodded at Dane then ran to Peter Sam. One by one Dane helped the others until it was just him and Edalyn. She finally noticed him and tried to smack him down but this time, he managed to move just in time! Dane sprayed her with his water and managed to get through to her and took his chance to speak.

“Edalyn! I'm so sorry for what I said! I never should’ve said those horrible things to you, please forgive me my love!” Dane said, tears in his eyes. Edalyn looked at him with scorn.

“You truly mean it…? You aren’t just saying this to get me to stop?” Dane nodded as Edalyn's fire began to die down! Dane took this final shot.

“NOW SIR HANDEL!!” He shouted as he and Sir Handel sprayed Edalyn down, fizzling and steam encased the two as they sprayed her down. Soon the smoke and steam cleared to a burned and wet Edalyn, coughing and panting. Dane rushed to her.

“Edalyn! Are you ok?” He asked, kneeling down. Edalyn then grabbed his shoulders very tightly.

“If you ever say that shit again to me, I’ll kill you on the spot do you understand?” She said in a low and tough voice. Dane quickly nodded. They both got up and looked to the others who were looking at her with horror.

“WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK WAS THAT EDALYN?! WHY WERE YOU DESTROYING OUR RAILWAY YOU PSYCHO BITCH?!” Duncan screamed at her. Dane quickly spoke up for her.

“It wasn’t her fault!! I pushed her off the edge! This was my fault.” Dane said, holding Edalyn's hand. A deafening silence fell over everyone. Duke was the first to break the silence.

I think it’s time for you two to go home, we'll go contact the Fat Controller and tell him what’s going on-“

“NO!!!” Edalyn screamed. “If Sir Topham Hatt finds out what I did he'll send me back to America! I can’t go back! I'll do whatever it takes to fix this just don’t tell him!!” Clenching her fists as started to cry. Dane hugged her softly. Duke grabbed her hands.

“Whatever happened here can be fixed, we'll get started right away” Duke said, as he ushered the others to get their materials and magic ready as Dane and Edalyn did the same, but Dane got someone to help, Lady herself! Thankfully she was more than happy to help, but not after giving Edalyn a stern talking to. Edalyn was ready to make up for her damage and did the most work out of everyone! Only after a day or two, the Narrow Gauge Railway and Dane's Lake was back to what it used to be, or at least that’s what ever one thought, but for some reason, there's these little patches of burnt grass that can’t be cured, not even with Lady's magic!

It was first steps Edalyn took towards Dane while enraged.

Those steps now symbolise why you should never cross Edalyn too much.

[blurscolours]

The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea | Part Six

Masterlist

Summary: An attack on Arthur’s imprisoned brother Orm leaves him with no choice but to rely upon you, a friend made due to unfortunate circumstances nearly a decade ago, to provide safe haven while he restores peace to Atlantis. Suddenly tasked with sheltering a sullen former king results in a very different summer vacation than you had originally envisioned, but changes both of your lives forever.

Warnings: Bear Attack, Orm Injury, Blood, First Aid, Discussion of Atlantean Healing

Word Count: 2083

By the following weekend, the pile of logs to be split had dwindled significantly. Activity on the lake was picking up again, so you suggested you go on a walk into the woods, to both look for felled trees and get away from the racket.

Your planned route was not arduous, but it was hot in the thick of the trees and sunbaked granite, so you put your bathing suit on underneath your shorts and tank top to be ready to swim as soon as you returned to the lakeshore. You also applied sunscreen to your exposed skin, as he read the back of the bottle curiously.

“We can’t all be as perfect as you…” You teased lightly. “Sunburns are terribly uncomfortable.”

Making sure you each had a bottle of water, and a bucket to collect any blueberries there might be, you headed off with him down the path to the railway tracks. You stopped at the edge and let him take in the space without a freight train barreling through the landscape, before leading him across and deeper into the trees. You were by no means an elegant hiker, but you made your way up the slope of the path, avoiding the mud churned up by ATVs. The two of you noted some trees that had fallen as a result of wind or at the end of the life. He stated he would come back later to collect them.

