#mungo the heavy-freight diesel

[feigeroman]

Thomas OCs: Mungo

Number: D6 Class: BR Class 37 Co-Co Built: 1964 Arrived on Sodor: 1972 Service (Shed): NWR Utility (Knapford) Livery: NWR Diesel Black

The NWR’s diesel fleet is often badly misjudged, as media attention tends to be biased towards the smaller diesels, leading people to assume that the whole fleet is similarly made up of smaller engines. This is obviously not true, as the NWR does in fact own diesels of all different sizes, with one of the largest being Mungo - one of two 37s owned by the NWR, the other being Donna (NWR #D25).

Mungo is one of a number of diesels employed on the NWR’s heavy goods link, and is usually kept busy on the Main Line. Sometimes, however, he’s allowed to venture beyond Barrow-In-Furness, as some of his trains run directly from Sodor to any number of destinations on the Mainland. This direct running is more efficient than the usual system, whereby outbound goods trains have to stop at Barrow to change engines - the only reason the NWR doesn’t do direct running more often is because they only have limited powers to run their trains onto BR metals.

Like all the NWR’s big diesels, Mungo is proud of his strength and modernity, and never fails to let anyone forget it! Beneath his huge, powerful exterior, though, Mungo is pretty much just a big kid - he’s one of those engines who believes in growing old, but not growing up. He has an air of youthful innocence and enthusiasm normally only seen in smaller engines - luckily, his larger size means there’s more room for all that energy! Unfortunately, this also means Mungo has a tendency to act impulsively, and bite off more than he can chew, something which often spells trouble for himself and others. Nevertheless, he means well, and provided he can calm down and think things through, he’s really quite a hard worker - indeed, the other engines can’t deny the effect he has on the trucks!

Mungo was one of the last of the 37s to enter service, in 1964. Although most of the later 37s were initially based at Cardiff, it is recorded that Mungo had his beginnings at Stratford, the main depot in London for the Eastern Region. In fact, his was a doubly unusual allocation, for while the 37s were generally used on heavy freight traffic, he spent most of his time on passenger services - usually from Liverpool Street to Norwich, Cambridge or King’s Lynn. Mungo’s excitable tendencies shone through even then, but it seems that learning to handle passenger trains properly helped to curb some of these vices a little.

At some point in the late-1960s, Mungo was temporarily reallocated to Glasgow, as BR wanted to test the feasibility of employing 37s on the West Highland line. To this end, Mungo was tried out on both passenger and freight services from Glasgow to Oban or Mallaig. The results of these tests aren’t known, but they couldn’t have been favourable at the time, as 37s didn’t work this service again until the early-1980s. On the plus side, though, it was during these trials that Mungo first gained his name - Saint Mungo is the patron saint of Glasgow.

After that, Mungo returned to Stratford, and continued his work there for the rest of his BR career - which was to turn out to be very short. Not through his own unreliability or anything like that, but because in 1972 he was sold to the NWR. The background behind Sir Topham Hatt’s decision to purchase a 37 is a little muddy, but it is thought that he wanted to expand the railway’s freight traffic to include more direct services to destinations served by BR. In any case, he thought Mungo would be just the engine for the job, and that was how the diesel found himself entering NWR service later that year.

At this time, the NWR’s diesel roster was still very small, and so the steam engines only had a limited idea as to how Mungo would behave: Would he be another Daisy, BoCo, or Bear? Or even another Devious Diesel? In the end, what they got was a Mungo - he was nothing like any of the diesels that’d run on the NWR before. Not just in looks, but in outlook as well. He wasn’t a smooth talker like Diesel, nor a shameless flirt like Daisy. He wasn’t even an old grump like BoCo (apologies to him!), or noisy like Bear. Nobody was quite sure what to make of Mungo, but the general consensus was that he was something special.

