Young Thomas 'Tommy' McColl awoke with bright eyes. His alarm had yet to even go off, and yet the young boy was already out of bed, sprinting around the room.
"Today's the day!" he cheered softly, staring out the window at the lazily rising sun. His father was already out in the fields, tending to the cows with their loyal Border Collie Katie, leaving Tommy to rush about inside, preparing his bag.
"Today's the day!" Tommy cheered again, leaping down the stairs three at a time as he raced into the kitchen. His elder sister had yet to rise, deep in the grips of what his father called 'the curse of teenagedom' - apparently, it just meant that Susie spent most of her mornings sleeping in and most of her evenings texting on her phone, not that Tommy really understood it.
Still! Today was the day!
Farmer McColl and Katie wandered back on in, the morning's duties completed. They brought with them the chill of the dawn air, making the young boy shiver a little, but he didn't mind.
"Today's the day!" he cheered.
"Good morning to you too, Tommy," chuckled Farmer McColl, leaning in to hug his young son. Katie twirled around Tommy's feet, trying her best to trip him up as she wagged her tail. "How did you sleep?"
"That doesn't matter!" groaned Tommy, flopping into a chair at the dining table. "The field trip's today! We're gonna meet the really old engine!"
Farmer McColl chuckled again, already rounded the kitchen bench to reach the stove.
"Then you'll need a special big breakfast - how does a nice Fry-Up sound?" Tommy's eyes went wide with excitement.
"Really dad? You never make a Fry-Up! Thank you thank you thank you!" Tommy rushed to hug his dad before sprinting upstairs to get dressed.
Farmer McColl was very proud of his produce - the eggs, bacon, and even tomatoes that were stocked in the local markets all came from his farm, not to mention the milk that Daisy took down to the dairy when she felt like it. His Fry-Ups were the freshest on the branchline, and Farmer Trotter could suck a lemon.
With breakfast served, Tommy dashed out the front door and down towards the bus stop, speeding away from his father as he played with the dog on the long dirt track that led down to the main road.
Tommy had been excited about his school's Big Day Out for weeks! They were going to go on a special excursion train behind a really old engine and learn a bit about the island's history. He was even more excited when he saw all his friends on the school bus, practically tripping up the stairs as he clambered aboard, waving goodbye to his father.
The Knapford Public School served all the villages along Thomas' branchline, and both the railway and the local bus company put on free rides for the children so they could get to class. The school itself was barely a stone's throw from the station, so it was all too easy for the teachers to corral the kids into two uneven lines and get them down to the station.
There, a very special excursion train was awaiting them. Bloomer the very old engine, with his big, bushy moustache and boyish grin welcomed the children.
"Hello boys and girls! Step back in time, and let me take you on a grand journey to see how Sodor used to be!"
The children all excitedly boarded the train, Tommy getting very lucky and managing to snag a seat in the coach right behind Bloomer! The train started swiftly, and soon they were puffing through the countryside, though not too fast. Bloomer was a very old engine, after all. Gordon roared by on the next track over, while the Caledonian twins huffed by with a heavy freight train in the other direction.
On board, a group of tour guides explained the history of Sodor's railways over the carriages' loudspeakers. How engines like Neil had built the railway, and how the oldest engines on Sodor - Skarloey, Rheneas and Duke - all lived on the Skarloey Railway except for Neil, who loved to shunt at Crovan's Gate Works.
The tour stopped at Crovan's Gate so the children could go on a tour of the works and go to see the narrow gauge engines. Tommy hung back a little.
"Mister Bloomer, why didn't the guides say you were one of Sodor's oldest engines?" he asked, gazing up at the very old engine. Bloomer chuckled - it sounded a lot like the way Tommy's grandfather chuckled, with a low, slow, deep laugh. Tommy wondered if all old grandfathers laughed the same way.
"Oh young fellow, you don't need to call me Mister Bloomer!" Bloomer said, beaming. Tommy stared, amazed. He had never spoken to an engine before - his father sometimes talked to the engines, but he'd never had the courage.
"I'm not considered one of Sodor's oldest engines cause I didn't come to Sodor until recently," Bloomer explained. "They found me in a shed on the mainland - I'd been there for decades! Nearly a century, they told me. So they brought me back to be completely overhauled. I'm a little older than Neil though - not that I'll ever let him forget it!"
Tommy listened intently, then smiled up at Bloomer. "Thank you for telling me!" the young boy chirped, and he scrambled away to join his classmates. Bloomer watched the young boy go, a content smile on his old, wizened face.
"The young uns are alright," he mused.
"Of course they are!" laughed Skarloey from the next line over. "We taught em!"
Tommy had a wonderful day out - they toured the works, meeting a small railway engine named Jock, who was in for a service, as well as a large diesel named Bear, who was being repainted. They learnt about how the mechanics, engineers, boilermakers and everyone else int he works had to collaborate in order to get jobs done, and even saw a demonstration on how a metalworker hammered a huge piece of steel into shape to be used for a handrail.
"It's very important to understand that there's a special culture here at the works," the demonstrator said. "For example, we all have nicknames for each other - mine's Wee Tam, cause I'm the shortest in my unit."
"What're some other nicknames?" asked one of Tommy's classmates loudly. 'Wee Tam' blushed a very interesting shade of red - Tommy saw some of the farmhands blush like that when they were talking about 'adult things' behind the barn!
"Is it like how one of the farmhands on my farm is called Mr Juicy?" asked Tommy innocently. 'Wee Tam' choked - weird, she hadn't been eating.
"Ooooo! I like that!" chirped one of his classmates. The teachers all looked like they were blushing too.
After that, the guides hurriedly brushed over the history section of the tour. Bear did his best not to howl with laughter in the background.