You emerged from the thick of the trees onto a landscape of granite rocks and twisted jack pine trees. It was a rather foreign landscape compared to the woods or the lakeshore.

“Here is where we might find blueberries.” You said excitedly and headed over to inspect one of the patches of green. You crouched down and carefully ran your fingers through the leaves before picking a few triumphantly. “Aha!”

You enthusiastically began to pick a few more before putting them in your hand and rinsing them with a splash of water from your water bottle. You popped a few in your mouth and smiled as they were still warm from the sun and reminded you of a fresh blueberry pie.

“You enjoy the taste then?” He asked, much closer than you remembered.

You opened your eyes to see him crouching down right in front of you. You held out your hand and he plucked a few from your palm, the tips of his fingers sliding along your skin. You were powerless to stop the shiver that thrilled through you. You watched as he slid the blueberries past his generous lips before popping them with his teeth and nodding.

“They are sweet but not overwhelmingly so…and warm.” He commented.

His words brought you back to the moment and you nodded quickly.

“Exactly. It reminds me of a dessert my mom makes every summer. Blueberry pie.”

He smiled a little at the mention of your mother…And you realized you had listened to his entire life story without sharing any part of your own.

“I would very much like to try it…” He replied.

“Well then we need to pick a lot more of these.” You laughed and settled in to pick everything within your reach, teaching him to pick only the darkest of the berries, leaving the white or green ones to ripen a while longer. As you shifted around the patch, the bucket getting fuller between the two of you, you told him stories of berry picking with your family…of eating more blueberries than you put in the bucket…

As the time passed, however, you began to feel…unnerved. You found yourself looking across the clearing to the edge of the trees until the shadows moved. You inhaled sharply, and his focus was immediately on you.

“Bear.” You said quickly and quietly, and his eyes shot across the clearing to see the black bear emerge fully, sniffing the wind. The animal was startingly large…not like the females that came close to the cottage sometimes. No, this was a huge male that roamed a large territory, and you were now in it.

“Stand up slowly.” You spoke low and even, moving carefully. He followed your direction, shifting subtly to place his entire form between you and the bear. “Wave your arms slowly and talk to me, we have to show we are not prey.”

You both began to wave your arms.

“Are humans not prey for bears, then?”

“No. We are not. This type of bear is a scavenger…they like berries and fish and dead animals.” You peered around his torso and frowned as the bear started huffing defensively, pawing at the ground.

“It might charge.” You said with dread in your voice. You were doing everything the nature books said and yet the bear still seemed threatened. Orm was in and of himself a very threatening being. That may have been the issue.

“It is charging.” He confirmed with surprising calm.

You heard it roar and start across the clearing.

“Hit it in the face!!!” You managed to squeak out and pressed yourself fully against his back, admittedly terrified.

You felt Orm brace for the impact, holding his arms out to defend you as the snarling bear drew closer. It let out a bellow as it plowed into him, sliding the two of you backwards along the bare rock, but Orm kept his feet, and you were able to do the same by wrapping your arms around his waist. The bear reared up and snarled again as it swiped at Orm’s left arm with its wicked claws before you felt Orm shift and slam his right fist into its muzzle.

The bear let out a rather pathetic noise, one of pain mixed with surprise, as it tumbled back. It scrambled to its feet and scampered off into the woods. At least the books were right about that – black bears could indeed be scared off by fighting back. You unwrapped your arms from Orm’s torso and stood, immediately seeing the angry gashes on his forearm. He turned to face you once the bear was out of sight and seemed much more focused on your wellbeing. You grabbed your water bottle and quickly dumped it over his wound.

“Bear claws are filthy.” You babbled, adrenaline making your hands shake a little. You needed to stop the bleeding. You paused, trying to formulate a plan, before pulling your shirt up and off, folding it into a long strip. As Orm looked on curiously, you pressed the center of the fabric strip to this wound, wrapping it under his arm before pulling the ends back to the front and tying them tightly over the wound to put pressure on it. You picked up his hand and pressed your finger into his skin, pleased to see the blood flow replenish the colour quickly.

“We have to get you back to the cottage…” You turned to pull him back to the path, away from the bear, but he pulled you back to him, the fingers of his good hand sliding under your chin, raising your eyes to his.

