A dictation of the National Rail Museum curator orientation of the class of 2015
The speaker is Doctor Ashton Collins, lead mechologist for the N.R.M.
[Recording start]
"The first of May 1925, Solario came to me today asking for a once-over. I found this odd because I had just finished maintenance on him not a week ago, but I'm not foolish enough to ignore my engines when they say something is wrong. He asked to speak with me in private. I eyed him warily but had my workshop cleared regardless. He said he was visited by a small purple tank engine the night before. From how he described this engine, it didn't match any I knew about, but I let him continue. He said that she had chosen him to be her guardian, that his kind heart and brave soul would be of great use, and then he paused, a look of contemplation on his face. I pressed for more, and he said she disappeared in a flash of golden light.
My expression must have been one of unamusement because Solario asked for a chance to prove what he saw was real. I was unsure of what he meant but allowed him to, and before I could object, a golden dust enshrouded him. I could see him start to fade. I must admit it gave me a shock. I fell from my stool, but something most peculiar happened. When the dust settled, before me where Solario was, a man stood, dressed in a green jacket with 'LNER' embroidered across the left breast pocket, while the right had '4473' across it, and his trousers matched the same green with black and white lining down the sides.
His hair was a blinding blonde, and he had eyes as green as his coat. I called out to him, worried about what had happened to my engine, but he proved his identity by reciting the conversation we had when he first awoke two years ago, and we talked at lengths about how he came to be like this. All I can say for now is this is most interesting."
An excerpt from Sir Nigel Gresley's journal taken from the LNER Archives
"I know what you all are thinking: Gresley must have had something stronger than tobacco in his pipe."
[Dispersed laughter is heard in the crowd]
"But you'll learn that stranger things happen here than just the errant railfan trying to get themselves locked in overnight, and it may shock you to find out that Gresley wasn't off his rocker when he wrote that entry in 1925. You ten have been selected because you have shown the most aptitude and drive to be curators to help look after these places of history. But a curator's job isn't just planning maintenance and events; sometimes this job can be more than what we signed up for.
Gold Dust is the lifeblood and souls of sentiences everywhere. Now before you write me off, allow me to demonstrate."
[Dr. Collins produces a small wooden box from the desk he's standing at and takes out a weathered conductor whistle]
"This is a conductor whistle. It was entrusted to the NRM after its owner passed. Now, while gold dust can be volatile if misused, it can be a useful tool for those who wield it."
[Dr. Collins wipes the mouthpiece with his sleeve before blowing into it. The whistle bathes him in a cloud of golden dust, and he disappears, causing the group to panic before he reappears in the back of the room]
"Pretty neat, right?"
[Dr. Collins's sudden reappearance startles the class]
"Sorry for the scare, everyone, but I'm guessing you're going to take what I say a little more seriously. Sure, every machine you have needs its fuel to run, but this is what keeps them alive; it's their soul. But while I am the Lead Mechologist, I think it more prudent for you to hear from someone who doesn't just use gold dust for cheap tricks. So please welcome Mrs. Morgan Merlin, or as you would know her, LNER 4468 Mallard."
[A tall, tanned woman in a dark blue suit and matching skirt with bright red heels walks into the room with a look of unamusement on her face]
"How many times do I have to tell you not to use gold dust for cheap tricks?"
"Ducky, I was just using it so they'd take me seriously."
"Get out and stop calling me Ducky."
[Dr. Collins leaves the room, shutting the door behind him. Mallard clears her throat before continuing]
"Now, a few things before we continue. 1. Yes, I'm the real Mallard; the one downstairs is a replica. 2. Yes, I can still use my engine form; I just haven't in a while. 3. Do NOT call me Ducky. Understood?"
[The group either nods or responds in the affirmative]
"Now, it is part of your job as curators to help us guardians complete our duties. As such, most of the UK's guardians and all remaining former guardians that survived scrap are stationed here. Myself, Evening Star, Lode Star, and Sterling Number One are all guardians, and I have been given their permission to talk about their status with you.
This brings us to another point. Knowledge about guardians is hush-hush. You tell no one other than those above you or your fellow curators this information. If fallen into the wrong hands, it could spell disaster for sentient machines everywhere.
Now..."
[Morgan writes on the chalkboard]
"Application of gold dust. Gold Dust has many uses, one being teleportation like you saw Dr. Collins demonstrate. However, it is not just for travel; it can be used for offense and defense as well."
[Golden dust envelopes Morgan's hand and condenses into a golden blade. She holds it up for the entire class to see]
"There are many dangers guardians face, many of them being supernatural in nature. Gold dust not only allows us to battle these threats if necessary, but it also defends us from them as well."
[Her "blade" disperses into a cloud of dust again, reshaping into a shield]
"As you may have already guessed, gold dust allows guardians to shed their mechanical forms and become human with an appearance based on both the physical attributes of whatever machine they are and their perception of themselves."
[Morgan disperses her shield, the dust seeps into her skin, then she gestures to herself]
"As you can see, my engine is in perfect condition, and I'm very confident in myself and my abilities. That's not to say that heavier-set guardians aren't confident with their forms; much like you humans, our forms still have a bit of an unknown factor when we transform into them for the first time. Things like skin tone, hair color, and eye color vary.
Some of you may have noticed I mentioned that guardians face off with the supernatural. One of our most common foes are wraiths. They are spirits of machines that have died and chosen not to travel on to the Grand Terminus, and instead choose to roam and seek out humans. I can assure you, you do not want to find yourself cornered by a wraith. There are not very many things in this world that will bring you a more painful demise.
The other type of enemy we face is called the Blighted. They range vastly from machine to machine, but they are the poor souls that have been unfortunate to have been infected with Crimson Rot. Their minds are subsumed by it; they become a husk of their former selves, attacking any machine to siphon their victim's gold dust, feeding the parasitic infection.
Make sure to check your machine carefully for unusual rust or rotting of wood or other such materials, especially if they work in or around a scrapyard. Crimson Rust likes to fester in scrapyards to drain what little gold dust dying machines have left."
[Morgan's watch beeps twice, causing her to sigh]
"We will explain the rest of a guardian's duties in the next class, so do be there. Class dismissed."
Stephen Hatt hadn’t been kidding when he said that with the addition of Osprey, the NWR now had a locomotive surplus. Thomas had been returned to service, meaning that Tornado could now work on the main line. Of course, while there may have been a shortage on the branch, the main line had no such issues, and both engines found themselves reduced to less important work like “thunderbird” duties and yard shunting.
Neither engine minded this arrangement - work was work, after all, and it was better than doing nothing - but there was some pushback from their drivers, as both engines were not only borrowed, but also very valuable, meaning that only senior main line crews were allowed to operate them.
Siobhan, who was now the senior locomotive driver for the NWR, but had worked her way up from the bottom of the railway’s hierarchy since the 1980’s, had no objection to this, and soon made fast friends with both engines. However, the rest of the Tidmouth-based crews allocated to the two had different opinions...
“Do you really want to cause a fuss over this?” Roy, the railway’s scheduler, was a no-nonsense Mancunian who had come to Sodor after finding Network Rail too disorganized. “Because this will reflect badly on you.”