After that, the children all ate lunch in the little cafe next to the Skarloey Railway platforms, watching as engines from both railways came and went.
Finally, Duke puffed in. Tommy slipped outside, and walked over.
"Hello, Mister Duke! I'm Tommy, and my class is looking at the history of railways on Sodor on our excursion. Can I ask some questions, please?"
The old engine looked over, and smiled softly.
"Of course - what can I help with?"
Tommy beamed, and sat down right on the edge of the platform, leaning on Duke's bufferbeam. Duke stared in shock.
"Well, I wanted to know what Sodor was like when you arrived!"
Duke bit back the reprimand that was on the tip of his tongue, instead considering the question.
"It was very different - for one thing, we had none of this modern technology. We didn't even have radios - and I hear only the big cities of Crovan's Gate and Suddery had gotten an early telegraph. We certainly didn't up in Arlesburgh until the mid 1880s. Everyone also dressed differently - people liked to dress up for church every Sunday, and they wore proper coats all the time."
Duke paused, dredging up ancient memories from way back when he'd first arrived on Sodor.
"I was the only engine on my railway," he said eventually. "I pulled all the coaches and trucks, shunted all the trains. I had to know the railway very well, and I worked very hard. Engines these days are lucky - they have each other to lean on. It's not fun being alone, it's always better working with others. I was alone for many years, and I would never wish that on anyone - always do your best to make friends, young one."
At that moment, Duke's driver strode up, and stopped to stare at the casual way Tommy was leaning on Duke.
"Hullo there, young fellow! You can't sit there - it's not safe! You'd best be back to your teachers now, they'll be looking for you soon!" Tommy hopped up, and beamed at Duke.
"Thank you for telling me about what Sodor was like when you arrived, Mister Duke! Have a good day!"
Tommy jogged away back towards his school group, leaving Duke and his driver behind. The old engine waited until Tommy was out of earshot before sighing.
"I can only hope I said the right thing," he murmured softly. "But it's such an important thing." His driver smiled.
"If you think it's important, than it was the right thing to say," he replied.
Tommy greatly enjoyed the rest of his day - the teachers rounded them up and got them back on the train, and Bloomer the antique engine took them safely back to the Junction. There, the children went back to their classrooms to wait for the bell, all chatting excitedly about their big school excursion.
"I hope we go back next year!" beamed Tommy. "I want to talk to all the engines!"
"But we could go to the zoo next year!" moaned one of his classmates. "I want to see the zebras, not talk to stuffy old trains."
Tommy huffed, thinking stinky animals were not all that exciting once you'd lived with a heap of them for years on end. Zebras were just multicoloured horses to him, after all! But the engines - they had stories, and they loved to share them.
At the end of the day, Tommy met his father at the gate, and the two slowly made their way back up the track to the farmhouse.
"How was your big day out?" asked Farmer McColl. Tommy beamed, and told his father his story.
Bloomer hated traveling through Maithwaite Forest, even during the daytime. Percy had agreed with him that there was something off about the place, but then Percy never seemed to have trouble passing through there.
The old red engine, however, was a different case.
The animals in the trees, the branches reaching menacingly towards him, the taunting, babbling creeks, it all overwhelmed him.
Most of all, it reminded him of an old wooden shack. The faint sensations of cobwebs growing along his boiler. The dull numbness as his axles rusted. The occasional chill as gusts of wind snuck in despite the shed he’d sat in.
He had since been restored, and was in full working order, but passing through dense woodlands like these brought his mind back to where he’d sat dormant, languishing most of his life away, waiting to either be accidentally found and scrapped, or for nature to overcome him completely.
His speed increased. His wheels turned faster.
“Whoa there, old boy!” Called his driver.
But the driver went ignored. Bloomer raced forward, desperate to escape the forest, and the memories it seemed to love dredging up.
Time’s Time: Time for Thomas (don’t interrupt him) & Time for Stelle (interrupt me ASAP)
* now, i once had a lovely introduction to this post. i did, honest. it discussed how twitter has gotten worse and worse, and how if things went well i will do my best to post more thomas stuff here, and even briefly mentioned what this post is actually about. . .
* then firefox crashed.
* being new to tumblr, i had not saved a draft of my post. in fact, i found out you could save drafts mere minutes before firefox crashed. i thought to myself “wow! what a nifty feature!”, and then proceeded to not save it. this almost happened twice actually. i managed to save it the second time thankfully. i’m still livid though.
* thank you stelle, you are a really useless idiot.
* therefore, we’re not going to have that nice introduction. the only things you need to know from that post is that you can find me on Twitter (@DemonOfNowhere) for more of my usual infodumping, and that i’ve ditched my usual typing quirks in favour of making this post readable for you all. let’s get straight to the point instead.
* greetings, i’m stelle, demon of nowhere (name change pending?), and it is unfortunately time for thomas.
Doesn’t it feel strange to see me type normally? With dignity? With even the slightest amount of respect for myself? Err, ahem, I mean... Thomas! I love Thomas. I love the ending of “Stepney’s Special” for Thomas.
Thomas tries very hard to maintain a very professional profile on his branch line. It’s likely something he picked up from Gordon, if his attempts to imitate him whilst he was younger are anything to go by (note “Thomas’ Train”). If you get in Thomas’s way, he kicks up such a fuss and holds it against you until either one of your gets a taste of Sudrian karma (”you” being Percy in this situation, usually). This all means that when Thomas is shunted to allow Stepney, a newcomer, fly past him with one measely coach while Thomas, Annie, Clarabel and their passengers crossly wait for him to pass, Thomas gets cross.
Really cross. Super cross. He holds it against Stepney and is still fuming by the time the next morning arrives.
