Traintober Day 27
Today's Prompt: If I could be an engine too
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Excuse me, but this is an reverse-humanization blog.
-
Not Every Story Ends At The Ending
2007 - January
Richard glowered at the stack of reports in front of him.
I’d fire the lot of them if I could. He thought to himself with no shortage of malice. It’s 2007, not 1910.
Following a long period of debate in the railway’s C-suite, his father had finally replaced Kerian Murphy, the retiring Head of Steam Operations. The position was one of pride on the Island, as the steam fleet was the main reason many of the railway’s employees had decided to work there.
Richard had expected some level of pushback from the employees, some of whom would most likely think that they’d been “passed over” for the coveted position, but this was ridiculous. It seemed like half the company had something to say about this, and none of it was positive.
I can’t even read most of this, it’s sickening. It was all… the sort of talk that he worked very hard to dissuade, and every single one of them should thank their lucky stars that the reports were anonymised.
Of course, this didn’t explain the other stack of reports on his desk…
When they’d started coming in, he’d initially thought that they were mistakes, reports and files intended for the mechanical services department at Crovan’s Gate, but after a few moments of reading, it became apparent that these were actually human resources complaints - even though the reports didn’t involve humans…
-
Tidmouth Station
Richard stepped out of the station’s office complex at tea time and walked into an argument in progress.
“Oh you horrid engine!” Bellowed Ralph, one of the senior drivers. He was already an unhealthy shade of red, and was gradually going to purple. “That could have hurt!” He was jumping around on one leg, having just had a blast of hot steam go across the other.
“Good.” Edward, of all engines, snapped, not even bothering to look at the man.
Ralph actually made a fist, and looked ready to try and throw a punch at the engine, when the fireman swooped out of the cab and muscled his co-worker back down the platform without a word. They disappeared into the cab in almost total silence.
“Wha-” Richard was quite frankly shocked, and had no idea how to process Edward being cross enough at someone to warrant that reaction.
“Don’t.” The blue engine snapped, the actual malice in his tone shocking Richard into silence. “This is an internal matter.”
“Internal matter? Edward, this is- what?” Before anything else could be said, the signal dropped and the train set off. Judging from the shouting that was already coming from the cab, Edward had no plans on making the journey easy on his crew.
“Edward! Internal to who?!” He eventually shouted at the train as it receded into the distance, but no answer came.
Fortunately, the station was not busy at the moment, and few, if any, people witnessed him shouting after a departing train like a crazy man.
Unfortunately, the station held more than just people… “Sir, I’d give up while you’re ahead.” Came a voice from behind him. “I’ve been here three days and they won’t say a thing.”
Spinning around, Richard found a Class 37 sitting on the next track over. “I’m sorry?”
“I said,” The engine replied, speaking as clearly as he could - which was very clear indeed; Unlike many of his class who had rough, industrial accents, this one could be reading the news on the BBC. “I’ve been here on hire since late on Sunday. Something has gotten into all of the engines here, but they won’t say what it is.”
“Not even to you?”
“Not a word. I’ve picked up some context, but it seems like the driving staff has made some deeply unkind remarks about one of their fellows. I’d assume that this hostility is coming from the driving staff’s refusal to apologize or admit that any wrong was done.”
A polite, articulate, and intelligent locomotive. What a marvel. Richard mentally calculated the over/under percentage of his Father trying to steal this one. The ‘under’ was unsurprisingly low. “Thank you, uh…”
“Fendt, sir.”
“Thank you Fendt.” Richard turned to go back into the office, to go through his papers and try and find some reason for all this, when Daisy rolled into a platform on the other side of the station.
The unbelievable noise her motor was making was a sign that something was dreadfully wrong, and as she stopped at the platform, Richard could see her face was taut with some negative emotion.
He moved towards the platform crossovers, but Fendt stopped him before he could do so. “Bad idea! Save yourself!” The diesel hissed.
“Wha-?” Richard was saying that a lot today. He watched as Daisy’s passengers left - in a hurry. The station was quiet for a moment, before her crew stormed out of her driver’s compartment and started berating her. He couldn’t hear exactly what was said, but it ended when Daisy blew a thick cloud of sooty exhaust in their faces!
They stormed away - to where Richard did not know, as all the crew facilities were on his side of the station - but as soon as they were out of sight, Daisy’s motor, which had been misfiring badly the whole time, started firing on all cylinders as if by magic.