“All I want is something better than yard work!” Whined Craig, Osprey’s chosen driver for the day. He’d worked for the NWR for many years, and had forgotten how lucky he was to be able to drive steam engines every day and get paid for it. “I’ve got an A4! Mallard and all that! And I get yard work? C’mon man, gimme something here!”
“Osprey.” Roy said over his spectacles. “Not Mallard.” He made a few very deliberate clicks on his computer. “But if you insist on barging into my office and making a fuss like a child, I suppose you can take 6B11 - it’ll make James’ day if nothing else.”
Craig smiled like a cat that caught the canary, and once the office printer had spat out the updated train orders, he left in a very self-satisfied manner.
Roy rolled his eyes and went back to his work, but within a few minutes his desk phone rang.
“Hello? Speaking. I see. Will this interfere with - oh his driver is ill? Well I hope it’s nothing serious.” He made a few clicks, un-assigning the engine from their next train. “Ah, well, there’s nothing that can be done about that. Yes, I’m already assigning a replac- oh, Osprey was asked for specifically? Well, I do apologize, but she has already left for her next assignment, however I do see that 98863 is available for that run. Yes. Splendid. Consider it done. Good-bye.”
He hung up the phone, and allowed a rare smile to cross his face. He could see into the yard from his office window. Considering that his fireman was still polishing the A4, Craig was most likely still harassing the staff canteen for a cup of coffee. Tornado could be seen by the coaling stage, and already the assistant stationmaster could be seen bounding across the tracks, ready to bring them news of their new assignment.
What a shame, Roy thought to himself as he updated the roster. From what I understand, Tornado is fairly adept with wagons.
NORTH WESTERN RAILWAY TOPS ACCESS PORTAL V25.1.2.6
Osprey rolled her eyes as she rolled into the docks. Her driver was seemingly more eager for this run than she was, but it would be nice to stretch her wheels. The sidings at the docks were not full - it was low tide, and many of the bigger container ships and bulk freighters were waiting in open water.
A little red six-coupled diesel shunter was organizing a line of flatbeds under a crane, and stopped what he was doing as she was driven in. “Well knock me over with a feather!” He exclaimed in a strong Hampshire accent. “Whomever did you piss off to have someone like yerself come down here?”
“Ah, just button it!” Craig leaned his head out of the cab. “We’ve got the 6B11, on the quick!”
“I see,” Said the shunter sympathetically. “Hello, Craig! I’ll have your punishment brought around in just a tic.”
Arthur the fireman roared with laughter at this, and Craig turned a bright red. “You see here you little urchin…!”
But the diesel had already vanished behind a line of containers, leaving Craig fuming, Arthur using his shovel to hold himself up, and Osprey more and more bemused.
“You certainly know how to make friends and influence engines…” She remarked quietly.
She hadn’t meant for it to be loud enough to be heard, but evidently Arthur had good ears, and the fireman’s laughter redoubled while Craig tried and failed to “win” the argument.
The two were at the point of menacing each other with coal shovels when the little diesel struggled back into view, a line of rather large aggregate hoppers towering over his small frame. “Y’know, if I was you,” He said to Osprey directly. “I’d find a way to pay Craig out for this - they’re vicious today!”
“Oh, little Salty…” The lead hopper practically oozed cruel satisfaction. “You say such polite things about us! Tell me how you really feel!”
“Go bump yerself Hector…” The diesel growled at the hoppers as he was uncoupled, and scuttled away without another word to anyone. Osprey felt sorry for the next set of trucks that annoyed him.
Speaking of annoying trucks, the lead hopper looked over at her in a most unpleasant fashion. “Now, look at what we have ‘ere. What sort of cheese wedge are you?”
“I’m-”
“Looks like Cheddar to me! Is that what ye are? A nice hunk of cheddar?”
“My name is-”
“Oh! How’s about that Swiss cheese? Gruyere?”
“I am-”
At this point the other trucks had begun naming cheeses and laughing. Somewhere between “edam”, “camembert”, and “can we get a real engine please?” she lost patience with them.
“ALL RIGHT!” She bellowed, shooting steam every which way. “My name is Osprey! And I am going to take you jokers all the way to Barrow whether you like it or not!”
This did not have the intended effect. “Oooh! She’s a hot one! Best make sure she don’t melt!”
“I’d say she already has - lookit her, she’s all droopy!” This from another truck.
“Yer right. Must be Raclette then.”
Osprey said nothing as she was turned around on the yard’s wye. She was fuming, and had she said anything at that moment, she’d have sounded much more like Gordon or Mallard than she’d have liked to!
Craig meanwhile thought it was all a great lark, and relished in his apparent “victory” over both engine and fireman. This lasted until he tried to move the reverser into the reverse position, and found it stuck fast. Grunting, he yanked on it a bit harder, with the same result. Once, Twice, Three more times he yanked on it, but still Osprey refused to move the lever.
“C’mon…” he grunted. “Stupid thing… stupid engine… ”
Arthur, realizing the lunacy in calling an engine stupid whilst standing on their footplate, took a measured step back. Craig continued to pull, putting more and more of his strength into it until…
CLANG! WOOSH! “OW!” Osprey “let go” of the reverser, and put as much steam as she could behind the valve. It shot into the full reverse position, at which point Craig, who had been trying to pull the lever towards himself, now was hit in the forehead by it as it sprang back. It was such a hit that he saw stars as Osprey began to reverse out of the wye.
Arthur almost fell out of the cab, he was laughing so hard, and Osprey allowed herself a vicious grin as she backed down onto the still-mocking hoppers.
Make cheese puns all you like, I’ve been doing this since before you were a glint in your designer’s eye. She growled to herself. I survived the Blitz and Modernization, some garbage bins on wheels aren’t going to get the best of one of Gresley’s finest…
--
They made it as far as Gordon’s Hill. The journey there was a slow and arduous one, dogged by slow orders, red signals, and sticking brakes up and down the train. They'd been shunted aside for faster trains twice before passing Knapford. Osprey tried to bump the trucks into submission, but they were more than willing to bump her back, and that fight had ended when Arthur was almost thrown from the footplate by all the banging.
Seeing as they hadn’t managed to break 30 miles per hour the entire time, Craig stopped the train at Wellsworth and asked the signalman for a banker pre-emptively. In turn, the signalman informed him that if they dawdled, they'd likely miss their signal path to the mainland. This worsened everyone's mood significantly, and BoCo (who had banking duty today) was not looking forward to the long slog up the hill.
BoCo was right. Even with the diesel pushing from behind with all his might, the train was still too slow, and Osprey was eventually dragged to a seething, steaming halt halfway up the hill.
Osprey growled, a sound that was more metallic than organic, and started off again. BoCo wasn't at all ready for this, however, and when the slack pulled out he was left exactly where he was while the train surged ahead a few dozen feet, before grinding to a halt again.
The trucks howled with laughter at this, while Arthur watched Osprey's boiler pressure shoot up by a worrying amount. "Down girl!" He cried. "This lot isn't worth it!"