Thomas spoils the effect of it very quickly though. Of course he does, he’s Thomas and he’s stupid. All Stepney had to do was give one compliment and next thing he knew, Thomas was telling him EVERYTHING about his branch like an eight-year-old telling their parent all about their cool new toy they got (don’t let Mattel hear about this). Stepney calls Thomas an expert once, and away Thomas goes, not only to stroke his own ego a little, but also just because he’s too happy to ramble about his prized branch line (which Percy and Toby clearly think is hilarious, based on the illustration...). He’s a bit like me in that sense; we like to ramble about things no one cares about, but we can’t stop ourselves. Please help me.
One of my favourite parts of this exchange is the following line:
“Ah well,” said Thomas modestly.
“Modestly” is the funniest words ever used to describe Thomas the Tank Engine. You and I of course both know that, despite his good heart, he is anything but modest.
Now, there’s something else I’d like to talk about here too. If you’ve read my ramblings before, you know that I cannot type for five seconds without bringing up something else that I didn’t mean to bring up but brought up anyway. I’m silly like that.
If Thomas got mad at Stepney for interrupting his branch line’s timetable once...
...How would he feel about having a whole train that has to do everything in its power to NOT interrupt the usual services?
In notes of Ffarquhar’s layout, the land cruise enthusaist train is noted to be scheduled in-between regular services, and mustn’t disrupt traffic. This is implied to be more difficult than it ought to be, partially because rail enthusiasts are rail enthusiasts and getting them back into the coaches is a miserable experience for the station’s secretary, and partially due to shunting arrangements at Ffarquhar that are absolutely mind-boggling (a document I wrote up of Ffarquhar’s timetable, according to the Awdry DVD, can be found here!).
The moment the Bloomer, or whoever the enthusiasts’ engine happens to be, arrives, he has to square his fancy saloon coaches away to make room for Thomas, Annie and Clarabel’s next down service.
So, imagine for me, what happens when Bloomer indulges the enthusiasts’ interest in him at the platform for a little too long, only for Thomas with his grumpy little face to huff into the station yard and start angrily shouting at Bloomer to Get Out Of His Way Or Else The Fat Controller Will Find Out And You Will Regret That.
Now, we of course know little of Bloomer, but I’ve always thought of him not quite as an old grandpa, but rather a showman who takes a lot of pride in his theatrics on a railway filled mainly of engines still in regular service. Bloomer doesn’t get to appear publicly very often, but when he does, he’s going to make it worthwhile. He’s going to bask in the spotlight for as long as he can, impressing everyone who is lucky enough to draw eyes on him, and he’s certainly no pushover. If Bloomer wants to spend time talking to the enthusiasts about his past life (though he has to keep SOME secrets, of course. Part of the act, a bit of mystery is always fun), then he’s going to spend as much time as he can doing just that -- which he always does.
This drives Thomas insane. A WHOLE TRAIN THAT COULD THROW ALL OF HIS TIMETABLE, ALL THAT HE’S WORKED FOR, OUT THE WINDOW SO EASILY? WHAT. The poor guy. He and Bloomer would be the ultimate enemies, egomanaics for different reasons that will forever butt heads while the other Ffarquhar engines would wish they’d just shut up for two seconds.
He cheerfully and dutifully shunts Annie and Clarabel along from the carriage shed... then he sees Bloomer’s ugly mug taking up the platform.
“YOU,” Thomas hissed, grounding to a halt, “YOU’RE not supposed to be here.”
“Ah,” Bloomer smiled sweetly, “Thomas my boy, I most certainly belong here. It’s part of my act for me to be right here, right now. ‘Tis merely part of my script.”
“Right now!?” scoffed Thomas, as Annie and Clarabel chattered quietly behind, “Right now, you and your ugly great houses on wheels are meant to be by the cattle dock! Never mind your ‘act’, my Timetable is much more important! You always talk such nonsense.”
“And you always talk ever so much, yet say very little,” mused Bloomer, “A script would do you well, improv is clearly not your strong suit, Thomas my darling. For such a famous little engine, you never seem to respect the life of a shining star. What a waste, what a waste. We Enthusiast Engines have far more than timetables to worry about, boy; we have fans to please.”
Thomas wanted to retort, but was interrupted by a shrill, long blast of Bloomer’s whistle.
“I hope you all enjoyed the first part of the show!” Bloomer called to his passengers, as he began to back away, “We shall return after our intermission, and I have no doubt you shall all be there to witness the Grand Finale of today’s display! Make sure to be there at 6 o’clock sharp. After all, Time’s Time.”
Bloomer winked in Thomas’s direction. Thomas’s face was redder than Bloomer’s paint, and he had practically vanished behind a thick cloud of steam.
“What a horrid engine!” he grumbled to Annie and Clarabel when he finally made it to the platform, “He thinks the whole railway revolves about him, and expects everyone to work at HIS pace! The shame of it, the shame of it...”
Annie and Clarabel really thought it all rather ironic.
This is all made funnier by the fact that once the enthusiasts’ train leaves Ffarquhar for the junction, it crosses Thomas with Annie and Clarabel going up the line at Elsbridge. Thomas has yet another chance to start bickering with Bloomer, especially when the Ffarquhar secretary likely couldn’t get the stragglers into Bloomer’s coaches in time (and Bloomer of course didn’t help her one bit). Their next rowl shall be exciting stuff for all involved -- except Annie and Clarabel, who have tried reasoning with Thomas the whole time, but haven’t quite been able to get through to their stubborn engine.
Now, realistically, I had planned to do a bit more talking rather than writing a whole scene. However, much like Thomas, improv isn’t my strong suit, and I hadn’t at first planned for this to be a Bloomer discussion, and perhaps this has gone on for long enough. Whoops!