“Are you alright?” He asked calmly, seemingly unfazed by what had transpired.

You blinked and nodded dumbly, forcing yourself to take a few calming breaths.

“Yes, sorry, thank you.” You murmured sheepishly.

“Then we can go.” He nodded and let go of your chin, leaning down to pick up the bucket of hard-won blueberries, before letting you lead him back down the path in your bathing suit and shorts.

Neither of you seemed inclined to break contact, and so you held his hand the entire way, taking him straight into the bathroom. You motioned for him to sit on the stool and took out the first aid kit. Your hands were thankfully no longer shaking. You unwrapped your ruined shirt and dropped it directly into the garbage bin. You grabbed some antiseptic and looked to him apologetically.

“This might sting a little…” You knelt on the ground to be face-to-face with the wound on his forearm as you very carefully cleaned it out. You could see right before your own eyes he was already healing; the bleeding had stopped. The bear’s claws had not been able to cut very deep into his Atlantean flesh, but the wound still needed care. You added anti-bacterial cream before closing each gash with sets of steri-strips, offsetting and trimming them with careful precision. You placed gauze over the wounds and wrapped it with bandages.

“Too tight?” You asked once you’d tied it.

“Not at all.” He murmured and you nodded before cleaning up.

“Between you and me, we’re going to use a whole first aid kit before this month is out.” You muttered ruefully as you changed the Band-Aid on your thumb. You looked back to him, still sitting on the stool. “Are you in pain?”

“I will be fine. Thank you,” he replied, making eye contact again. “for your prompt care and the sacrifice of your garment…”

You shook your head quickly.

“I would have died…the thanks are all mine…” You blinked as you remembered he’d just punched a huge land animal. You quickly picked up his right hand and examined his knuckles, putting gentle pressure on the bones of his hand. “Is your hand ok?”

He nodded as his fingers closed around yours, gently turning you hand and lifting your knuckles to his lips. “I am fine.” He confirmed again before pressing a kiss to your skin.

The air shuddered from your lungs, stunned that hands so strong could feel so soft…that a mouth that could speak so harshly had such tender lips.

“I…” You dropped your eyes and they looked around for something to focus on, landing on the bucket of blueberries. “I will get these cleaned up then.” You slipped your hand from his, grabbing the blueberries and fleeing to the kitchen.

The intensity of your body’s response to him was overwhelming, particularly when it mixed with the residual adrenaline. You rinsed the blueberries carefully and lay them out to dry on paper towel, before going down to the lake for a swim. You needed to cool off and calm down or you would absolutely embarrass yourself further.

You jumped in and dunked yourself a number of times before simply floating, the frenzied feeling leeching away into the water. As you climbed out of the lake, he offered you a towel…making you realized you’d forgotten to bring one with you.

“Thank you.” You smiled sheepishly and wrapped yourself up in it. “So.” You looked to him. “Blueberry pie?”

He nodded softly and you headed up to the cottage together. You changed into real clothes and worked with him to make the filling and crust before assembling the pie. Once it was in the oven, you pulled down a wine glass. “I am going to have a glass of mead, an alcoholic beverage made with honey. Would you like to try some?”

“Yes, please.” He answered and you grabbed another glass. You poured a tasting size portion for him and a proper glass for yourself, before bringing the bottle with you as you sat in the living room to relax while the pie baked. He sniffed and swirled the mead before tasting it and you were once again struck by the cultural similarities – though how beverages were serviced and ingested in the ocean was something you would ask him about later. He gave you a nod of approval and you added to his glass.

The warmth of the alcohol spread from the centre of your body out to the tips of your fingers and toes, relaxing you deeply. As you drank, you took the opportunity to tell him about your life – your family, your childhood. The timer beeped once the pie finished, and you pulled it out to cool. Together, you threw together some leftovers for dinner and continued drinking and talking over your meal and dessert.