It was only when Mungo actually started work, of course, that everyone realized just how different he was from the diesels that’d come before him. His first regular train was a fast freight, and the other engines had warned him just how troublesome the trucks could be. Many had suggested ways to keep them in line, but Mungo decided to instead try something he’d learned while on trial at Glasgow. When the trucks began playing their tricks, Mungo joined in, and gave them a taste of their own medicine. That did the trick, as the trucks found out that it was possible to have too much of a good thing!

The story soon spread, and the trucks became wary of trying anything with Mungo - they suspected he was just naiive when it came to hauling trucks, but they had no way of telling whether this naivity was genuine, or a facade meant to lull them into a false sense of security. They didn’t dare try to test this either, and to this day Mungo has had little-to-no trouble with trucks at all (coaches, though, he still hasn’t had much luck with, but he’s working on it!).

Trivia

Like most people, I’d never really been satisfied with the NWR diesel fleet as shown in the TV series. As mentioned above, there seems to have been a bias towards smaller diesel types, in stark contrast to the wide range of sizes and types to be found in the steam fleet. This contrast was brought into painful relief in the episode The Big Freeze, in which a group of small diesels was somehow shown as being able to efficiently cover the duties of steam engines much larger than them.

Just to put this into perspective, their method of covering for Gordon on his express is running Den, Dart and Sidney as a triple-header. It honestly has to be seen to be believed.

Anyway, I decided to try and address this imbalance, and so when I started properly developing my NWR stocklist, that’s what I did. To compensate for the lack of bigger diesels in canon, most of my diesel OCs were based on larger prototypes. In fact, I’ve just checked, and my diesel fleet is perfectly balanced; of the thirty diesels I have, fifteen are small, and fifteen are big.

This was what lead to the creation of Mungo. I originally had him work on the West Highland line for most of his BR career, and that was what gave rise to his name. However, I later discovered that the 37s didn’t see regular use on this line until about 1980, so I had to retcon Mungo’s backstory so that he was based at Stratford, where some of the class were based in the 60s.

I did like the story behind his name, though, so I did some further retconning to suggest that he at least spent some time on the West Highland, purely on a trial basis.

I did have a specific 37 in mind when developing Mungo’s backstory, but I’ve since been unable to remember which one (I just know it was built in 1964). I’m good at writing down information like this, can you tell?

[feigeroman]

Thomas OCs: Donna

Number: D25 Class: BR Class 37 Co-Co Built: 1960 Arrived on Sodor: 1988 Service (Shed): NWR Main Line (Barrow-In-Furness) Livery: NWR Diesel Green

The NWR’s diesel fleet is often badly misjudged, as media attention tends to be biased towards the smaller diesels, leading people to assume that the whole fleet is similarly made up of smaller engines. This is obviously not true, as the NWR does in fact own diesels of all different sizes, with one of the largest being Donna - one of two 37s owned by the NWR, the other being Mungo (NWR #D6).

Donna is one of a number of diesels employed on the NWR’s heavy goods link, and is usually kept busy on the Main Line. Sometimes, however, she’s allowed to venture beyond Barrow-In-Furness, as some of her trains run directly from Sodor to any number of destinations on the Mainland. This direct running is more efficient than the usual system, whereby outbound goods trains have to stop at Barrow to change engines - the only reason the NWR doesn’t do direct running more often is because they only have limited powers to run their trains onto BR metals.

Donna is an interesting sort. Professionally, she’s a hard, strong worker, and a very determined individual. If a job needs doing, not only will she do it well, but she'll stop at nothing to see it through to the end. Personally, however, it could be said that Donna’s quite an embittered, resentful character, who considers everyone guilty until proven innocent. In particular, her past withdrawal in spite of her good track record has given her serious contempt for the people in high places who make such decisions without understanding the harsh realities of railway operation. However, since she was lucky enough to be saved by Sir Topham Hatt, she’s willing to make an exception for him!