Hissing unprintable epithets under her breath, Osprey whistled to BoCo, and when he responded in kind, they set off again.
This time it seemed like they had a chance, so quite naturally Hector and his friends slipped their brakes on, dragging the train to yet another standstill with a screech that came from both their brake shoes and their engine.
"Maybe we need to go down and cut the train-" Craig suggested.
"No!" Barked Osprey, sending a gout of smoke and steam into the air. "Let's go again!"
"We can't-"
"We will!"
"Arthur..." Craig said plaintively. "Tell her."
"Hello, I don't think we've met before." Arthur looked at him as though he were an idiot. "I fire Gresleys on a regular basis. In what world is she going to agree to that?"
Unaware of the discussion going on at the front, BoCo chose this moment to speak up. "Osprey? What's our plan?"
"Melt! That's what the little cheese wedge is gonna do!" Hector crowed.
Osprey bumped the train viciously, but just as quickly was bumped back by the hoppers. This jolt was harder than the others had been, and actually shoved the A4 forward a few inches, her wheels screeching along the rails.
"Okay." She said quietly, more to herself than anything. "No more Miss Nice Engine. BOCO! HIT ME!"
"What?!"
"YOU HEARD ME! BASH THE TRAIN! HARD AS YOU CAN!" A determined look came across her face as her boiler pressure skyrocketed to the upper limit of what was safe. "I fought the Nazis. No truck gets the better of me…"
The trucks hadn't limited their horrid comments to Osprey, and BoCo didn't need to be told twice. He rolled back a chain or so, before surging forward, slamming into the hoppers with a violent CLANG that echoed up and down the hill.
At the head of the train, Osprey waited until the train was slammed against her tender before charging forward, almost ripping Craig's arm from its socket as the regulator slammed into "full steam" without warning.
With BoCo pushing hard from behind, there was a considerable mount of slack in the train's couplings, so when Osprey took off, the chain between her and Hector was able to stretch by a large amount, meaning that for a moment, she was accelerating without the train to slow her down.
Hector had begun to lose his confident look when BoCo had smashed into the train, and let out a yowl of both panic and pain when the slack between himself and Osprey finally let out, and he was violently jerked into motion. It felt like his coupling was going to be pulled out of his bufferbeam, a feeling that was exaggerated moments later by the slack behind him letting out, causing him to jerk the wagon behind him into motion, an experience that continued as each wagon behind him was yanked into motion, one at a time. "Bloody 'ell! Hold back!" He shouted to his fellows, trying to slip the brakes on and stop the train.
Osprey had other ideas. As soon as she felt the brakes start to come on, she threw as much power as she could at the steam powered air brake pump. Behind her, the trucks yelped as their brake shoes were forcibly pulled off of their wheels and into the "released" position.
With the trucks taken care of, Osprey charged forwards in a cloud of steam and sand. The crest of the hill was just coming into sight, and she threw every ounce of steam she had into her pistons. At the back of the train, BoCo was astonished to find that the load on his buffers was getting lighter, as Osprey began to pull the train up the hill by herself.
"Almost… there!" She panted as she crested the summit of the hill. Now that she had some momentum, the train became easy, and the aggregates hoppers began to pull away from BoCo with increasing speed. When the diesel rolled to a stop just past the summit, he found the train already well on its way down the hill, a thick black thundercloud of smoke trailing behind as a testament to Osprey’s effort.
Arthur had been shoveling like mad for the last ten minutes or so, and took a moment to wipe his brow and catch his breath as the train clattered down the other side of the hill. "Whoo, that was some serious effort!" He said, checking his watch. "And still on time - we might make Barrow on time!"
“What?” Craig stared at his own watch. “We’re at least twenty minutes behind! They’d surely put us in the loop.”
“I recall being told that we would have “generous timings” the whole way.”
At this moment, the AWS horn sounded, not the angry tone of an upcoming red signal, but instead the ding of an upcoming yellow aspect. “See?” Both men said, as Craig pushed the button to dismiss the warning.
“6B11, Control.” Squawked the radio.
“6B11.”
“6B11 disregard the approach and slow signal ahead of you. We’ve just lined you for a green all the way to Barrow on the down slow line. You'll take the crossover at Maron.”
“Roger that.” Craig just scowled as Arthur looked triumphant. Ahead of them, Osprey whistled victoriously as the distant signal raised its semaphore arm from “slow” to “clear.”
“See that Hector?” She called back down the train as Craig opened the regulator a bit more. “No stopping now!”
Hector hadn’t gone this fast in ages, and wailed piteously to himself.
While astute viewers of the Television Show (and it has earned those capital letters, for the engines never refer to it in any other way) might know that Percy carries all the Island’s mail by himself, the reality of the situation is much more complicated.
The Royal Mail formally discontinued its use of mail trains nationwide in 2003, including Sodor’s mail trains. However, they did so without fully considering the geography of the island and its neighbors. You see, while Sodor has a very large rail network that connects every city, town, and village within it, (except Harwick and Ballaswein, but that is another story altogether…) its road network is decidedly sub-par. The A590, the island’s main road, is narrow and winding, with few overtake points to allow slower traffic to give way. It runs through town centers instead of going round them, meaning that any local traffic jam can quickly spread to the next town over.
The Royal Mail’s new plan for Sodor was to take all the mail to airports in Dryaw or Barrow-in-Furness by lorry, at which point it would be flown to Carlisle to be sorted, and then flown back, where it would be delivered to local post offices for final delivery.
In a vacuum, this system actually works rather well, as outgoing mail can be quickly and efficiently routed to destinations outside of Sodor, and since an airplane has already been scheduled, returning inter-island mail to the island is not an issue. Unfortunately for the Royal Mail, Sodor is not a vacuum, and problems quickly arose as the mail lorries began experiencing significant delays from almost the very beginning. Soon, the Island’s mail was being delivered late every day, much to the irritation of its residents!
This also deeply complicated the issue of mail coming from Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man. While mail from these places was sent from Douglas to mainland Britain by air, there had been a longstanding agreement between the governments of Sodor and Man that any ferry service between them would have to carry the mail - a holdover from the days before air travel, but a welcome one at the time, as it meant that mail from Man continued to arrive on schedule!
While no agreement had been worked out with the Royal Mail in regards to Northern Irish mail, the overall curtailment of mail services on Sodor was of a particular annoyance to the Royal Mail’s Northern Irish division, as they had just spent a large number of pounds expanding a sorting office near the docks of the Belfast-Tidmouth ferry!
These agreements/expenditures, and the resultant crown inquiry into whether or not they were still legally binding, were the primary impetus behind the re-institution of Sodor’s mail trains. Between 2005 and 2007, the NWR’s mail services ran as part of the Tidmouth-Barrow express trains. Its primary duties were the delivery of pre-sorted Irish and Manx mail to post offices along the NWR main line, however it also operates a limited en-route sorting service for letter post bound for stations immediately along the line. Since the mail contract did not include anything beyond Barrow-in-Furness, (The Royal Mail was very specific in its definition: “Sodor-Bound” mail went no further than Barrow) this necessitated detachable mail carriages. As the London-bound Wild Nor’wester had been run by Intercity 125 equipment since late 1999 - which did not feature easily detachable carriages, and the mail ferry sailings from Ireland and Man arrived after the train's 7:30 AM departure time, the cars were attached to the 11:30 Midday Express, which travelled from Tidmouth to Barrow with only a single intermediate stop at Crovan’s Gate.