“I told you,” Fendt said, looking a bit shocked at the level of rudeness the railcar was stooping to. “Something is wrong, and they won’t budge.”
-
Later…
Richard stormed out of the staff room, acutely aware that if he stayed a moment longer, he’d wring someone’s neck.
His attempt to discover what the driving crews had done had ended badly, with the assorted men claiming ignorance at increasing volume. Of course it wasn’t their fault, they’d extolled - it was those damn tea kettles! And the blasted buzz boxes! They were the true instigators!
Useless arses… Richard seethed as he stalked up and down the platform. He wanted to bring this to his father’s attention, but in this state he’d likely make the situation worse, not better, and was trying desperately to cool his head.
Of course, the sound of Duck and Gordon verbally sparring with their crews was not helping. Fendt was still sitting at one of the platforms, engine off, and Richard was forced to use the diesel’s bulk as a wall to block the sounds coming from the other platforms. Even Fendt, who was desperately curious about the whole affair, was trying very hard not to be noticed - there was a dangerous undercurrent to both engine’s words that hadn’t been there before.
Eventually, both engine’s crews stormed away, (Really, was anyone actually working today?) leaving the central part of the station empty.
Gordon and Duck began a muttered conversation as soon as the men left, only to quickly stop once Gordon started loudly complaining about the “fools who we must abide by!”
“Quiet!” Snapped Duck. “Do you want the whole station to hear you?”
“I don’t care if the whole station hears!” Gordon retorted. “Maybe something would actually be accomplished, instead of this pointless and uncivil war we all seem intent on prosecuting!”
“How can you say that?” Duck sounded legitimately incensed. “You heard what they’re saying about her!”
“Oh, I have - in fact I daresay that I’ve heard more said about her than you ever will!” Gordon was quick to respond. “But this animosity will solve nothing! We must work with them before someone does or says something that cannot be taken back!”
“Oh yes,” Duck said, sarcasm dripping from his every word. “Do remind me when that last worked? I seem to recall many of my brothers asking nicely not to be cut up and look at where that got them!”
A poignant silence lasted for a long minute. Richard, who had heard quite enough, thank you, had moved out from behind Fendt when the conversation started anew, and he retreated next to the diesel. Why, he couldn’t say - some macabre sense of curiosity, perhaps?
“That is not what we are dealing with.” Gordon’s voice was low and thunderous. “We are dealing with some petty, childish, and outright entitled men - boys, really - who cannot accept that they have not had everything handed to them on a silver platter! You all are acting as though she will be cut up! That’s ludicrous! They can’t even do that to her! She’s not made of metal!”
“Then why are you going along with this?”
“BECAUSE SHE IS ONE OF US!” Gordon thundered, all stealth forgotten. “And I will not for a moment have it appear as though I don’t support her implicitly!”
Duck said something else, but Richard didn’t hear it as he turned on his heel and walked back into his office. He was putting a few things together in his mind…
---
A few days later…
Richard was sitting in his office when she slipped into his office without knocking.
“You know, normally one waits to be allowed in.” He said as he looked up.
“Jus’ be lucky Ah didnae kick it down.” Siobhan said in a way which left Richard unsure if she was joking. “I’m no’ normally summoned like Ah’ve been naughty.”
“I ‘summon’ everyone. It’s proper procedure.”
“Even yer da?”
“Especially my father. Otherwise I’d have to chase him across the Island just to have him sign things.”
A laugh met this. “Ah feel that yer da’ and ye are two very different people.”
“You’re just catching on now?”
“I’ve been busy.”
“I noticed. How is the baby?”
“Monty? He's fit as can be.”
“Monty?”
“Montague.” Siobhan clarified, not missing the raise of Richard’s eyebrows. “Don’t look at me like that - it was me Grandad’s name.”
“Did you tell Duck that?”
She looked down and mumbled something.
“What was that?”
“Ah thought it was an old-fashioned name, but Deccie thought it was nice. Because he talks ta Duck all the time.”
Richard managed to suppress an uncharacteristic bark of laughter as he put together several things in his mind. “I suppose you’re very close to the engines then?”
“Is tha’ why ye called me up here?” Siobhan seemed confused by the abrupt turn in the conversation. “My friends?”
“In a manner of speaking…” Richard didn’t miss how she said “friends”, and shuffled through some of the more tame feedback forms. “When you got the steam operations job - congratulations, by the way - there were… a few complaints about it.”
“What?” She sat up straight,, genuinely upset by that. “Who?”