Thankfully the pie turned out to be worth it effort he had put into collecting those blueberries with you, and you finished the night by cleaning the kitchen. The very close encounter with that bear had truly driven home the importance of keeping the cottage clean. By bedtime, the bottle was empty. You were both thoroughly relaxed, and he was also well-versed in your life in turn. Crawling into bed, it was not a struggle to fall asleep. You melted into the sheets boneless after the effort of the day and slept soundly through the night.

Read Part Seven

Masterlist

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Mother Jones:

The state of Utah has come up with its share of boondoggles over the years, but one of the more enduring is the Uinta Basin Railway. The proposed 88-mile rail line would link the oil fields of the remote Uinta Basin region of eastern Utah to national rail lines so that up to 350,000 barrels of waxy crude oil could be transported to refineries on the Gulf Coast. The railway would allow oil companies to quadruple production in the basin and would be the biggest rail infrastructure project the US has seen since the 1970s.

But in all likelihood, the Uinta Basin Railway will never get built. The Uinta Basin is hemmed in by the soaring peaks of the Wasatch Mountains to the west and the Uinta Mountains to the north. Running an oil train through the mountains would be both dangerous and exorbitantly expensive, especially as the world is trying to scale back the use of fossil fuels. That’s why the railway’s indefatigable promoters, including the state’s congressional delegation, will probably fail to get the train on the tracks. However, they have succeeded in one thing: providing an activist Supreme Court the opportunity to take a whack at the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), one of the nation’s oldest environmental laws.

Enacted in 1970, NEPA requires federal agencies to consider the environmental and public health effects of such things as highway construction, oil drilling, and pipeline construction on public land. Big polluting industries, particularly oil and gas companies, hate NEPA for giving the public a vehicle to obstruct dirty development projects. They’ve been trying to undermine it for years, including during the last Trump administration.

Last week, when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, former Solicitor General Paul Clement channeled those corporate complaints when he told the justices that NEPA “is designed to inform government decision-making, not paralyze it.” The statute, he argued, had become a “roadblock,” obstructing the railway and other worthy infrastructure projects through excessive environmental analysis. “NEPA is adding a juicy litigation target for project opponents,” Clement told the court.  

But NEPA has almost nothing to do with why the Uinta Basin Railway won’t get built. “The court is doing the dirty work for all of these industries that are interested in changing our environmental laws,” Sam Sankar, a senior vice president at Earthjustice, said in a press briefing on the case, noting that Congress already had streamlined the NEPA process last year. Earthjustice is representing environmental groups that are parties in the case. “The fact that the court took this case means that it’s just issuing policy decisions from the bench, not deciding cases.”

The idea of building a railway from the Uinta Basin to refineries in Salt Lake City or elsewhere has been kicking around for more than 25 years. As I explained in 2022, the basin is home to Utah’s largest, though still modest, oil and gas fields:

Locked inside the basin’s sandstone layers are anywhere between 50 and 321 billion barrels of conventional oil, plus an estimated 14 to 15 billion barrels of tar sands, the largest such reserves in the US. The basin also lies atop a massive geological marvel known as the Green River Formation that stretches into Colorado and Wyoming and contains an estimated 3 trillion barrels of oil shale. In 2012, the US Government Accountability Office reported to Congress that if even half of the formation’s unconventional oil was recoverable, it would “be equal to the entire world’s proven oil reserves.”

Wildcat speculators, big oil companies, and state officials alike have been salivating over the Uinta Basin’s rich oil deposits for years, yet they’ve never been able to fully exploit them. The oil in the basin is a waxy crude that must be heated to 115 degrees to remain liquid, a problem that ruled out an earlier attempt to build a pipeline. The Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, a quasi-governmental organization consisting of the major oil-, gas-, and coal-producing counties in Utah, has received $28 million in public funding to plan and promote the railway as a way around this obstacle. The coalition is one of the petitioners in the Supreme Court case.

“We don’t have a freeway into the Uinta Basin,” Mike McKee, the coalition’s former executive director, told me back in 2022. “It’s just that we have high mountains around us, so it’s been challenging.”

Of course, there is no major highway from the basin for the same reason that the railway has never been built: The current two-lane road from Salt Lake City crests a peak that’s almost 10,000 feet above sea level, which is too high for a train to go over. So the current railway plan calls for tunneling through the mountain. But going through it may be just as treacherous as going over it. Inside the unstable mountain rock are pockets of explosive methane and other gases, not all of which have been mapped.