What have we learnt today? Well, personally, I’ve learnt that I probably need to get the hang of writing these posts. This probably hasn’t worked out super well. Those of you who are more familar with this site are probably cringing so hard at me right now, and you’re entirely right to do so. For shame, me, for shame...
Usually, I like to round these off with a nice, poetic conclusion about what we’ve discussed today... but really I didn’t know that this post was going in the direction it went into. I mainly wrote this to get my foot in the door and finally post something of substance here. Apparently my second to most popular post here is talking about how fucking funny Terence the Tractor here. Can we change that please? Terence the Tractor is funny but... I can do better than that...
Well, no, no I can’t.
...
You know, I meant to start using my typing quirks again at the end of the post.
But now we’re here, and it doesn’t feel right for me to start using them.
As Duke undergoes a restoration/rebuild at Crovan’s Gate Works following his 1969 rescue, I like to think his granchuffs visit him when they can, as well as the other SR engines. But they can’t always be there. And after years of isolation, I think Duke could be a bit sensitive to this. What if he’s feeling a little lonely?
What if a certain LNWR Large Bloomer class engine, rescued in the early ‘70s, arrives for his own restoration?
We don’t know the exact date of Bloomer’s rescue, but “early ‘70s” doesn’t rule out 1971 or 1972. And since Duke was in his shed for 22 years, I think his restoration could take a year or more. The timelines match up well enough for this to be feasible, in my opinion.
And feasibility aside, I think this idea is fun. I like to imagine Bloomer as someone who talks your ear off at the market, but also helps you haggle better prices with a wink and a smile. That sort of personality rubbing up against Duke could make for interesting interactions.
The way I see it, Duke is a little overwhelmed by his sudden re-exposure to the world. He’s still himself, but a bit more withdrawn. He’s trying to take it all in, trying to catch up in peace and quiet. And then Bloomer shows up.
(Sir Handel stops by, only to find Bloomer rambling about the weather. He retreats before Duke’s glazed-over stare turns to him.)
Once Duke recovers from his Bloomer-sized jolt, he grows annoyed. He almost snaps at Bloomer. In addition, he hasn’t been around an engine close to his age since his early MSR days. Mentoring comes easily to Duke, but he’s unsure and even a little afraid here.
But as they spend more time together, Duke realizes that Bloomer is also overwhelmed. He’s talking so much because he’s trying to push past his own feelings of disorientation and falling behind. He too is craving company, an equal peer and friend, after years of isolation. He was in a shed for even longer than 22 years.
So Duke softens towards Bloomer, beginning to engage with him. (At least, when he can get in a word edgewise.) He offers stories from his old railway and they discuss “the old days.” He finds they have a similar sense of humor, laughing with him over their little practical jokes on younger engines.
The two prove to be — despite the betting pool among the repair crews — balancing influences. Duke allows himself to befriend (not mentor or parent, but befriend) engines of his age and experience. Bloomer finds he doesn’t have to rush things, that he can live at a slower pace and not miss out on life.
Duke’s restoration is complete before Bloomer’s, but he makes a point of visiting Bloomer when he can. In turn, Bloomer writes to him once he’s taking his easygoing special trains, sending his correspondence on the most outlandish postcards he can find.
They get connecting trains with each other every now and then, happy to chat and tease the uppity young engines around them.
(Sir Handel doesn’t notice Peter Sam’s frantic cutting looks, nor the shadow falling over him. “And what good is that old dawdler, anyways? I say he’s corrupting Grandpuff.”
“Nah,” Bloomer says on the other side of the platform.
He jumps, jolting back on his rails. “What — but you’re supposed—”
“To not be here? Some of us endeavor to arrive early when we can,” Duke says, right behind him. “You should try it sometime.”
Sir Handel shoots forward with a strangled yelp.
“Ah, Duke! Thanks for your tips on this part of the island. It was a grand help.”
“It was the least I could to repay your advice about quiet running.”
Peter Sam chokes back a laugh, looking as though he’s trying to hold a frog in his mouth.)
So, this is the long one. There always has to be one. I hope this is the only one. As a note, this isn't horror, per se, but rather ominous dread at the most. At time of writing everyone reading this has lived through These Times. We all know what's coming.
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As a housekeeping note - this story relies upon a lot of stuff I've previously written or it won't make much, if any, sense. I've tried to link everything in the first place it's mentioned. Please let me know if you're confused at any point.
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This is also a very long story, with explanatory paragraphs that sometimes become Very Dense. I also wrote it exclusively between the hours of 11:00 PM and 4:00 AM over two consecutive nights. (A bad decision on my part - don't do that.) Please bear with me if there are any glaring errors - I did check this over but I'm not omniscient.
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Summary - An ill wind blows from the East, and Sodor prepares for the oncoming storm.
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Mid February - Tidmouth
“-and you’re sure that this isn’t an engine that British Rail… missed? Your father didn’t shove her behind a shed or something?” The insurance agent said, looking over his papers at Stephen. “Engines don’t appear from nowhere.”
“Tony, as much as I would like to believe you, in this case she did.” Stephen said seriously. “There are records of her being scrapped.”
“So you’ve showed me.” The agent was from Lloyds of London, and was used to people trying to ‘finesse’ their way out of a claim, but everything that he’d seen so far, and his many previous experiences with the NWR, was making this far more believable than he was comfortable with. “So I take it you didn’t pay for this engine?”
“No.”
“Of course. Do you have any idea of what something like Daphne would be valued at?”