Services ran in this manner until the summer of 2007, when the service was spun out into its own train - the Fast Mail - after an increase in bulk mail and parcel post traffic forced an unacceptable number of unnecessary stops in the timetabled non-stop journey. This increase in traffic came from two diametrically opposed services: print media and e-commerce.
E-commerce giants such as Amazon.com and eBay had begun significant expansions into the country over the past decade, with Sodor seeing the benefits of this after an Amazon fulfilment center opened in Rugeley, Staffordshire, allowing Sudrians to receive 2-day shipping on most items sold by the online retail giant. Meanwhile, the increased reach of online news sources and other pre-existing financial difficulties had caused many of Sodor’s newspapers to fold or merge due to falling readership in the early 2000s. This state of newspaper consolidation eventually left three survivors - the Tidmouth Advertiser, the Wellsworth Parliamentarian, and the Sodor Edition of Barrow-in-Furness’ North-West Evening Mail. While the Parliamentarian was content to reform itself as a weekly broadsheet, the two daily papers began fighting for a share of the Sodor news market. While their initial price war has long since settled into an uneasy but stable détente, both papers gained significant footholds into smaller Sudrian towns. As almost all Sudrian towns are located on or near the NWR’s main line, this traffic was sent down the railway, and generated enough traffic on the NWR to justify the reactivation of several old BR newspaper transport vans that had been left on the Island following BR’s discontinuation of dedicated newspaper transport services in the early 1990’s. As both the Advertiser and the Evening Mail were evening papers, the distribution occurred in the late morning, requiring the newspaper vans - which were Mk.1 General Use Vans or converted coaching stock just like the Royal Mail’s Traveling Post Office carriages - to run on mid-day passenger trains in order to meet delivery times.
Due to the scheduled nature of the stops required by the newspaper unloadings, which did not allow them to be placed on the Midday Express, and the demands of the newspaper companies to not have their goods placed on slow stopping trains, the newspaper vans were placed on the tail of the Limited, a mid-day semi-fast train that ran slightly ahead of the Express. This decision was not a successful one, and caused significant confusion and delay for the NWR, as the increased station dwell times caused by the newspaper deliveries, combined with the frequent unscheduled stops on the Express caused by Parcel Post deliveries (which could not be delivered or loaded while the train was still in motion), often led to both trains having simultaneous unscheduled stops at the same station - a situation that often led to “cataclysmic” delays further down the line.
After a mere fifteen months, the NWR was forced to reallocate the mail and newspaper cars into their own separate train - the Fast Mail. This train, which is timetabled as a non-stop return journey from Tidmouth to Barrow and back, operates under the principle of “goods request stops”, in which any specific station stop must be “requested” in advance by the stationmaster or by the freight customers - usually the Royal Mail and the distribution arms of the Advertiser and Evening Mail.
As a result of all this-
“Oi! Tornado! Wakey Wakey, lazy boiler!”
------
Tidmouth Station
Tornado snorted as she opened her eyes. “I wasn’t sleeping!” She protested.
“Yer eyes were shut.” Siobhan gave her a knowing look. “It isn’t like I haven’t been driving LNER Pacifics for years!”
“I was listening to a podcast!” Tornado said defensively. “It was just getting to the good part!”
Siobhan didn’t quite know what to say to that, and eventually walked back to the cab muttering about “damned teenagers and their trends.”
“Iff’n ye think that’s bad,” Sidney said as she entered the cab. “Wait until she gets talking about somethin’ she’s interested in. You’ll not be able to pry yourself free with a crowbar.”
“She’s not a normal engine, is she?” Siobhan hadn’t driven the new A1 before today, and the reports coming in from everyone else on the railway had implied that she was strange even by Sodor’s admittedly high standards.
“D’ya think I’d be here if she was?” Sidney was technically a volunteer from the A1 Trust, but had stayed on Sodor because, in his words: ‘Ya'd never survive wit’out someone who knows her!” The NWR had recognized his talent in engine-wrangling, and had allowed him to stay on Tornado’s footplate.
Siobhan merely rolled her eyes and looked out of the cab and down the train. As usual, the bags and bales of newspapers were slowing down the loading process significantly, and it looked like the Fast Mail would be late yet again.
-
Some minutes later
The newspaper van had finally been shut, and the stationmaster came up to the cab with the finalized train orders. “You’ve a light load today.” He said as he passed the papers up. “Wellsworth, Cronk, and then straight on to Barrow. Hopefully those layabouts with the paper won’t muck anything up today!”
“Here’s hoping.” Siobhan said as she took the papers. The newspaper delivery drivers were terrible at being timely, and often held up the train by many minutes due to their incompetence.
After a few more minutes of waiting, the Guard blew his whistle, the signal dropped, and the train set off towards Wellsworth. The train was short today - only four carriages, and almost immediately she had to rein Tornado in to prevent her from exceeding the station speed limit.
“Easy!” She called. “S’not a race!”
“Sorry!” Came the apologetic reply. “It’s quite light - I didn’t mean to.”
“Little scatterbrained, isn’t she?” She remarked to Sidney. “Reminds me o’ my daughter.”
“No doubt about that.” The older man (and she was getting to a point in her life where that meant something) said sagely. “She’s very good at pulling trains, but you’ve got to mind her at all times - she’ll leave ye behind if you aren’t watching.”
“Good to know.” Siobhan remarked idly, paying more attention to the line of hopper wagons in the goods loop just outside the station. A positively thunderous cloud of smoke was trailing from the engine in front, and she wanted to see which poor engine had got saddled with those brutes today.
“I don’ think you understand my meaning…” Sid tried to clarify himself, but his words were lost under the angry woosh of steam and flurry of curses coming from the A4 heading the coal train. “... I’ll admit I’ve never seen that before.”
“If those trucks cause something to her, I swear ta fuck I will nail your hide ta my office door, Craig!” Siobhan shouted out the window at the retreating train.
In the hubbub of all of this, no more was said of Tornado’s absentmindedness…
---
At Wellsworth, the post and newspapers were unloaded in short order, but the train was held for a few minutes to allow BoCo out of the yard.
“Banking duties, I’m sure you understand.” He said apologetically as he rolled to a stop next to Tornado.
“Oh of course!” She said brightly. “I just hope that - oh, there she comes!”
“She” referred to Osprey, who rolled into Wellsworth with such a clatter and commotion that all other communication was impossible. She was practically vibrating with anger as her driver stormed out of the cab and began to oil her joints.
“Does Gordon allow you to use his throttle in such a maladroit fashion?” She hissed.
“No!”
“Then why do you insist on doing so to me?!”
“Now you see here! I am trying-”
“And failing!”
