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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
For Traintober 2023, Day 31: “Lights Out” ———— While awaiting their repairs in the works, Henry reassures D7101. He doesn’t expect D7101 to repay the favor so soon.
A Screech on the Night Ch:4
Ch.4 Dawnbreak
Other Chapters
The sun slowly peaked over the hills, the light breaking through slowly to light the sky in brilliant colours as Screech raced down the line. Snow flew to the side as she flew through the dawnlight. In the warmth of her cab, Gwyn worked hard to keep the steam up as Freda managed the regulator.
Screech felt alive in a way she hadn't since...she couldn't remember. The last few years she'd spent alive had hardly been living. The gas axe hanging over her kind had made her feel as if she had already been scrapped, her body just hadn't caught up. But this, racing through the morning with a heavy train...this was what she was meant for.
The whisper was quiet. Unable to compete with the joy of running again, of being useful again.
She approached a sleepy station and yard, the faded name Henaint visible on the sign. She felt Freda grab her whistle cord and her whistle sounded out through the early morning, howling out across the hills and through the wind like a tortured soul.
Throughout the town, dogs raised their heads at the sound and joined in, the humans trembling in their homes from the otherworldly chorus.
As Screech shot past the town and into the hills beyond, the sun finally broke the night's hold and crested the horizon, causing the landscape into stark relief as she raced onward.
Southward she charged, livestock and wildlife alike scattering at the black beast's approach. As she crested the tallest hill, the land was laid out before her, mountains glistened with snow in the distance, rivers carved through the land like the great snakes of old, and lakes shone like mirrors in the dawnlight.
"Ppeeeeeeeeppppp"
Screech couldn't have held back the elated whistle as she thundered down the hill if she wanted. Birds stormed from the treetops in terror at the sound, wheeling in disarray above her.
Still, she raced onwards, the fish vans behind her swaying with her speed. She grinned as a tunnel grew in her vision. Shrieking her whistle like a lost soul, she plunged into the darkness, before all too soon she popped out the other side.
A viaduct spanned a valley, a river surging its banks with melted snow far below. Her whistle echoed out from the tunnel into the valleys below.
She thundered back onto solid ground and soared forward along the rails, steam billowing behind her like a cloak in the dawning light.
Finally, a caution signal showed, and she slowed, gliding effortlessly into Din as the sun chased away the last vestiges of dawn. She stopped at the end of the unloading platform, the end of the train stretching out into the yard. On the platform, workers stared in awe and fear at the beast of shadow and steam before them, but Screech took no notice.
She panted happily from her exertion, it had been so long. She hadn't pulled a train like that in years.
Gywn patted her cab as he climbed down, "Well done! Well done indeed! Our longest train yet, and early too."
Screech's smug smile was interrupted by the arrival of the yard manager.
"Jones you old bat!" He clasped Gwyn's hand as he walked up. "Only you could find a Night Owl just as we need her. Where did you find this beauty?"
"I'm afraid she's just passing through and agreed to lend us a hand, she's to be off once this is unloaded."
The yardmaster's face fell. "Oh...well...Abbey will just have to make do then." The two men looked at each other uncertainly, both clearly uncomfortable with pushing their Star any further.
The yardmaster shook his head, "there's nothing for it," he sighed before turning to Screech. "Thank you my lady for your help. The Lord knows Abbey needs what rest she can get." He gently laid a hand on her running board. Much like the Jones, nothing happened to his hand other than gaining a coating of soot. "We thank you, lass. We owe you more than you know. If you ever need shelter again, our shed is open."
He rubbed her buffer beam, closing his eyes and sighing, before walking away.
'Revenge' the whisper returned quietly, flashing images of London across her mind, but they were quickly swept away by the memory of the strained Star class sleeping fitfully in her shed.
"Do you have a train that needs pulling?"
The words were out before she realised she'd made a decision. Her voice echoing through the yard, filling every nook and crevice of the yard with a twisted siren's call, the vans rattling in its reverberation.
The yardmaster stopped and looked back at her in bemusement
"Yesterday's vans need to be taken back to Uman. The line has to be clear by 7 so the Express can leave on time." Then once it's left we need to collect from the quarries along the line, bringing their loads here, before returning with..."
He trailed off, lost in the problems of trying to make it with his few engines.
'No,’ the whisper pleaded, but its tone told her it already knew it had lost.
The former Great Western No.4702 shifted her wheels mightily.
"Where is my train then."
As the crews stared at her with dawning hope in their eyes, she smirked.
"My old driver would have my frames if he were to ever learn I left you in need. I have disappointed many, but never him...and I don't intend to start now."
Gwyn was already uncoupling her from the morning pike as cheers rang out through the yard.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Duke takes a dislike to a new arrival on the Mid Sodor Railway. Or perhaps he just doesn’t want to believe what they have to say is true.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Gordon introduces his cat, Tabitha, to four people. And one person receives the honor of Tabitha introducing herself.
Trick or treat!
Oh, hello! I don’t have any tricks lined up, but I do have a treat: a sneak peek at a fic for tomorrow’s Traintober prompt. I hope that’s acceptable!
—————————
“It’ll be alright,” Henry tells D7101. They’re side by side in the works. He still feels flushed from their goods train and passenger train, but he has his breath back. His frames don’t feel like they’re melting into the rails beneath him anymore.
He focuses on the furrow in D7101’s brow rather than the tools probing his regulator. “You’re in good hands with our works,” he says. “They’ve always fixed me up like new.”
D7101 shifts his weight. “I’m glad, but… you’re a Sodor engine. Of course they’d do right by you. What am I to this railway?”
“You’re one of us now.”
