Traintober25 Day 25 Unsaid
Day 25-Plinth
Other Stories
Other Days
There's been an accident.
The news spread up and down the line, slowly at first, then like wildfire.
In the years to come things wouldn't be said.
It wouldn't be said how the news came from solemn trucks, pulled by a shaken engine. Every engine was immediately on edge. Trucks loved accidents, for them to be so grim…
Years later when pieces of scrap from the accident were placed upon a stone slap to memorialize the accident, Tidmouth’s desperate run to the nearest signalbox was left out.
When the good Reverend retold the stories years later, he left out how every signal on the line dropped to danger almost as one.
It was left unsaid how the fastest engine was being readied for the run when the No.1 came sliding into the yard, fast enough they barely cleared the points before derailing. Cutting off the yard master's demands of ‘just what do you think you're doing!?’ with a desperate plea of just one word through shining golden tears.
RUN
It was never told how the workmen dove from the express engine without being told, how the pacific started with a roar, racing into the night.
Stanier never told how Sir Topham Hatt had called him in the middle of the night on bended knees, begging for someone, anyone to try to save his engine. He only told his bosses he owed Hatt a favor from their Swindon days.
It's never said who holds the record for the fastest climb up the Marion Incline, how it wasn't by any express before or since, but by a desperate Pacific.
Hatt's words to Henry at the scene of the accident are said in the books, but never that Hatt was on his knees again in the snow as Henry’s face flickered and faded.
The LMS never told how a southbound express pulled by one of their brand new Princess Royals was passed by a Gresley Pacific hauling a wreck on a flatbed in the morning light, the younger Pacific being quickly left behind despite their best efforts. They never said it inspired their rebuild of said Gresley four years later.
It was never said how the No.4’s valve gear was never the same after this run. That his desperate run was far faster than it had been built for.
Sir Charles Hatt would admit he had been unsure of following in his father's footsteps when he was younger, even as he took an apprenticeship at Crewe under his father's old friend Stanier.
He never said the sight of his engine racing into Crewe Works behind Gordon, battered, bent, and fading on a flatbed, was what had convinced him.
It was never said that the engines surrounded Tidmouth during the No.4s desperate run, the railway brought to a standstill as they pleaded with the Lady to grant him speed, to spare their No.3.
Lady Hatt never said she held her husband as he fell apart that night for his white elephant.
It was never said that a young Charles Hatt worked around the clock to save his engine. Such a thing would be against regulations.
It was never said word spread through the LMS engines, of a desperate race against time, of the first Pacific racing death itself along their rails. It was said the LMS coveted the North Western, that they believed it should have been theirs by right. It was never said this meant the LMS engines considered the stricken engine as one of their own, that prayers to the Lady spread across Midland metals.
It was never said the Princess Royal told the Greselys in London of their brother's flight. It was never said the timings for the LNER trains were shattered in the days to come, the Pacifics of the North Eastern making their offerings of speed to the Lady so that their brother's effort would not be in vain.
It was never said that Gresley drew a copy of stolen blueprints from long ago from memory, that Silver Link himself was sent thundering towards Crewe with plans.
Stanier was not a sentimental man towards his engines. That did not mean he was uncaring, or unmoved. It was not said that his genius and guile, bolstered by the faith of his engines, forged a miracle.
It was never said the Lady heard the engines prayers, or that she guided the hands that reshaped iron and steel, to turn wreckage into living metal.
It was never said that the enginemen, bound to their steeds of iron as they were, turned to their God as their engines had turned to their Lady.
It was never said the trucks of the North Western held a watch for those lost in the accident, more at once than had been destroyed since the war, for trucks are said by many a railway man to be faithless things. It was not said they asked Caomhnóir to stand before the Lady for their fallen kin.
It was never said the sparks from the hammers and axes of Crewe shone with Golden light as they worked, that the air grew heavy with what was wrought.
None of this was said.
That didn't change the truth of it.
A/N: Hello Loves! *Cackles* I've been waiting for a *month* to post this. Love Y'all!