“Why you stuck up piec-”
“Say it. I dare you.”
Everyone else in the station wished they were somewhere else at that moment, except Siobhan, who was about to “teach” Craig the proper way to speak to engines when the signal dropped and the guard radioed that they were clear. Tornado, who didn’t want to be anywhere near whatever was going on between Osprey and her driver, whistled urgently and began to pull out of the station on her own!
Sidney rolled his eyes and reached over to reduce steam before Siobhan noticed. When she finally returned her attention to the train, she hadn’t noticed Tornado’s slight movement and advanced the throttle normally. Tornado responded with a will, and charged out of Wellsworth and up Gordon’s Hill as fast as she could!
--
The train pulled into Cronk station, and already Siobhan could tell it was going to be a long stop. The station’s carpark was situated next to the tracks, and the lorries used by the newspaper companies usually queued up in the spaces reserved for buses. Seeing no lorries usually meant that they were going to turn up whenever they felt like it. This was a problem, as Cronk Station’s goods office had been turned into the station café many years ago. This meant that there was nowhere to put the unloaded newspapers, and as a result, the train would be forced to wait for the lorries to show up. Of course, the train was allowed to leave if the lorry drivers never showed up, but it was NWR policy to wait at least a quarter of an hour before doing so.
Quite naturally, this meant that the drivers were probably going to show up 14 minutes from now, and take their time unloading.
“Might as well get comfortable.” She said to Sidney.
“Huh?”
“No lorries for the papers. It’s gonna be a while.”
“I see…” He said, eyeing the station café, which was advertising ‘2-for-1 Steak Pies’. “In that case, I’ll be back.”
He clambered down from the cab, and made a beeline for the café, much to Siobhan’s bemusement.
Normally she filled spare time with the unending supply of paperwork that was required to run a train in the 21st century, but with the journey not even half over yet, there was only so much she could do, and ten minutes later Siobhan was pacing up and down the platform, acutely aware of how late the train was.
“Shall we ever be on our way?” One of the mail carriages groused. “I was unloaded promptly, so I just cannot understand the delay… Can you understand it, Constance?”
“Why don’t you shut your mouth, Elodie?” Snapped the newspaper van. “You didn’t see me complaining when your door jammed last week, did you?”
“Well, I never!”
“But you do!”
The mail clerks were busy stowing the last of the outbound mail, and exchanged tired looks with each other and the other mail carriages. Siobhan didn’t even try to intervene this time - you’d have an easier time convincing James to turn blue.
“I do hope I’m not interrupting a lover’s spat.” A familiar voice said from behind her, and Siobhan turned on her heel to find her husband Declan standing on the platform, a clipboard in hand.
“What are you doing here?” She said, her mood immediately improving.
Declan worked for a large business consultancy firm, and explained that his company had been hired by the Tidmouth Advertiser to find the source of the numerous complaints about their newspaper’s delivery and distribution. “Although I don’t think I have to look very hard to find one source.” He said as the coaches continued to bicker behind him.
“Oh, jaysus,” Siobhan buried her head in his shoulder. “It’s like this every time! Ah dinnae think we’ve been on time once this month!”
“Right,” He said while pulling a pen out of his suit jacket. “I’ll make a note of that.”
He proceeded to balance his clipboard on his wife’s head as he did so, which drew an exasperated laugh and playful swat on the arm before the moment was broken by the eventual arrival of the newspaper lorries.
The newspaper delivery team consisted of the four men from the lorries, plus an attendant employed by the railway who rode inside Constance and threw smaller bundles of papers out at stations where the train didn’t stop. They seemed to know that they were under observation, and the load of newspapers was hauled out of Constance and into the lorries in record time. It took only ten minutes for the newspaper van to be significantly emptier, and Siobhan practically snatched the updated manifest sheet out of the lorry driver’s hand when he finished signing it.
What happened next occurred very quickly:
Siobhan, Sven the guard, and Declan were all standing at the end of the train - the railway employees were making sure that all doors were secured on the train, while Declan was saying his goodbyes to his wife before leaving to follow the delivery lorries on their route.
-
Sidney was still in the station café, chatting to an old friend who he’d run into unexpectedly.
-
Tornado had heard “it’s gonna be a while” and had promptly zoned out, staring blankly into space while waiting for the departure. She’d only come back to reality when several of the semaphore signals at the end of the platform had clonked into the “proceed” position several minutes ago. One of them was for her, but she wasn’t too worried, as the guard hadn’t yet blown his whistle. The other one was very interesting, as it was for an “up-bound” train traveling east towards Barrow, but on the westbound “down” slow line, - she’d heard that Sodor often ran trains “wrong main”, but she’d hadn't yet seen it herself.
That “wrong running” train turned out to be Osprey, who had evidently regained control over the train somewhere between Wellsworth and Cronk, as she was in fine spirits as she flew through the station, the coal trucks screaming at her to slow down all the while. An A4 going at full tilt was a sight to behold all by itself, but the sheer calamity of Osprey’s train drew every eye to her, and everything else in the station momentarily ground to a halt until the train had disappeared into the distance.
“Oh!” Exclaimed Sven, who was now looking towards the end of the platform. “We’ve got the signal.”
He scanned the platform and found no sign of Sidney. He hadn’t seen the old man leave the café, so he was probably still in there. Ordinarily, he communicated with the train crew through the radio, but half the train crew was standing next to him, and his radio was in the guard’s compartment of the rearmost mail carriage.
Oh well, The stout Swede thought to himself. Guess I’ll have to do it the old fashioned way…
Taking a few steps back from the train, he blew his whistle as loud as he could, and waved his green flag.
Siobhan and Declan had both covered their ears in order to not be deafened by Sven, and kissed one last time before going their separate ways. “You gonna be home before seven?” She asked.
“Should be. I thought the match was on at 7:30?”
“We gotta eat first! I ain’t cooking during a - what the fuck?!”
Sidney hadn’t emerged from the café yet, and Siobhan was standing on the platform. There was nobody in Tornado’s cab. And yet, within a few seconds of the Sven blowing his whistle, Tornado sounded hers and began to move away from the platform!
-
At the front of the train, Tornado hadn’t been expecting the guard’s whistle, and started quickly, very aware of the amount of time she’d have to make up. The train rapidly pulled out of the station, and within a minute was out of sight, on its way towards Kildane.
-
On the platform, Sid threw open the door to the café and watched as the train vanished into the distance. “Damn it all!” he groaned to no-one in particular. He’d told them to mind Tornado, but clearly they hadn’t experienced an engine of such… independent spirit before.
“Sidney!” Came a voice from further down the platform. It was Sven, who was sprinting towards the station buildings. “Radio! Call it in! It’s a runaway!”
Sid’s hand stole to his belt and found nothing but an empty holster. “It’s in the cab.” He said, before trying to calm down the guard. “But don’t worry - she’s no runaway.”
“What?” Sven gasped from his exertion, already heading towards the stationmaster’s office. “Nobody was in the cab! Someone must have gotten in!”