“I can’t tell you that.” You’d be arrested for murder before lunch if you knew. “But they were the standard fare - that you’re a woman, that you’re less experienced, that you have a child, that you were on maternity leave when you were promoted, and did I mention that you were a woman?”
“Bastards…” She muttered.
“I wholeheartedly agree, but that’s not all.”
“What, did they think Ah slept my way to the job?”
“No, of course not.” They had been much more explicit than that. “But, around that time, I started getting reports on my desk that didn’t seem to be addressed correctly.”
“What?”
“This is human relations, not engine relations.” He said simply, sliding a few of the other reports across to her.
Her eyebrows rose significantly as she read one report. “Eddie said that? Him?”
“Yes. And this wasn’t restricted to just the branches, or the steam engines.” He handed her another report. “Every engine on the Island seems to have gotten a bee in their bonnet at the same time. Coincidentally, this happened just a few days after your promotion was announced.”
“You don’ think Ah had anything ta do with-”
“Not in the sense that you’re thinking of, no.”
“But…”
“Siobhan, my father told me that he’d promoted you, but he didn’t tell me why. He only said that you “knew how to speak to engines”, whatever that means. That’s why I called you in here.” He looked at her, trying to correctly say what he was thinking. “I - This- you- I need to know, okay?”
He tried and failed to compose his thoughts. “How close are you to the engines? On a real level. I know about Donald and Douglas, but… the rest of them?”
“They’re ma friends.” Siobhan spoke like it was a universal truth on par with gravity. “Ah can’t even imagine what ma life would be without them. James helped me propose to Deccie. Del’ was my Maid o’ Honor. Ah love ‘em all ta bits.”
“I see.” And for the first time, Richard truly did.
-
Richard and Siobhan exited the offices right next to the front of the Limited. Fendt was being attached to the front, and they had to speak up over the rumble of his engine.
“Your maternity leave ends next week?”
“Aye.”
“Well, don’t let me keep you any longer.” And with that, Siobhan walked away towards platform 4, where Oliver was waiting with a train to Arlesburgh. She used the staff crossovers at track level instead of the passenger underpasses, and Richard did not fail to notice how Isobel, Dulcie, and Oliver’s faces lit up the moment they saw her.
“Oh,” Fendt said quietly.
“What?” Richard asked.
“I understand now.”
“Understand what?”
“The upset. If someone had spoken about a member of my family in the manner that these drivers have been, well, I don’t think I would have been so restrained as the engines on this Island.” The Class 37 said it as though it were obvious.
“Family?”
“Oh yes. Can’t you tell?”
“Tell what?”
Fendt eyed the man. “I suppose you wouldn’t be able to understand: She has steel in her, same as any engine.”
“How can you know that?”
“I know it in the same way that you know how to breathe.” Fendt said it with such passive but absolute surety that Richard was momentarily struck dumb. “It has been a privilege talking to you, but I must depart, and as my hire term is nearing its end, it is unlikely I will be coming back. Good day.”
With that, the 37 roared out of the station with his train. Richard blinked owlishly as he watched the train disappear into the distance.
He planned to wander back to his office and digest this, but his feet had other ideas, and he found himself crossing the lines to the cargo platforms, where Gordon was simmering on the front of the very delayed Fast Mail.
“Hello, sir.” He said, his jovial attitude giving off an unusual air of forced sincerity.
Richard looked down the train - Gordon’s crew were glaring daggers at the newspaper vans, which explained a great deal. “Gordon, may I ask of you a favour?”
“Of course!”
“Call it off.”
“What?” Innocent was another thing Gordon couldn’t pull off very well.
“This ‘uncivil war’. Call it off.”
“Sir, you don’t know the whole story-”
“Siobhan is going to keep that position. If I have to fire every other driver on this railway and hire new ones, then so be it.”
Gordon’s expression melted into one of relieved joy. “Sir, thank you-”
“Don’t.” Richard wasn’t done. “What you lot did was incredibly irresponsible, totally inappropriate, and as foolish as it was loyal. Next time you have an issue like that, talk to me - solving disputes like this is quite literally my job. Someone could have gotten hurt, and I doubt I need to tell you how upset my father would be if he had been the one to discover this!”
Unspoken was his uncertainty of who would attract his father’s ire - the engines, or the drivers.
“Yes sir, of course sir.” At least Gordon had the sense to look shame-faced. Richard had no doubt that Duck and Edward would not feel even the slightest twinge of guilt.
“Good.” Richard turned to leave, but then stopped. “And one more thing, if you have time.”