Donna’s BR career had promising beginnings, as she was one of the first 37s to be built in 1960. For most of her life, she was based at Hull, and worked regular freight trains around the East of England. However, the depot at Hull also tended to use its 37s on local passenger trains, and so Donna was frequently to be found on these - though she didn’t enjoy them nearly as much as she did the freights.

Over the years, other 37s came and went, but Donna remained a constant, reliable presence at Hull, even as traffic patterns changed drastically, and BR started introducing more modern diesels to cope with them. There was always some job the 37s could manage, and Donna was convinced she had nothing to worry about - a refurbishment at Crewe in the early 80s only further assured her future...

That is, until one fateful day in 1985, when Donna was suddenly told that she was to be withdrawn from active service. Naturally, her reaction to this news was one of shock and anger, as there’d been no prior indication that her days were numbered - indeed, she thought she’d been doing better than ever at that time. However, there was nothing Donna could do to challenge this decision, and she was placed into storage at Hull. There was apparently talk of her being transferred to the departmental stocklist, or sold into preservation, but the odds of either happening were slim.

Donna remained in storage for over two years, until one day - and just as suddenly - she awoke to the news that she’d been purchased by the NWR. As she was still in operational condition, all she required was a clean-up before she was able to make the journey to Sodor under her own power - accompanied by some ex-BR wagons that’d been included in the deal as well.

After some further work to deal with a few minor faults, Donna officially entered NWR service in early 1988. She was met with some interest by the other engines, as she was the first big diesel to arrive on the railway for quite some years. Such scrutiny made Donna more than a little paranoid at first, as she feared that even doing her best might not be good enough for her to be allowed to stay. This was not helped by a string of incidents which affected some of her early runs on the Main Line.

Fortunately, Donna eventually realized her future on the NWR was secure after all, thanks to the part she played in getting the railway through a big freeze. The winter of 1988/89 was particularly bad, especially for the steam engines, as the snow stopped their regular deliveries of coal getting through from the Mainland. When their current reserves ran out, the whole steam fleet was left out of action, and all the diesels were pressed into service to keep things running. Donna in particular was put on snowplough duty in place of Donald & Douglas, and managed to clear the line to Barrow-In-Furness - which in turn allowed her to collect the delayed coal delivery, and help get all the steam engines back in action. To say they were all grateful would be an understatement.

Donna remains a reliable worker to this day, both on the Main Line and further afield. Because she frequently ventures out to all sorts of Mainland destinations, she rarely actually sees many of her fellow NWR engines, and thus has few friends among them. Those few friends, however, will tell you that if you can get Donna on-side, she’ll remain fiercely loyal to you, and despite her acerbic exterior, she really is a good engine to know.

Trivia

Like most people, I’d never really been satisfied with the NWR diesel fleet as shown in the TV series. As mentioned above, there seems to have been a bias towards smaller diesel types, in stark contrast to the wide range of sizes and types to be found in the steam fleet. This contrast was brought into painful relief in the episode The Big Freeze, in which a group of small diesels was somehow shown as being able to efficiently cover the duties of steam engines much larger than them.

Just to put this into perspective, their method of covering for Gordon on his express is running Den, Dart and Sidney as a triple-header. It honestly has to be seen to be believed.

Anyway, I decided to try and address this imbalance, and so when I started properly developing my NWR stocklist, that’s what I did. To compensate for the lack of bigger diesels in canon, most of my diesel OCs were based on larger prototypes. In fact, I’ve just checked, and my diesel fleet is perfectly balanced; of the thirty diesels I have, fifteen are small, and fifteen are big.

This was what lead to the creation of Donna. I seem to remember she started off as a kind of punk girl archetype, hence her name - I don’t know, Donna just sounded punk-ish in my mind - but that gradually changed over time into her current characterization.

I did have a specific 37 in mind when developing Donna’s backstory, but I’ve since been unable to remember which one. I’m good at writing down information like this, can you tell?