Oh blimey. Sid thought, wondering how many times in the next half hour he was going to have to explain the peculiarities of Tornado’s operations to panicked railwaymen. “C’mon.” he said, guiding Sven towards the station building. “Let’s find Siobhan and the stationmaster and I’ll explain it to you all at the same time. There’s nothing to worry about. Trust me.”
How can you be so calm about this?!” Sven was unconvinced. “The train has run away, and Siobhan had to jump on it!”
“What?!”
---
Moments Earlier
Siobhan had been forced to bodily drag Sven onto the train by his lapel, and dragged him through the carriage to the guard’s compartment door. “Locked. Ye got yer keys?”
“Um, love, I don’t think I’m going to be able to help here.” Siobhan spun around to find her husband behind her. A formless curse fell from her lips as she looked at her hand, which was clutching Declan’s shirt, not Sven’s.
“Fuck!” She exclaimed, not for the last time.
“What’s going on?” Declan hadn’t quite grasped what was happening yet.
“The train’s doing a runner!” She explained as she tried and failed to kick down the door to the guard’s compartment. It was a steel door, and kicking it with her steel toed boots did nothing but hurt her feet. “And the brake cord is in there!”
Declan paled. “What do we now?”
“Find the next one!” And with that Siobhan was off, shoving open the door to the mail sorting compartment and running through with decided urgency. Declan, unsure of what else to do, followed in her wake.
--
The Stationmaster’s Office - Cronk Station
“What?” Sven screamed. “He’s ill? Now!?”
“As I have been saying,” His assistant said, her expression getting more and more fed up as Sven continued. “He is ill, and if you will just wait a minute, the assistant station master will speak with you!”
Sidney had given up trying to calm Sven down, and just held his head in his hands. This was only going to get worse before it got better…
--
The Main Line
It really was a wonderful day, Tornado thought to herself as she rolled towards Kildane. The sun was shining, she had a train behind her, and it was smooth sailing all the way to Barrow. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think it was the 1930’s.
The clatter of the AWS system reminded her that it wasn’t the 1930’s, or indeed even the 20th century. She acknowledged the warning and eyed the signal. It was yellow over green, with a pair of lamps - one blue and one white - illuminated below it: En-route Mail and Newspaper delivery - reduce speed to 40.
That was something the NWR had developed for the newspaper deliveries, she remembered, and she began braking the train to comply with the incredibly rare speed restriction.
That is so cool! She thought.
--
The Train
The guard compartment in the next carriage was locked too, and Siobhan had nearly broken her foot on the door when the train began to slow down.
“Thank fuck!” She yelled as a signal slipped by the only window of the carriage. “Must’ve tripped the AWS - we’re gonna stop.”
“Well,” Declan said, leaning against a wall now that it was clear the danger was over. “That was exciting.”
“Yeah.”
“You know, for all the yelling you used to do about how unrealistic that television show the kids watched was-”
“Don’ say it!”
“- this seems remarkably accurate.”
Siobhan didn’t say anything, and instead threw her gloves at him.
---
Cronk Station
“- I don’t care that you got left behind!” The assistant stationmaster shouted back. “I’m not causing a ruckus and stopping the ruddy train just because you couldn’t get out of the café in time!”
Sven spluttered incoherently. “I - he- I wasn’t - He was in the café!” He shouted, pointing to Sidney. “And the train left without anyone!”
The assistant stationmaster’s look spoke volumes.
“Just call them!” Sven shouted again. “Even if it is nothing, it’s against policy for the train to be without a guard, so do your job and stop the train!”
---
The Main Line
Tornado whistled hello to the mail staff on the platform as she chuffed through Kildane. Several of the men waved back, before turning their attention to the mail basket, which was prepared for the inbound post. A little further up the platform, a single mail bag hung from the mail crane. This whole process had already taken place several times already, but Tornado still found it all novel - this was her first ever mail train, after all.
After clearing the platforms (and it was very disappointing, in some childish way, that there was no appreciable jolt to the train when the mailbag was collected), the train rolled past the signals protecting the end of the platform, went through the junction that served the electric branch and the Motorail terminal, and continued onto the main line.
“3B02, Control.” The radio crackled.
Tornado waited a moment for Siobhan to answer, but when nothing happened, she mentally shrugged and answered the call herself. “3B02.”
“3B02, you’ve got the Limited coming up behind you sharp-ish. Can you stay ahead of it?”
“How fast are they going?”
“They’re passing Cronk right now. If you can get to SJJ 170 in ten minutes you’ll be fine, otherwise we’ll redirect you to the slow line.”
Signal SJJ 170 protected the west side of Kellsthorpe Road station, about seventeen miles away from Kildane station. Tornado was not the best at math, but understood that it was theoretically possible for her to make it. “I can do that.” She radioed back.
“Understood. No speed restrictions to report. Good luck.” Came back the reply.
Tornado smiled excitedly, and began to pick up speed.
--
Rail Traffic Control - Tidmouth
The controller watched on the “big board” as 3B02 began to pick up speed.
“Think they’ll break the ton?” His coworker asked him.
“Dunno about the ton, but with Tornado on it they’re bound to break something.” He said.
The phone rang, and he answered it.
“What?” He said disbelievingly into the handset. “I just spoke to the crew, that’s impossible. Told me so? What- hello?” He put the handset back. “They hung up on me!”
“Who was that?”
“Cronk station. Said that the train left its entire crew behind and was a runaway.”
“Didn’t you just talk to them?”
“That’s what I told him!”
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know…” He said, picking up the phone to call Cronk station again.
--
The Train
The relief both Siobhan and Declan were feeling had evaporated when the train had stopped slowing down as it approached Kildane. They’d rushed into the next mail carriage, intent on finding the emergency brake cord there, only to find the hustle and bustle of a traveling post office train at work. This carriage - Elodie - had both the mail unloading mechanism as well as the catch netting, the installment of which had forced the removal of the guard’s cabin and the emergency brake cord.
Shoving their way towards the next carriage, Siobhan stopped dead as a friendly whistle was audible through Elodie’s open doors.
Rushing to the nearest door, (and ignoring the Royal Mail staff who shouted at her to get back) she leaned out of the doorway and looked down the train. There was a slight curve going into the platforms at Kildane, and she could see into Tornado’s cab: it was empty.
“What the fuck is going on?!” She shouted, drawing the attention of the mail staff on the platform. They gawked at her, and shouted for her to get back, and she ignored them, trying to see if someone was hiding inside Tornado’s cab.
This meant she wasn’t paying any attention to the platform, and she was surprised when a hand grabbed her by the shoulder and yanked her into the train just before the train passed the mail crane, the mail bag just inches from her head!
Spinning around, she found Declan staring at her in shock. “Pay attention!” He shouted, more out of fear than anything else, before clutching her tightly.
She blinked a long, shocked blink, letting him hold her. “Nobody’s driving, but we’re still going. What’s going on!?”
---
The Main Line
Tornado watched the permitted speed sign as she rolled past it. Before now she hadn’t really given it much thought, as she had been on the front of slow goods trains, or stopping passenger services that halted at Kellsthorpe Road.