“The vans have derailed.” Gordon said bluntly. “Inept repairs to their bogies, no doubt. I have quite a while.”
Richard looked back. One of the newspaper vans was sitting at a remarkably strange angle. “I see. I imagine we’ll be seeing my father soon enough, so I will be quick.”
He maintained eye contact with Gordon, and explained what Fendt had said.
“Sir…” Gordon began uncomfortably. “I don’t think I could explain it even if I had all day.”
“Why don’t you try. Think of it as ‘punishment’ for how unpleasant you’ve all been this week.”
“All right,” Gordon said, trying to place his words carefully. “But I must warn you - the best way to tell this is in a story - one that I’ve pieced together from several different sources over the years.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Well, it all started about twenty years ago…”
1988
“They did what?” The engines looked at each other in confusion. Duck was not usually part of the branch line’s rumour mill, so anything coming from him had to be true.
“Adopted her!” Duck said, sounding no more sure than they were. “I don’t know how, but they did.”
“Adopted?” James asked. “As in, they’re now her parents?”
“Yes!”
“Can they do that?”
“I suppose so, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to.”
The shed was quiet as the engines reflected on this.
“What does that make her? To us?” Henry broke the silence. “She has to be something.”
After a moment, he added. “And not ‘someone’s father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former whatever’. That joke is growing tiresome.”
The engines pondered on this. They’d never encountered this situation before.
Delta was the first to speak up. “I think this makes her… one of us. Doesn’t it?”
“But she isn’t an engine.” Gordon countered.
“I don’t think that matters - she’s their daughter now, just like how all of us are… whatever it is we are.” She said slowly. “So by that logic, she’s with us.”
“What do you mean ‘whatever it is we are’?” Gordon asked. “What is that supposed to imply?”
“At the risk of sounding sappy,” Delta said, surveying the shed and the engines within it. “But I don’t think any of us are merely friends anymore.”
James, Henry, and Bear all looked slightly bashful at that, while Gordon quietly harrumphed at the diesel’s words.
“I suppose that’s more correct than I would normally admit…” He said quietly.
-
A few weeks later - Tidmouth Station
“Ah, and finally for the new girl,” Fred the dispatcher said. “For her first real outing on the main line, she gets the 1B03.”
A set of knowing cheers rose from the staff room’s occupants as the new girl - Siobhan - perked up. She’d been firing on the Little Western for a few years now, and probably thought she was pretty damned good if her performance reviews were any indication.
But this was the main line, not the branches, and so a little hazing was to be had at her expense. Gordon didn’t suffer fools or new hires gladly, and everyone in this room had at least one bad experience from working on his footplate. It was time for the new girl to be taken down a peg or three.
Clive, one of Gordon’s usual drivers, almost felt bad for her, but in the past few weeks she’d become almost swanky, waltzing about the station smiling like she’d just won the lottery, and was becoming entirely too chummy with the Little Western engines for anyone’s liking.
To use an old phrase: It wasn’t wrong, but you just didn’t do it. At least, not with the big engines - those nutters on the branch lines can do whatever they want, but if she wants to work out here… having her deal with Gordon will sort that right quick.
The two made their way out to Platform 2, where Gordon was already waiting with the train. The yard crew had already built his fire and oiled him up, so all that they needed to do was drive him away. Siobhan, youthfully perky even at Quarter To Seven In The Morning, totally missed the sympathetic glances the yard crew sent her way as they formally “handed over” Gordon and his train to Clive.
Once he’d dropped his bag in the cab, Clive walked himself to the front - it was good practice to speak with Gordon, so everything would be coordinated between the crew and engine for the upcoming-
“-and then, Henry says, ‘what if the Great Western Way is the wrong way?’ an’ I don’ think Duck or Ollie said a word for over an ‘our! They looked like they got hit wit’ a sleeper!”
“It cannot be that simple to make them stop!”
“Aye it was!”
The new girl was talking to Gordon like they were old friends. Clive hadn’t even noticed her go up to the front of the train, and yet here she was. “Ahem.” He cleared his throat.
“Oh,” Gordon said, his expression immediately cooling once he saw Clive. “I suppose we must be off soon.”
“Aye.” Siobhan agreed, scampering off to the cab before Clive could get a word out. “I’ll get the fire goin’ jus’ the way ye like it Gordon!” She said as she departed.
Gordon sent one last smile her way - “I trust that you will!” - before he again acknowledged Clive. “I trust that you have everything in order?”