A few papers were shuffled, and Stephen’s notepad emerged from the clutter on the desk. “I have tried to purchase several Deltics over the years. Depending on whether you wish to base the valuation on Alycidon, Tulyar, or Royal Scot’s Grey and Gordon Highlander together, Daphne is worth somewhere between fifteen million pounds, thirty million pounds, or, and I will quote directly here: ‘absolutely priceless, I will never sell either of them.’” He ran his finger down the paper. “He sold the two of them less than a month after I inquired. Everyone seems to think Jeremy Hoskings is a better owner than I am, to my continued bafflement.”
There was a snort from the insurance agent, followed by a sigh. “My department manager knows Hoskings. We’ll confirm the valuation with him, but for right now I’ll leave it at… twelve?”
“That sounds appropriate,” Stephen said, pleased that he’d come to more or less the same valuation before the meeting. “Is there anything else you need from us right now?”
“No, I can’t think of anything else at the moment.”
“Well then Mr. Kwon, we are done for now. You must excuse me for leaving so quickly, but my attention is needed all over the island. You do know your way out?”
“Yeah…” The insurance agent said, suddenly engrossed in his phone, papers half in his briefcase. “Excuse me.” He said, suddenly shoving everything into his case before bolting for the door. Stephen and his secretary watched as the man receded down the hallway, speaking rapidly into his cell phone in an unknown language.
“What was that all about?” His secretary asked, watching as the man vanished around the corner.
“I don’t know.” Stephen said as he shrugged into his overcoat. “Hopefully nothing.”
--
As it turns out, it wasn’t nothing. Stephen had a meeting with the Barrow City Council, and was making his way to the first class compartments of the Limited when he came across Tony Kwon in a coach vestibule. He was still talking into his phone, the language foreign but the tone urgent. He paid Stephen no mind, but when Stephen eventually reached his seat, he found the Insurance Agent’s case and coat sitting in the seat opposite his.
The train was almost to Kildane when Kwon eventually came back, his face flushed. “Is everything all right?” Stephen asked, concerned.
“No.” The man all but collapsed into the seat, as if the life had been drained from him. “My brother… he works for Toyota, in Yokohama. Last week he went out to China for a conference, and now fifteen of the people he went with have come down with this… strange pneumonia.” He tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling of the coach. “He’s a hypochondriac, so between that and the cruise ship I’m having to talk him off a ledge - metaphorically, of course.”
‘My goodness.” Stephen had no idea what to say to that, and offered some brief consoling words.
“Thanks, but there’s nothing you can do about this.” Tony blew out a breath resignedly. “Fuck, there’s nothing I can do.”
He looked like he wanted to say something else, but his phone rang, cutting him off. “クソ地獄, it’s my mother.”
He exited the compartment, and remained on the phone in the vestibule until the train reached Barrow.
Stephen left via a different door, and didn’t see the man again, but felt strangely ill-at-ease for the rest of the day.
----
A few days later - Near the Hatt Family Estate
The credit card machines at the petrol station were out, and Stephen was forced to go in and pay for his fuel in cash. As he waited in line, the rack of newspapers caught his eye; while the local Sodor papers were focused on the Lord Mayor of Suddery having some sort of extramarital affair, The Daily Mail featured a prominent picture of a cruise ship, with the equally bold headline of “PLAGUE SHIP”.
The woman in front of him seemed intent of paying for her petrol in pound coins, and Stephen tuned out the furor this was eliciting from the rest of the line of patrons, reaching for the newspaper.
The byline read ‘Yokohama, Japan’, and within a few sentences, alarm bells were ringing in the back of the Fat Controller’s head. He read through the rest of the article, and was only brought out of the paper by the clerk trying to get his attention. “Sir? We’ve run out of cash to make change, so right now, we’re-”
Stephen needed to be elsewhere, now, and he pressed a hundred-pound note into the clerk's hand before walking out, paper under his arm.
Something is happening. I can feel it.
-----
The next day - Tidmouth Station
The usual clutter on Stephen’s desk had been rather abruptly piled on the floor. In its place were newspapers and website printouts, their topics all on the eruption of a virus in Southeast Asia.
The Fat Controller himself was engrossed in a phone call when his secretary stuck her head in the door. “Rolf Tedfield to see you, sir.”
Still on the phone, Stephen waved at her to let in his visitor once the phone call was over. “-yes, Secretary, I understand but- no, I understand perfectly. Yes there is a problem! Mr. Secretary, Grant, for the love of god, do not brush this off! Something is happening! What proof do I have? THE NEWS! Good God man, just listen to the BBC! Or read the Guardian! Or the Financial Times! For god’s sake, I found an article about this next to a page three girl in The Sun!” There was a pause as the man on the other end of the call - The Secretary of State for Transport - said something, and Stephen’s head dropped almost to the desk. “It is not like Ebola. It will not go away on its own.”
There was another pause, and his head met his desk. “The position of the government is that this disease will not be a threat to the United Kingdom. Do you mind if I quote you on that? Considering that Hong Kong has a land border with China, I feel very differently. Yes, I am aware the border has been closed for a decade but considering there’s a steady stream of asylum-seekers going through there I feel like it may not- yes, Mr. Secretary, thank you, Mr. Secretary. Goodbye.”
He hung up the phone as gingerly as he could before staring at the ceiling and counting down from ten. When he reached zero he called in the visitor. “Rolf. What can I do for you?”
The manager of Crovan’s Gate works sat down with a distracted sigh, his eyes scanning the papers on the desk. “I think you’re already ahead of me.”
Stephen followed his gaze. “You’re following this too?”
“Aye. I’m from Hong Kong, got most of my family there still.”
“I didn’t know you were from there.”