But now she was on a fast train.
One that didn’t need to stop at the next station.
One that had been specifically instructed to go as fast as possible.
The A1 Trust hadn’t yet received clearance from Network Rail to run her above 75 miles an hour, but this wasn’t Network Rail track…
“Look out Ossie!” She called out at the fading trail of smoke that Osprey had laid down when she’d gone along the line a few minutes earlier. “I’m catching up!”
Inside the empty cab, the speedometer needle slowly crept upwards…
--
The Train
Constance the newspaper van hadn’t been built as a passenger carriage; she’d been built as a “General Utility Van”, and therefore had no equipment other than electric lighting. When she’d been reactivated for mail train service, she’d been retrofitted with gangway connectors, but that was all. Notably, she did not feature an emergency brake cord.
Siobhan had discovered this the hard way when she’d charged into the van and discovered the walls to be entirely bare, with nothing but a light switch anywhere. She growled, just a little, before wading through the bags of newspapers and heading for the door at the front.
“Where are you going to go?” Declan asked, too invested in this to stay in the mail cars where it might be safer. “This is the front of the train.”
“Corridor tender!” Was the only reply she gave.
Striding forward, Siobhan threw open the door at the other end, intent on stopping this train once and for all.
What she said next was thankfully lost to the howling wind that blew past her and sent loose newspapers flying.
The door to Tornado’s corridor tender was locked.
--
The Lineside - Between Kildane and Kellsthorpe Road stations
The utility company survey crew had just broken for lunch when the first steam train had gone by. Being native Sudrians, none of them could quite contain themselves when a Gresley A4 had roared past with a goods train (?!), and they’d moved their lunch spot a bit closer to the railway line in order to have a better view of the tracks, should something else exciting come along.
Just a few minutes after that, something else did.
They first heard the sound of a steam locomotive approaching rapidly in the distance.
Several of them jumped up to see what it was.
Almost before they could move from where they were standing, the train rocketed by.
A steam engine moving faster than seemed possible and a few coaches, it was gone almost as soon as it had arrived. The wind from its passage was strong enough to send sandwiches and drinks flying!
The foreman stared into the distance. Already the train was out of sight. “What was that?!”
--
The Main Line
Tornado could see Osprey’s smoke trail get darker and darker as she caught up with the A4. She wasn’t sure how fast she was going, but it was certainly faster than she’d ever gone before!
--
The Train
Constance’s gangway connector had not been made very well, and the resulting gap between tender and van was big enough that Siobhan hadn’t wanted to risk trying to kick the door down, so she’d started scrounging around for something that she could use as a battering ram.
“Found something!” She yelled, producing a crowbar from underneath a pile of bagged newspapers bound for Barrow-in-Furness.
At that moment, the train leaned into the curve that sat between Kildane and Kellsthorpe Road. It was deeply banked in order to allow trains to run through it without slowing down, which usually helped the train stay level. However, in the case of the newspaper van, it caused just enough lean for a precariously perched pile of papers to collapse.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Declan had to smother a laugh at the sight of his wife getting buried in an avalanche of news.
--
Rail Traffic Control - Tidmouth
“See, she did break the ton.” Remarked the other controller.
“Remarkable.” Said the first controller. “Do me a favour and see if you can raise Cronk. They’re not answering and I’ve got Kellsthorpe calling.”
--
Kellsthorpe Road Station
“What do you mean, ‘you won’t do it’?” The stationmaster yelled into his phone.
“I mean,” Came the voice of “control”. “That you’re supposed to call at least half an hour ahead. I’ve already lined their path for a clear run to the mainland - unless you want to rip the hooks off when they take the mail at a hundred!”
“But this mail is important!”
“Then why didn’t you call before now? I’ve got the Limited coming up behind them, they can’t slow down - the signal timings are tight enough.”
“I didn’t know it was coming, you horse’s arse!” The stationmaster shouted as he slammed the phone down, before turning to the sheepish Royal Mail driver. “This is on you now - go set out the hook if you want, but they aren’t going to take it!”
The driver didn’t hear much more beyond “put the hook out”, and sprinted off to the platform.
--
The Main Line
Tornado could see the tail end of Osprey’s train as it bucketed down the line towards Kellsthorpe Road. She let out a jubilant blast of her whistle, and was delighted to hear Osprey sound hers in return. She picked just a bit more speed, careful to remember that the end of the high-speed segment came soon after the end of the station’s platforms.
Inside the cab, the speedometer needle was bouncing at its stop.
--
The Train
Siobhan had actually managed to create a wicked-looking breaching tool by attaching the crowbar to a handle pulled from a newspaper cart, and Declan was holding on to her for dear life as she stood in the gangway and prepared to smash down the door to Tornado’s tender.
Unnoticed in all the chaos, the attendant who was supposed to ride in the newspaper van came sprinting in the back door. “How could I have forgotten?!” He asked himself as he searched the stacks of papers for the right one. “It must be here somewhere!”
He was so intent on his task that he blocked out the world around him, including the chaos going on at the front of the van!
--
The Main Line
“Ow!” Tornado yelped as something crashed against her tender’s rear door. “What was that?!”
It happened again, and she yelped again, this time reflexively unlocking the door in the process.
--
The Train
Siobhan yelled in victory as the door sprung open on the second attempt. Throwing down the improvised club, she jumped between Constance and Tornado and ran to the front of the tender.
Behind her, Declan looked down at the gap (and the rails flashing by below it), said a prayer to whichever Hindu god applied to this situation, (Vishwakarma, maybe?) and then made the jump himself.
--
The Traveling Post Office
The newspaper attendant came bustling back in with just a minute or so to spare and handed off the bag of newspapers to the lead mail clerk.
Kellsthorpe Road, not being near either of the towns it actually served, didn’t get much mail, so the mail clerk took the bag of newspapers and a small sack of mail and consolidated them into a single pouch, before sliding open the door to the train.
Traveling post office cars like Elodie have metal arms that swing out of the mail doors and hang away from the train. Mail bags are attached to these arms, and are then swung out by mail clerks to be delivered into nets set up along the lineside.
Ordinarily, these arms are not hard to load, but with the fierce wind blowing into his face, the clerk bungled the attachment several times before eventually getting it.
--
The Main Line
Tornado was deeply confused by the feeling of footsteps in her corridor connector, but was even more confused by the signal she was getting from Kellsthorpe Road.
It was a standard “proceed” aspect, and the lights indicating newspaper and mail delivery were dark, but in spite of that, a man was attaching a mail bag onto the crane anyways!
Unsure of what else to do, she sounded the whistle code for “mail pickup”, hoping that the mail crew could hear her. She slowly started to apply the brakes, trying to get the train down to a more reasonable speed without jolting the mail crew, who were presumably hanging out of the mail carriages right now!
--
The Traveling Post Office
The mail crew exploded into action as they heard the whistle blow. Unforeseen mail was common, but at this speed they needed to be ready sooner rather than later.
The mail chute was quickly deployed, and a clerk readied the mailbag to be swung out of the door the instant the platform came into view.