None of this deterred the Seven County coalition from notifying the federal Surface Transportation Board (STB) in 2019 that it intended to apply for a permit for the railway. The following year, the board started the environmental review process, including taking comments from the public.

In December 2021, the STB found that the railway’s transportation merits outweighed its significant environmental effects. It approved the railway, despite noting that the hazards from tunneling “could potentially cause injury or death,” both in the railway’s construction and operation. It recommended that the coalition conduct some geoengineering studies, which it had not done.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

I'm an escapist. I'm not a planner; I've never made a decision about anything in my life. The good thing about Africa is that you can escape forever. You can do what you want without someone looking over your shoulder.

- Peter Beard, photographer

Surviving a shipwreck in Lake Rudolf, being crushed by an elephant & an encounter with a lion in the middle of the night, Peter Beard wld have been 85 this week. Beard was heir to 2 fortunes - railways & tobacco - a child of privilege: Upper East Side, Buckley and Yale. Africa and its wildlife.

In the late 50s, he bought Hog Ranch, near the Ngong Hills & adjacent to his friend Karen Blixen’s coffee farm. In 1972 he acquired an estate at Montauk Point near Andy Warhol.

Explosive, collagist, his works combine his photographs with his diaries - paper clippings, dried leaves, insects, old sepia photos, phone messages, India ink marginalia, quotes. Blood from the nearest butcher - and his own. Photographing wildlife, wild personalities and living an extravagant, untamed, life, Peter Beard was the personification of the word “Wild.” Baptised “the last of the adventurers,” Beard is as famous for his very public private life as he is for his idiosyncratic collage diaries and assemblages. Bringing together found objects, contact sheets, literary text and photographs from Tsavo, Kenya, his work subverts craft, control, and intentionality, typically associated with conventional artistic practice.

‘I’m an expert on futility and I like the futility and the pettiness of my diaries. It's a sort of laundry list of the day.’ It began when Jacqueline Kennedy gave him a leather-bound journal. He collaborated with Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, Karen Blixen, Truman Capote, and Salvador Dalí. He also became a portraitist. In the jungle that is Manhattan & in Kenya (clad only in a kikoi) he proved as irresistible as he was insatiable. He was the great passion in the passionate life of Lee Radziwill. He would say sleep was such a waste of time.

Beard himself referred to his devotion to photography as something to be taken not too seriously, introducing himself as “a dilettante,” or amateur. However, the artist played an undisputed role in portraying an impeccable artistic vision of Africa to the West, although many accused him of offering a slanted and idealised perception of the continent - the only lover he remained loyal to until the end.

After once finding a big game poacher on his property, “Hog Ranch,” famously next to Karen Blixen ́s (author of “Out of Africa") coffee plantation, Beard tied the man up in wires, stuffed a glove in his mouth and left him there. Although this cost the artist a week in African jail and a few more of press and rumors in NewYork, these solitary but outrageous acts of protest slowly but surely granted Beard an environmentalist status within Western and African preservationist circles. Ultimately, the artist was years ahead of his time in his efforts to sound the alarm about environmental damage, and became a walking symbol for a future generation of artists who would use their art to send urgent social messages to the public. “The deeper the white man went into Africa, the faster the life flowed out of it,” Beard wrote in his most critically acclaimed book, “The End of the Game.”

He had two failed marriages before a third to a Kenyan Muslim, Nejma Khanum, brought him a measure of peace and stability with the birth of a daughter, Zara. But he remained untamed. One time, in the Sth of France, he sold off a valuable photo to pay off a $20,000 bar bill. His long suffering wife, Nejma, sought to regain the art he had given away or loaned in a haze of drink and drugs.

Peter Beard, who lived in Montauk, on the eastern end of Long Island, New York, disappeared on 31 March 2020 and was found dead in Camp Hero State Park, not far from his home, after a 19-day search on 19 April. He was 82. His family wrote on his website, “He died where he lived: in nature.”