“My parents went over from Pembrokeshire in ‘49. Anyways, my sister and my brother still live out there; few cousins too, and they’re scared, Stephen. Whatever this is, it hasn’t been sitting around at the Chinese border.” He tapped at his phone, and pulled up an image from a messaging application. It was taken from a high-rise building, showing a group of helicopters and rescue boats surrounding a ship. “Five days ago a Chinese trawler got run over by a ferry. Coast Guard went and picked up the crew, took ‘em to Queen Mary Hospital. Now the entire place is on lockdown. Everyone thinks it's SARS but… sir, from what I’m hearing it’s worse than that.”
Stephen felt suddenly sick, and then realized that he should probably start using a different expression. “When was this?”
“Last night, well, it was daytime there. We’ve not heard anything because it’s still the middle of the night there.”
“And they’ve only now locked down the hospital?”
“Yeah. For all the good that will do.” Rolf seemed to be on the same page. “S’like waiting until after the zombie bites you.”
The Fat Controller took a deep breath, and steadied his nerves. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. As you might have heard before you came in, I was on the phone with the Transport Secretary trying to convince him of the seriousness of this, and I was not successful. I feel that we are going to have to act on our own.” He rose from the desk, already composing an email as he walked, and swung open the door to his office.
“Sir?”
“Rolf, I don’t know what I am going to do just yet, but I want you to - very quietly - start pulling all the coaches we have available in the out-of-use lines and the P-way trains and start making them habitable again. Interiors, then mechanicals. Focus on the buffet and sleeper cars first.”
“Yes sir. Why sir?”
“At the moment, I’m not sure yet, but I feel that having spare beds and hot meals will only help us. Aside from that, I want you to make sure that the works is stocked on spare parts and other consumables, and stop all new work on the engines and coaches.”
“Sir?”
“I mean it, Rolf. Finish everything that’s in progress as quickly as possible - use as much overtime as needed - but unless an engine catastrophically fails I don’t want anything or anyone in pieces right now. Something is happening. I’m just not sure how bad it will become.”
With that, Stephen left, his coat flapping out behind him dramatically as he marched towards the door to the station proper. Rolf watched him go, and blinked owlishly before pulling out his own cell phone, taking careful notes on what had just been said. “Did you get all of that?” He asked Stephen’s secretary, who was used to the Fat Controller’s occasionally abrupt departures.
Without a word, she shoved a piece of notebook paper into his hand. On it, in neat handwriting, was everything that had just been said.
“Thank you, Gladys.”
------
A few days later - Suddery
The Sodor Regional Council - the governmental board in charge of Island-wide affairs - met in a lecture hall at the city’s technical college. Usually they met inside Suddery’s Government Hall, but the short notice of their meeting meant that the hall was being used for other business. The atmosphere inside the room was decidedly tense - the unusual surrounds and urgent nature of the meeting meant that everyone was ill at ease even before the proceedings began.
The Mayor of Kirk Ronan spoke first. He was a svelte man of about forty, in his youth a multi-time gymnastics medalist at the Commonwealth Games. “Look, we all know why we’re here, and we all know what’s going on. Let’s dispense with the pleasantries and get down to it: There’s a sickness coming, from China, Japan, Iran, and now Italy from what I heard on the car ride here.”
A few murmurs came after that, and he held out his hands for quiet. “Now I’m sure that almost everyone here has called down to London at some point, and they’ve all said the same thing, haven’t they?”
“Yeah,” came one voice in particular - the Barrow Harbormaster, who watched five ferries a day pull into his port, each one loaded full with French and Irish passengers. “That we’s gonna ignore Hong Kong bein’ loike The Walkin’ Dead and just hope tha’ the Border Force can do bet’er wit’ t’is than theys do wit’ the moigrants.”
London seemed to think that, like Rabies, Termites, and asylum-seeking refugees, the width of the English Channel was all that was needed to keep the mysterious ‘asian flu’ out of the British Isles. Frustrated mumbles broke out as everyone tried to recount to their neighbor the lies that their contact in London had fed them.
“Thank you, thank you, I know what it was like, I phoned them too.” The mayor signaled again for quiet. “I know we are all frustrated. I know that we are all in the dark. I know that we’re all scared.” And for a moment he let his guard down, and showed his true emotions on his face, before continuing.
“But we aren’t some helpless home county who can’t do anything themselves. We’re Sodor, damnit. London hasn’t given a monkey’s arse about us in a thousand years and they’re not about to start now. So what are we going to do about it?”
Despite his best efforts, Stephen Hatt’s lifestyle and means of employment meant that “punctuality” was something he only ever chanced into, rather than it being a regular occurance. In this instance, James-related issues at Tidmouth had meant his arrival at the hall was almost ten minutes after the meeting’s already-delayed start time.
Fortunately, chance often smiled upon Stephen, and he hadn’t gotten this far in life without being quick on his feet. “If I may,” He called out as he strode through a side door near the lectern. “I do have some suggestions.”
--
Two hours later
The meeting had gone as well as a crisis planning session could go, and the participants filed out with brimming notebooks both physical and digital, their faces grim with worry or steeled against what would happen next.
The parking lot of the technical college backed up against the city marina, and a cold sea breeze whipped across the tarmac, rustling papers, tugging at clothes, and teasing hair. Stephen took refuge in an enclosed bus shelter to organize his notes, and was joined a moment later by a man he knew more from reputation than meeting - the head of Wellsworth’s St. Tibba’s Hospital, the largest and best hospital on the Island. Stepehen knew very little about the man - his first name, (Dembe), his nationality (English, to Ugandan parents), that he was a paediatrician by training, and that he’d been appointed head of St. Tibba’s over several local candidates whose CVs may as well have been written in crayon when compared to him. He’d sat through most of the meeting in complete silence, only answering questions when asked directly.
