#so sad boiler steam sold out

[munchboxart]

Got Birmingham inks and a new fountain pen (TWSBI ECO - medium) and it's crazy how good this actually is. If you live in the US, I highly suggest picking up inks from them holy shit

[weirdowithaquill]

Traintober 2024: Day 16 - Golden

Oh, How Rebecca Loved the Sun...

In a siding, tucked behind a long line of trucks awaiting transport to the works for repairs, sat a West Country class. Her name was Rebecca, and she was patiently awaiting her crew. Golden rays of sun shone down on her, warming her boiler through and leaving her comfortable and just a little sleepy.

“Morning, Rebecca,” called her driver, striding over from the sheds. “I see they left you out in the sun again, eh? You always were fond of the sun.” “It just feels so nice, driver,” chuckled Rebecca. “Surely you understand?” Her driver just nodded in agreement, already starting his checks. As soon as he was out of sight though, he grimaced.

Rebecca was a delightful engine to work with – but she was naïve and oblivious to the extreme. All around her, steam engines had been withdrawn and replaced by diesels and electrics – she herself had been moved from Exmouth Junction just before all her classmates there were unceremoniously pulled from service and dragged away to be cut up. And yet somehow Rebecca didn’t realise. She barely noticed as the number of steam engines around her grew smaller and smaller with each passing year, long time friends vanishing while she was out on an express run.

“They’re just being useful elsewhere!” Rebecca would say when her driver tentatively asked what had happened to them, hoping one day Rebecca would wise up to the truth of the situation and admit they’d been scrapped. And every time Rebecca replied that her old friends – many of whom she’d known since she was built – had simply been transferred, her driver caved and agreed that he’d heard that too.

What was he supposed to say to his engine? This living sunflower of a locomotive who only seemed to see the best in everything, even as she became run down due to a lack of maintenance.

“Come on Rebecca, we’ve got a train to pull,” her driver said kindly, and swung up into her cab. He could only hope to keep protecting her for as long as possible. At least until she either figured it out on her own or he was unable to hide it any longer. And much to his displeasure, he didn’t think either of those options had a very long lifespan left in them.

***

Rebecca’s driver clung to the letter, scrunching it up in his hands. His engine had been sold off.

“I thought I’d get longer,” he sighed, letting the letter fall to the floor as every fibre of his body seemed to sag in sadness. His golden girl was being preserved, sure – but not on the railway. She would likely not run again, not where she was going.

“Morning Rebecca!” he chirped, trying to put on a brave face. The West Country Class opened a sleepy eye, gazing down at her driver even as she hummed at the warmth of the beams of sunlight gently warming her boiler. “I have exciting news for you!” “Oh? What is it driver?” asked Rebecca curiously, gazing down at him with bright eyes. Looking closer, the deep, also black of the pupils was flecked with hints of golden, her eyes an almost warm brown in the sun.

“You’ve been sold,” her driver said as gently as he could. “You’re going to get a full overhaul and a special coat of paint next week, and then you’ll be going to your new home!” He tried to smile, but it felt weak in front of his engine. Rebecca just stared at her driver in confusion.

“Who bought me?” she asked. “S. J. Edwards’,” replied her driver. Rebecca frowned; had she been a puppy, she’d have tilted her head to the side in confusion. Her driver felt a bit like he was telling a golden retriever he was ‘selling it to a farm in Scotland’.

“Isn’t that the toy company?” quizzed Rebecca. “I didn’t know they needed an engine.” “Neither did I, Rebecca,” replied her driver. “But that’s who bought you.” Rebecca seemed… apprehensive about the revelation that she was being sold on, but still went about her regular duties with her usual cheerful mood.

“Maybe I’m going to pull special trains of toys for children,” she thought to herself out loud. Her driver winced in her cab, but said nothing. He would just have to let her dream for a little while longer.

The days passed rapidly, far too rapidly. The sun kept up its shining for once, giving Rebecca plenty of time out in its golden rays. To her driver, it was almost as if the heavens above were giving Rebecca her swansong. She was certainly getting the most out of the good weather, spending all her time out soaking up the sunshine in between trains. In the sheds, the other engines spoke in hushed tones about the odd West Country Class who just seemed oblivious to everything, though her driver did everything he could to keep Rebecca from hearing the whispers.

It was not enough. It was never enough.