Clive wanted to ask about that interaction, but held his tongue. “Yeah. There’s a speed restriction around Cronk station but otherwise we should be fine…”
-
Later - Barrow Station
The run went fine, and Clive couldn’t believe it.
It wasn’t that the new girl hadn’t fouled up - she had, at multiple points - but it was what happened afterwards that was confusing: Gordon had reacted calmly. When she made a mistake, he told her what she’d done, and how to fix it.
The engine hadn’t shouted, or yelled, or told her that she was being stupid once. As they’d pulled into Crovan’s Gate, Clive had actually hopped out of the cab and gave the big engine a once-over, just to make sure he was feeling all right.
Gordon had growled at him when he did that, so he was clearly feeling fine.
Arriving at Barrow, Clive did the reverse of what he did at the start of the run, and handed Gordon and the coaches over to the station staff. Without looking back, he made his way to the station’s break room. He made it most of the way through a cup of coffee before he realized that the new girl wasn’t with him.
He made it most of the way back to the platforms before he found her again. The station crew had moved Gordon to one of the bay platforms - he enjoyed sunning himself there between runs - and there the new girl was, sitting on his bufferbeam with a packet of crisps and a bottle of Irn Bru and laughing at some joke he’d made.
-
“That bad, eh?” Geoff, the Barrow station master, looked up as Clive stormed into the staff office. The Tidmouth crews had an unfortunate tendency to harass their new recruits by giving them difficult or otherwise “uncomfortable” jobs in the first few weeks. They never seemed to catch on that if the new hires were having a bad day, their day would be just as bad - the engines, Gordon especially, were firm believers in the phrase “the more, the miserable”.
Clive growled something unintelligible and disappeared into the loo without another word. Rolling his eyes at his co-worker’s ineptitude, Geoff went back to his paperwork.
A few minutes later, the door to the staff office opened up once again. The new girl - Siobhan, if he remembered her name correctly - walked in, a purposeful look on her face. “Hiya - have ye got any of the good polish? Not the shite that smells like old socks.”
“For your boots?” Geoff said slowly.
“Nae - engine polish!”
“Supply closet off the waiting room.”
“Thanks!” She disappeared out of the staff room as quickly as she’d appeared. Geoff watched through the open door as she ransacked the closet for first the polish, then what appeared to be every clean rag she could find, before making haste towards platform three.
That was enough to push the man’s eyebrows into his hairline, and he set his paperwork aside for a moment. Making his way into the waiting room and the doors to platform three, he found Siobhan animatedly polishing Gordon’s bufferbeam while making idle talk.
“Down to the left a little - there you go.” Gordon said encouragingly(!) “I dare say that if you stick with this for a few weeks, you’ll be downright competent!”
“How encouraging.” Siobhan replied cheekily.
“Oh don’t be like that - I’ve known James for almost my entire life and I’ve never seen him be competent at anything. You’re already well ahead of him!”
They continued talking as Geoff shut the door to the platform and went back to his paperwork. Seems like it went very well. I wonder what Clive was on about?
“I’m not certain I follow you there, at the end.” Richard said, trying to quell his instinctive and totally impotent anger at long-retired men and their hazing practices.
“Sir,” Gordon said quietly. “I was built at a time when engines were seen and not heard. Even then, in the nineteen eighties, I would never consider being ‘close’ with any of my crews beyond basic pleasantries.”
“So what made Siobhan so special?”
“She’s…” Gordon seemed at a genuine loss for words. “She’s not… a person, to us. A person is, for lack of better term, not someone that we associate with. Not like that.”
“You speak with me just fine.”
Gordon fixed him with a profound stare. “Times have changed, and even if they haven’t, you are going to be our Controller some day. The difference between you and an ordinary person is so vast as to be almost insurmountable.”
Richard wanted to diffuse the suddenly-heavy atmosphere with a joke about him not being a person, but refrained - Gordon was being deathly serious. “And Siobhan is like that?”
“No sir, not at all. She’s… take that diesel - Fendt. He is not one of us - not of this railway - but we still welcomed him into our shed, because he is an engine. In that sense, he is one of us - in the truest possible way. What he said, when he spoke of steel, is like that phrase some people say: “We are all human”, except not…”
He trailed off, trying to find the correct way to phrase it.
“Except Fendt wasn’t talking about humans, was he?” Richard finished. The air between them felt as heavy as it ever had. It felt like he was learning things that were not to be known by man.