“After everything that happened today?”
“Of course,” Henry says. He doesn’t have to think about it. But when the furrow in D7101’s brow deepens, he thinks about it anyway. “You’re kind to all of us — steam and diesel engines. You try your hardest with your work. And after that train you and I pulled, anyone can see that.”
D7101 blinks at him. “I think I might believe you,” he says, not quite smiling.
“I should hope so. Do people often not give you reason to believe them?”
“Not people so much as British Rail. They told me my class was powerful, reliable. I thought we’d have a good run. But now they’re saying we’re all ‘non-standard,’ since we’re diesel-hydraulics.”
Now it’s Henry’s turn to blink. With steam engines stuck on the bottom rung of BR’s ladder, he never considered they made distinctions among diesels. “Really?”
“Really.”
“…how awful.”
Something flickers in D7101’s face for a moment. He straightens on his rails, sitting a little higher. “Not many think so,” he says, defiant. He’s still wary.
And Henry’s firebox twinges with memories it wasn’t there to see. He feels splashers pushing up from his running board, a different boiler on his frames. “I was non-standard,” he finds himself saying.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
These days, when he isn’t on search and rescue duty, Harold likes to browse YouTube. But when he stumbles across a suspicious video, he realizes there’s more work to do. It’s a race against time — and malicious actors — to save a downed plane.
A Screech in the Night: Ch.1
Ch.1 The Uman and Din
Other Chapters
To the north of Harlech in Merioneth, lies a little railway, the Uman and Dim. Once a branch line of God's Wonderful Railway itself, the line had been closed by a Doctor who had odd ideas on healing the country's rail lines. The Doctor had been tasked with fixing the railways by men who knew the price of everything, and the value of nothing. The solution he came up with was to simply remove lines till the railway worked.
The Uman and Din was one of the lines closed, but as normally happens in the world, the people the line served knew the line's value better than the directors in London. The line was bought for the town and with it six engines. These were not diesels or even electrics as one might guess today, but steam engines, proper Swindon ones at that. This is the story of how they gained their seventh.
One cold winter's night, the railway received a visitor. Eight large driving wheels propelled a shadow across the yard towards the shed. Tendrils of shadow whipped off of the engine's form.
'Scare them,' a quiet voice whispered within the giant's mind.
4702 chuckled lowly as she approached the shed. These engines looked so content and secure in this little shed. It was time to remind them how lucky they were to be saved from her fate. A glimpse of her fate would ensure they valued what they had been given.
"Quiet," came the quiet hiss just as 4702 was about to blast her whistle. She looked in surprise to see a 0-6-0 pannier tank of the 97xx class was awake and looking at her anxiously.
Before 4702 could reply, the tank engine spoke. "You're more than welcome to sleep here, we'd never turn another engine away, especially another Western, but please keep it down." She looked over to the Star class at the end of the shed. "Abbey only got back an hour ago and has to be up at daybreak. She needs her sleep."
4702 looked over the Star class. Even in sleep, exhaustion covered her features. The number 4061 on her cabside was faded and dull, as were the nameplates on her sides reading Glastonbury Abbey, but above her smokebox a lovingly polished nameplate reading Guinevere sat. She towered over the other engines in the shed.
The 97xx followed her gaze. "She's the strongest." She whispered quietly. "We help where we can, but she's the only one capable of far too many of the trains."
4702 surveyed the other engines, each bore exhaustion on their features heavily as they slept fitfully.
The 97xx looked no better, it was obvious she dearly wished to join her fleetmates in sleep. Painted across the side of her can the name Enid could just be made out.
'Wake them!' the whisper cackled.
4702 shoved the voice aside with all the strength her class was famed for.
"Tell me little one," 4702's voice was a mere whisper, yet it echoed around them, bouncing back again and again from odd angles, filling the air as thoroughly as a siren. "why do you not sleep with your shedmates?"
The tank engine looked down sadly, "Vandals keep trying to steal parts from the shed...sometimes from off us. It's my night to stand watch."
'Scare theeemmm' the whisper hissed.
The giant flicked her tendrils in agitation, "Not tonight little one." The little 97 tried to argue, but 4702 continued, "sleep. I will stand guard. Any vandal will find themselves sorely regretting the choices that led them here this night."
4702 shimmered in place, suddenly facing out from the shed. She rolled quietly back into the shed, a shadow brushing coldly across the 97's cheek. She was asleep before 4702 had stopped moving.
'Revenge,' the whisper hissed sullenly.
"Not tonight," the giant rumbled quietly. "These engines have earned their rest."
The whisper subsided mutinously.
4702 allowed it a moment before continuing, "It is just for the night, tomorrow we steam for London. Then you will have your fill."
The whisper rumbled happily.
"Besides," 4702's smile stretched far too wide, "the night is not over yet. Who knows what vandals might stumble upon tonight."
The whisper's cackle rang throughout her mind.
Author’s Note:
Hey guys! This new fic will be coming out every Tuesday until I either catch up with where I’ve written (currently 7 chapters are done). Normally I wait till I’ve finished a Fic, but I honestly have no idea how far this fic will go. It was supposed to be a one shot and I’ve written 7 chapters and I’m not done with the original concept.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Murdoch’s glad to receive smoke deflectors that won’t worsen his migraines. He’s less than glad, however, to see Sir Stephen Hatt at the works. Now he has to explain why he avoided telling Sir Stephen about all of this. ———————— I’ve been reading The Extended Railway Series on AO3, and I was inspired to write this small fic about Murdoch and Sir Stephen Hatt.
Thank you to series creator @weirdowithaquill for your permission; I hope it’s to your liking!