--
Kellsthorpe Road Station
Delta had been taking several coaches from Crovan’s Gate to Rolf’s Castle, and was waiting at the junction to be allowed onto the branch line to Kirk Ronan.
She’d been waiting several minutes, and had watched with interest as two clouds of thick black smoke had risen over the horizon.
The smoke had slowly been revealed to have been attached to a pair of engines, each of them racing along the opposite sides of the main line.
Optical illusions are a funny thing, because for a great while it seemed like the trains would never get any closer, but all of a sudden, both trains were upon her at once! First Osprey’s hopper train roared by, and was followed immediately by Tornado, who seemed to be traveling at the speed of sound. The diesel’s eyes practically spun in their sockets from the wind and the dust and the sound of the two Pacifics and their trains!
--
The Traveling Post Office
The platform edge came into sight. The clerk heaved the bag into the swung out position.
The bag made it about halfway out of the train before the straps connecting it to the metal bars came un-done.
--
Kellsthorpe Road Station
The Royal Mail driver had never used the mail crane before, and was struggling to attach the bag to the hook. The train was getting so close he was in danger of getting hit by it if he stayed where he was, so he took a panicked step backwards and tried to come up with a different plan.
The train sounded its whistle, and he could see the mail chute unfold from the side of the carriage.
It was now or never, his panicked mind realized, and he came up with the only plan that came to his mind.
The chute wasn’t that far off of the ground, reaching about head-height…
As the train got closer still, he took a deep breath and hurled the mail bag straight up into the air, before he dropped prone onto the platform.
At the same time, the sack of newspapers came undone from the metal arms. The bag, still being shoved out of the train, flew through the air at a slight angle. Traveling at over 100 miles per hour, it raced down the platform like a speeding bullet, passing over the head of the Royal Mail driver before continuing on towards the station building.
The train thundered by, neatly but improbably scooping the thrown mail bag out of the air. Elodie yelped at the sharp jolt of the high speed pickup, but the netting held, and the bag tumbled into the carriage, where it was swiftly picked up by the mail crew.
In the station, the stationmaster watched as a large object flew off of the train. It took him several seconds to recognize what it was and where it was going, and he had just enough time to throw himself to the ground before the inbound mailbag smashed through his office window!
Continuing on its path in a shower of glass, the mailbag continued through the stationmaster's office, punched a hole through the door, careened through the waiting room, shot through an open window on the other side of the building, and flew out into the carpark. There, a policewoman trying to issue a parking ticket had to jump out of the way as the bag ricocheted off of a “No Parking” sign, flew through the air some two dozen feet before flying into the open back doors of the illegally parked Royal Mail van sitting in the station carpark, where it landed with a catastrophic THUD! and an explosion of letters against the bulkhead separating the cargo compartment from the driver’s seat.
--
The Train
Siobhan stormed out of the connector corridor, and was baffled to find that the cab was empty. She probably would’ve stood there longer, but Declan running out of the cramped corridor and into her back forced her into motion.
“What the fuck is going on?!” She bellowed, trying to pull back on the throttle. The lever didn’t budge, much to her confusion.
“What?” Tornado was trying to see why everyone at Kellsthorpe Road had thrown themselves to the ground just as she went by, and wasn’t really paying any attention to Siobhan as she also began applying the brakes to slow the train down for the curve outside of the station.
She also had a moment of personal pride as the train sailed past signal SJJ 170 in exactly ten minutes.
Siobhan squealed like a little girl and jumped back as the brake lever moved on its own. After a moment’s hesitation, she grabbed it with both hands, trying to haul it back into the full stop position, but as soon as Tornado got the lever where she wanted it, it stuck fast.
Siobhan didn’t say anything after that, instead watching as Tornado expertly worked the throttle, brakes, injectors, and coal stoker, along with acknowledging the AWS alarm. The train rolled through the curve like nothing was wrong, and continued on towards Crovan’s Gate.
“What are ye doing?” She asked again, this time quietly.
“Driving the train?” Tornado was deeply confused.
“Why?”
“Because I’m the engine? You haven’t said anything about it?”
“When would I have?”
“What do you mean?”
Siobhan collapsed into the driver’s seat, unable to believe what she was hearing. “Lassie, ye left everyone behind. Ah’ve just run the whole length o’ the train thinkin’ ye were a runaway.”
Tornado had finally come abreast of Osprey and her train, so the exact words she’d said were lost in the clatter of the aggregate hoppers, but the horrified whistle she made got the point across!
---------
Later…
Osprey was tired, dirty, and hurt all over, and yet she had never felt so good in her life. She was sitting in the sheds in Barrow, waiting for her next train and luxuriating in the ache of a job well done, when Tornado backed in next to her.
“Hullo.” She said with enthusiasm. “What happened to you? You caught up with me at one point.” They'd run neck and neck for a while, but then Tornado had fallen behind and stopped at Crovan's Gate.
Tornado said nothing, and waited for her driver - an older woman who was unmistakably furious with something - to leave the shed and enter the station. “I left them behind.” She said quietly, as though her driver might hear her across the yard.
“Left who behind?”
“My crew.”
“What?!”
“Yep. I did a hundred and eight, all by myself.” She paused. “I am in sooooo much trouble.”
“You broke the ton?!” Osprey was ecstatic, then took in the rest of what her friend had said. “Alone? How?”
“It’s a long story.”
“We’ve got time, don’t we?”
“Not that much time.” Tornado’s driver was already coming back out of the station building, a group of serious looking men in hi-vis jackets behind her. They were stopping to investigate the mail cars first, but they would definitely be on their way to sheds soon.
“Oh…” Osprey could see where this was going.
“On an unrelated note, does it always feel like this?”
Osprey looked over at Tornado. She looked strangely relaxed, despite the huge amount of trouble she was apparently in. It was an expression Osprey knew very well, having seen it on the faces of her brothers, sisters, and cousins many times before. It was what her owner liked to call a “runner’s high” - the feeling one gets from doing hard work. She felt this way herself, right now.
“Yes. Yes it does. Have you ever…?”
“Nope. Sheltered life, remember?” Tornado paused for a moment. “Feels nice. I feel like a real engine for the first time in my life."
"It does feel nice. I suppose I never considered that you would have never experienced it before."
"Oh yeah." Tornado looked almost pensive - a strange look for someone as absentminded as her. "I want this. I like this."
"Come again?"
"Work." She looked serious. "They're treating me like a real engine, not a showpiece."
"Sometimes I forget that you and I haven't had the same life experiences."
"Mhm. You got to work for years. Is this better? Than preservation?"
Osprey closed her eyes. Mr. Cameron was wonderful, but life in preservation was... slow. "Yes. I think it is."
"Then let's stay."
"What?"
"We're famous. We can boss people around if we want to." Tornado and "serious" was an unexpectedly frightening combination. "Let's just stay here. On Sodor."
"You want to stay here?" Osprey asked again. "Even after what's going to happen once they get in here?"
"Oh yeah." Just like that, the serious look was gone, and Tornado was back to being blissfully unaware of the world around her. "It'll be totally worth it."