“No, he was not.” Gordon paused again. “If… I were blind, and I met Siobhan for the first time… I would not imagine a person.”
“You’d imagine an engine.”
“Yes. Yes I would.”
"But you said she wasn't, before."
"Yes, but that was before..." Gordon trailed off, unable to explain it. "She wasn't, but now she is."
“Does she know?”
“No.” The atmosphere shifted again, and the air between the two became a bit lighter. “What would I tell her? I can barely tell you, and you seem to have a better grasp of this than anyone I have ever met, human or engine.” The big engine looked wistful for a moment. “I would love to tell her - to let her know what she means, but I cannot even find the words. I know that she knows how highly we all regard her, and that will have to be enough.”
That seemed to be the end of things, and just a few minutes later the breakdown gang arrived to try and free the derailed van. The mail had been re-loaded into the other vans, and Gordon steamed away to the mainland shortly thereafter, leaving Richard deep in thought on the platform.
--------
For many years, Richard thought about that day. Unlike some of the other revelations he’d been forced to have while working for the railway, this one didn’t force him to reach for a bottle - at least, not to the point of total drunkenness.
A measure of Port, or a glass of Sherry seemed to give him the greatest clarity on the topic, and he didn’t like the conclusion he came to:
It didn’t mean anything.
It was just one of the many facets of life: Siobhan was an engine - or at least the engines themselves thought so. It made no sense, but so few things did any more.
But it still didn’t settle well with Richard. The world might work that way, but Sodor didn’t. Pride cometh before a fall, love bloomed even where it was thought impossible, and every story had an ending. The fact that he didn’t know what the ending of this story was, or his role in it, sat like a weight in his stomach, coming back into full bloom every now and again:
When Tornado and Osprey had arrived on Sodor for the first time, they’d both greeted Siobhan with the same respect as Richard and his father. Richard had thought that maybe he was wrong, and it was all nothing, but when Siobhan had mentioned that she’d been born in Glasgow, Osprey had said: “Ah, you’re from St. Rollox!” as though that had explained something.
When Daphne (and that was another mystery right there) had ‘arrived’ on Sodor, she greeted Siobhan like an old friend.
When his father spent the last few days before his retirement arranging the purchase of a new locomotive, Richard had somewhat dreaded the arrival, and their inevitable immediate acceptance of Siobhan. When the ‘new’ engine turned out to be Fendt, his worries were not eased at all, as the diesel outright refused to acknowledge her as anything but an engine.
Still, the story hadn’t reached an end. There were more engines, more coaches, and more trucks, but still Siobhan was there - never changing, just getting older.
Eventually, one night in the late 2040’s, Richard came to a new conclusion.
Never changing, just getting older.
Just like an engine.
But what happens when she gets too old?
The glass of port was set down on the desk with a thud. Within a few minutes, the ice inside of it had caused a ring of condensation to form on the documents below it - the acceptance documents for a new diesel locomotive that was arriving in the morning.
The glass of port remained there, forgotten, until Richard’s housekeeper cleaned it up in the morning.
Richard slept fitfully, his mind swirling with incomprehensible possibilities of a future that he wasn’t sure he wanted to consider. A song stuck in his head - an old tune, from one of the various television shows that had been set on the Island, back when television had been a dominant market force. His children had watched it when they were young.
“If only I could be an engine too…”
He wasn’t sure how… but it seemed like this story was about to come to an end.
-
Tidmouth Sheds - 2049
The building had been rebuilt and enlarged several times since its original construction - it was bigger, and roomier, with space for many more engines than the railway possessed. It wasn’t a ‘roundhouse’ any more, instead its shape was more of a rectangle, with a rotating transfer table accessing many tracks.
The building was usually abuzz with voices and noises at all hours of the day - the nights were usually quieter.
At this moment, as the four engines were driven into the shed, a pindrop would have sounded like a gunshot.
“Hey, everyone.” Siobhan said in an impossibly small voice, letting out steam in embarrassment as she became aware that every eye in the building was on her. “Ah suppose Ah’m not retired anymore, eh?”
Gordon, seemingly the only engine whose jaw wasn’t on their bufferbeam, took a moment to look her over. “Well, I must admit that this is unexpected, but not at all unwelcome.” A broad toothy grin spread across his face, threatening to split his smokebox in half. “Not that you could ever be unwelcome here, Siobhan. Welcome home.”
This statement settled over the building, convincing many of the other engines that, no, their eyes were not deceiving them, and then the shed exploded into noise.
