aye, uh, i dunnae know if i'm a sendin' this rite...but eh, is this the penny pal thing? the workmens uses this inter-netting whatsits sometimes, and they wanted me to write ye one...i dunnae e'en knoe if i'm dui'n it rite. sorry if ye cannae understand me, mate. name's Lilias, by the way. i'm one o' them highland railway jones goods locomotives. i dunnae knoe what year it is, given i've been sleepin' in the scrappies for god knows how long....i think i be on someplace called sodor? there's a little wee red one here askin' me what color i wants to be...do ya think i should go with that emily's paint colors? i seen 'er pass by a couple times, and that emerald and gold looks lovely...ah, i'm a gettin' off topic, sorry lad. how are ye? is it...difficult bein' two engines in the same, well, erm...engine..? i dunnae know how to say it, but ya knoe what i mean. have ye ever seen each other? or is that not possible given yer predicament? anywho, i hope this letter finds ye lads well. feel free te write me again, wee red one says i'm gonna be here for a while.
kind regards, Lilias the awkward engine
:)
Hello there!
Well, at this point in time it might as well be official, since we've received more than one letter! It's still baffling to us that anyone would want to go to the trouble to write to us at all...
Don't worry too much about getting it right. To get ours done, our driver goes to and fro just to get proper answers from both of us!
It can be tiring and confusing (because we're not always on the same page), and sometimes he doesn't want to write what one of us said because it "sounded rude".
Humans are so odd at times with their idea of what rudeness is...
Anyway, hello Lilias! You're the first of your class we've spoken to, but not the first engine we met that was built by Sharp, Stewart and Company! A friend of ours was also built there, although, we think it was a little after you? We'd have to ask when we next see him if he's in the country (might take a while, he doesn't leave his home very often unless his driver has business to attend to elsewhere).
You're also not the first engine we've met who woke up from a long nap only to find themselves somewhere safer. A lot of engines these days are either running out of luck, or finding it gifted to them as if by miracle. We hope this mercy doesn't run out anytime soon. We'd like our "meemaw" to be rescued too. Maybe we could find a way to get her to Sodor as well...
We'll assume the "little wee red one" you're speaking of is Mr. Victor. He and his little crane friend, Kevin, are very well known for helping to mend the engines of Sodor. You're in very good buffers!
As for a new color, from what we've seen of the show (it's so cool that they made a tv show about Sodor's engines!), Miss Emily does have a very nice livery doesn't she? D. Luiz, the royal engine that's in preservation over here, has a very similar livery that looks absolutely stunning. All polished and regal! I (this is Ed speaking) which we had something like that sometimes. But with our line of work we'd just get it scuffed and dirty too quickly for it to be appreciated.
Mundo also says emerald green would make us look fat. We're a long rectangle with snub-nosed cabs and a sloped roof. How could we possibly look fat?!
Is it difficult to be a two-in-one engine? Hm.
Well, yes and no.
On the one hand, when there's two of you, that means working day and night shifts isn't as hard as you'd assume. I (this is still Ed speaking) work during the day while my brother rests, and then when night comes it's my turn to rest while he works. We're very efficient workers because we can go non-stop until we need to go for our mandatory inspections and mending sessions!
On the other hand, we're brothers. We've different tastes, like to hang out with different engines, and don't agree on everything. The arguments can be... Hellish, for the lack of a better word.
Not that we like to argue... It just sort of happens sometimes.
T'is the nature of siblings to get into spats but bounce back.
And no, we've never actually seen each other.
We've seen our own reflections, and we do have rear-view mirrors. But they're not angled in a way that makes it easy to see each other.
We can use the mirrors to signal to each other if there's light, but that's all we've ever really parsed about each other.
A tiny glint of light in the corner of our vision. It's oddly lonely.
But it's fine. We have one another even if we can't see one another.
That's comforting enough.
We hope your time in the works is a pleasant one and that you get a nice livery that's to your liking!