“Doctor.”
“Mister Hatt.”
There was silence, broken only by the doctor pulling out a carton of cigarettes and a silver lighter.
“Your ideas are sound.” The man said only after he’d puffed a Dunhill into life. “But it’s not going to be enough.”
“Do you really think that?” Stephen kept his expression neutral, staring out into Suddery Bay rather than at the other man. Fittingly, a storm was brewing on the horizon, huge clouds rising into the sky.
“I do.” The cigarette smoke came out in measured smoke rings. “We haven’t got enough beds.”
“Surely the-”
“It doesn’t matter how many train cars you give us, Stephen. It doesn’t matter if there’s a line of them going from one end of the Island to the other. We’ve only got two hundred fifty beds across the entire Island, and our staff levels reflect that.” Another, more violent puff of the cigarette followed. “Give us all the beds you want, but what we need is doctors. And you can’t build those out of an old train car.”
“What would you recommend we do then?” The storm was beginning to worsen, and lightning crackled across the high tops of the clouds.
“Honestly? Pray.” With that, the man raised his collar against the cold wind, and walked across the parking lot to a mid-sized saloon car at the back of the lot.
Stephen waited another moment, carefully adjusting the papers in his folio, before heading off.
He’d just opened the door to his Audi when his cell phone rang. He waited until he was inside the car before answering. Intriguingly, it was Louisa Duncan, Fergus Duncan’s daughter, and new controller of the Arlesdale Railway. She’d been in the meeting with him, and had left not even ten minutes prior.
As he answered, the skies opened up, and a torrential downpour thundered down onto his car. At first, it was hard to understand what Louisa had been saying; her voice was broken with tears and sobs.
By the time he understood, the rain was pounding hard enough that his own sobs couldn’t be heard.
Less than a month ago, on the fourth of February, Ivan Farrier, the Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Arlesdale, had gone on a long-awaited holiday to the Italian Alps with his wife Amanda.
It was now the twenty-seventh, and both of them were dead, killed by the ill wind from the far east.
---------------------------
March
For the next week or so, everything went quiet, but it did not go gentle.
In Crovan’s Gate, the works threw itself into overdrive; and seemingly every useful piece of rolling stock, from first class coaches to old General Use Vans left over from BR’s discontinuation of newspaper trains in the 1990s, were being scrubbed and painted to within an inch of their lives. Bafflingly (to them), once their interiors were refreshed, they were shoved outside, onto the storage tracks, while more coaches were pushed in to take their place. In the locomotive depots, the engines undergoing overhaul were suddenly being kept up at all hours of the day, as their repairs went on around the clock. Dane, one of the electric locomotives, would later remark that his overhaul was so quick it had taken three whole days off of the official Works record.
At Wellsworth, St. Tibba’s hospital was receiving deliveries of everything from life-saving medicine to whole hospital beds, much to the irritation of the higher-ups at the National Health Service, who were under orders from London to minimize any potential panic. The hospital director found himself keeping his supervisors at bay more and more. His usual tactic was forwarding them email chains and whatsapp screenshots from colleagues in Hong Kong, who had been caught effectively off-guard, and were now paying a heavy price. As the days went on though, he wasn’t sure if it was calming or terrifying that the complaints slowly trickled to a halt.
At Tidmouth, strategy meetings were being held seemingly every hour. No detail was left to chance, with the limited information they knew being factored into their plans for the future. Engine cabs were being measured, much to the confusion of the engines themselves, platform signage was reassessed, and staffing requirements were being examined with a fine-toothed comb. A huge sum of money was spent from the company’s discretionary fund, and arrived in the form of a heavy goods vehicle, which backed up to the station’s sole loading dock and disgorged pallet after pallet of masks, gloves, soap, and disinfectant, to be distributed as needed.
In one of the upstairs conference rooms, a pair of 70-inch televisions sat on one wall, the joined displays mostly empty. They displayed the master list of scheduled trains for the railway, a vast, spreadsheet-like document that documented every train movement on the railway’s February-May spring timetable. Daily trains were often “booked” months in advance, and the chosen rolling stock was altered as required. In an ordinary March, trains would already be scheduled out until the end of the spring timetable in May. Now, only train 3B00 - the Flying Kipper - was scheduled beyond the end of the month, its nocturnal run sitting alone on several score of date markers, going all the way to the bottom-right corner of the screen: MAY-1-2020.
-
In the sheds, the engines grew more and more concerned. The “minor virus”, as London still called it, was now making the headlines of every television, newspaper, and social media platform in the country. While the general public still viewed it as something that was happening to other people, there were many in the NWR fleet who remembered the Spanish Flu of 1918, or, more recently, the mass hysteria that had surrounded the SARS outbreak in 2002.
“Something vicious this way comes.” Edward muttered one morning in the sheds, as the news showed the ever-unconcerned Prime Minister giving a news conference on the state of the lockdown in Hong Kong.
“It’s not coming,” Thomas said grimly. He was old enough to remember 1918, and even if he hadn’t, Tornado was connected to the Internet, and found increasingly-distressing posts about the disease on social media with every passing day. “It’s already here.”
-
Meanwhile, on the main line, one green engine came to another.
“You’ve heard about the virus?” Tornado asked, trying her hardest to be subtle and discreet.
“Yes..?” BoCo answered. “So has everyone else. Why are you whispering?”
“There’s something I wanna talk to you about.”
“Oh?”
“I hear they’re holding a diesel gala at the Crewe museum next month.”
“Tornado, there’s not going to be a next month at this rate.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Okay…”
“They’re taking diesels from all over the country for this - they wanna show off engines that need restoration funds.”
“Oh good, a sideshow. How modern and progressive of them. I’m sure PT Barnum would be honored.”