Rebecca was sent to Eastleigh Works for the repairs. She was to get a full overhaul to prepare her for her new life – one of the last major overhauls of a steam engine the works would ever undertake, and also Rebecca’s first true taste of the truth. Without her driver or her friends around to protect her, Rebecca was faced with the ugly reality of British Rail. As she waited for her turn in the works, she was placed in the Eastleigh engine sheds, right near where rows of steam engines stood silent, men weaving between them with cutting torches. These men held none of the same love for steam engines that her driver did. Instead, they silently did their work, slicing deep cuts into slowly rusting engines to pull them apart and sell off their metal for reuse. A line of stonily silent trucks stood between the engines living at Eastleigh sheds and those dying there, a stark dividing line which was being steadily loaded up with the cut-up remains of the engines.

The weather changed too, the sun hiding away behind thick grey clouds that unleashed great heaps of rain all over the countryside. Rebecca was left cold and alone, not even able to talk to the other engines due to how shocked she was.

“Poor thing,” sighed a Lord Nelson Class from the other side of the yard. “She really had no clue apparently. Must’ve been nice, living without the knowledge.” Rebecca didn’t agree. She wished she had known, she wished she’d been able to grab all of her friends and cling tightly to them. They were gone now, weren’t they? Brought to places like this and left on cold, damp sidings until they were ripped into by the scrappers. They’d all put on such positive attitudes around Rebecca that she’d never suspected, never heard the undercurrent of fear that permeated every illness and rust patch that made itself known.

Her friends were dead.

Rebecca was a very different engine, going into the works. Even as she was buffed and shined and gifted brand new parts machined to perfection to ensure she was the absolute peak of health, all she could think about was how there were hundreds of engines right outside being treated to agony and death while she was pampered. Rebecca didn’t even notice the golden yellow livery being deftly applied until it was finished, bright orange and red lining and embellishments being carefully added to compliment the new colourful livery. Her number was changed, as was the lettering on her tender.

Gone was the old British Railways logo; in its place stood a large stuffed bear holding a banner with ‘S. J. Edwards’ written on it in a fancy logo. The teddy bear looked very fancy, not that Rebecca could see it. All she could see was the men scurrying about in front of her, preparing her to be moved.

She had taken up enough space in their workshop for too long already, and now they wanted her gone so they could begin work on the next EMU overhaul. Rebecca was dragged out by a Class 07 and gently pushed backwards up a rickety ramp and onto the back of a Scammel Contractor lorry. Rebecca felt very odd as she watched her tender get added to a second trailer moments later, seeing just how different it looked for the first time.

“Where am I going now?” she asked the foreman. “S. J. Edwards’ main plant,” replied the foreman briskly. “You’ll be their shining mascot… or something like that.” He turned away to signal that Rebecca was chained down and ready to move, even as Rebecca began to realise just what the foreman had said.

She was to be a mascot. Mascots didn’t move, they didn’t haul around presents. They sat still and smiled even as the years wore down on them. She’d seen it from an old tank that had been the mascot of a town until he was so rusted and tired that he had to be taken away and placed in a specialist museum to be restored.

Or maybe that had been a lie, and he’d also been scrapped.

Rebecca travelled far on the roads, through towns she’d once served that now had only diesels, if any railway at all. How had she been so blind to everything changing? How had she managed to miss each event as it happened?

The truck turned again; Rebecca felt something shift under her. The roads were so uncomfortable, and yet it was the only way to the factory now. There was no railway out to the S. J. Edwards main facility anymore, because British Railways didn’t think it important.

There were no more steam engines safe from scrap because British Railways didn’t think they were important.

The truck slowed to a stop, and a crane rumbled up. Rebecca looked over – the building was certainly fancy, and right inside the front entrance there stood a plinth. It was empty but for a pair of rails set into the concrete.

That… that was her new home, wasn’t it?

Rebecca was carefully pushed inside, moved on temporary rails up to the plinth before her brakes were locked on, chocks were forced under her wheels and the temporary rails were ripped up. Her glorious golden paintwork was starkly contrasted by the tears falling from her eyes.

“Stop crying and smile, idiot!” snarled a man in a pinstriped suit. “You’re meant to be a mascot, not a sob story. What child wants to see a blubbering mess when they come visit?” The man rapped his cane against Rebecca’s buffers. It didn’t hurt, but it was enough to silence the stunned engine.

Rebecca looked up – above her stood a large dome from which great white lights hung to illuminate everything far too brightly. It was nothing like the golden rays of sun Rebecca so loved to feel on her boiler. These lights weren’t warm, they were cold and unforgiving.

And at night, they were abruptly shut off, plunging Rebecca into the dark with only her own thoughts and her tears.

And even today, one has to wonder if Rebecca will ever feel the sun again? 

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