“Who?”
“Nevermind. Is there a point?”
“You’ve been seeing how the economy is going away again?”
“Yes.”
“Well nobody’s gonna have any money to fix them, innit?”
“And..?”
“We’ve gotta do something!”
“About what? The virus? The economy? Tornado, we’re engines!”
“Not that! Our brothers!”
“What?” BoCo’s mind spun for a second.
“They’re bringing your brother, 05, down to Crewe for this gala - he might already be there, and they’ve got Peter, my brother, there too.” Tornado looked more scared than BoCo had ever seen. “If they run out of money… they’re never gonna get fixed up.”
“What do you propose we do?”
A mischievous glint filled her eyes, and a pit suddenly opened up in BoCo’s crankcase. “There’s a container train going to the Crewe Freightliner yard right down the tracks every Wednesday and Sunday. I say we get on that train and steal them!”
--------------------
Two Weeks Into March
The Prime Minister had finally started to show concern whenever he appeared on the telly. Mass panic in Hong Kong forced the Queen to make an address to the nation. On Sodor, the early stages of the Regional Council’s plans started to come into effect, and public events were canceled or majorly curtailed by government order. Supermarkets began self-imposing purchase limits, and all Universities on the Island began transitioning to online-only classes, with the local school authorities following in their wake.
Slowly, the NWR began to cancel off-peak trains, and office staff began figuring out how to take their work home with them. In the midst of it, someone made a “meme” - a form of image-based joke - about the drivers taking their work home with them, using an image of Thomas’ infamous crash into the Ffarquhar stationmaster’s house. (In a sign of how deathly serious the times were becoming, even Thomas himself found it funny.) The harbours at Knapford and Tidmouth, which were controlled by the NWR, began influencing quarantine protocols on incoming freighters, and several cruise ships were denied entry. The harbourmasters at Kirk Ronan, Barrow, and Tidmouth began impressing upon the ferry companies the importance of canceling their services, to limited success; the international ferry services from France and Ireland stopped, but Northern Irish and Manx ferries all continued with minimal delays or curtailments. The airport at Dryaw, however, was more than willing to comply, and all but two passenger flights to the Island stopped before the 14th, with cancellations lasting for two weeks. All cargo flights, save for the mail, stopped as well.
In all, it seemed like the Island was weathering the oncoming storm well, and those in seats of government - who had been expecting criticism for their overly cautious approach - were instead receiving praise from London. If the entire country acted like they did, they were told, this whole thing may blow over in a month!
-
Then the wheels came off.
-
It started in the United States. President Trump declared a state of national emergency on Friday, and state-by-state declarations of emergency put nearly the entire country in lockdown by the end of the weekend. The already-down global financial markets fell through the floor on Monday morning.
In the United Kingdom, those who watched the Prime Minister’s daily briefings on the virus swore up and down that they could see him sweating, and later on in the same address, he announced a recommendation to avoid unnecessary travel.
And on Sodor, the tipping point was reached.
Several days earlier, an outbreak occurred in a council estate in Slough. The source, or ‘index case,’ of the outbreak was found to be a Polish truck driver, who lived in Ireland but had decided to ride out the impending quarantine at his British girlfriend’s flat. He’d picked up a load bound for England in County Kildare, presumably contracting the virus at the same time, entered the UK through the Northern Irish border, and then boarded the Tidmouth ferry.
According to all the contact tracing done in those frenzied days before the world came to a stop, he had been aware that he may be contagious, and had worn a mask and gloves the entire time. He didn’t leave the cab of his lorry, nor did he stop for fuel or food until he was well east of Barrow.
But he was contagious.
And that’s all that mattered to the people of Sodor. To them, Pestilence, the first horseman of the apocalypse, had come through their land riding not a horse, but a shining white mechanical steed with the name of Scania.
This was someone that they knew about. And he’d tried to minimize his risk. They were a tourism and travel hub for the entire North-West of England and with the rest of society only now seeming to realize that anything was wrong, if nothing was done, the people of Sodor would soon be at the mercy of not international lorry drivers, nor the general public, but the worst, most careless form of humanity known to exist in the United Kingdom: The British Holidaymaker.
The end times were clearly upon them, and the Island reacted accordingly.
-----------
The Ides of March
The container train rumbled into Crewe at half past ‘fuck-me-it’s-late’ in the evening, long past dark, but still before the start of a new day. “Signaling issues” was the official excuse given by the train - some nonsense that would have Network Rail crews working all morning and into the afternoon to solve a problem that didn’t exist.
The electric engines in the yard were fast asleep, and few, if any of the people on the platform at Crewe station were aware of the engines that had led the train in.
BoCo, quite honestly, couldn’t believe that anyone had believed them at any point, but wasn’t about to quarrel with a trouble-free journey. Once the very tired crews from Freightliner had uncoupled them from their train, he and Tornado slipped across the main line into the old diesel works. It was now a heritage steam facility, owned by a very rich businessman, and the Fat Controller had a contract with them to supply his engines with coal, water, and fuel when they took trains to Crewe.
Being railway enthusiasts, they were overjoyed to see BoCo, and thrilled beyond reason to see Tornado, and many selfies were taken before the refueling was done. All at once, someone (Definitely not an employee who was also an A1 trust volunteer, who most certainly hadn’t been sent an email by Tornado, asking them to be at this place at this time, not at all.) remembered that, wouldn’t you know it, Blue Peter, the only other Peppercorn-designed locomotive in existence, was in the works right now! It was quickly asked if he’d like to see Tornado, and before anyone could say anything else, Tornado had pulled her brother out of the workshop and proceeded to start crying hysterically, claiming that she missed him. This put somewhat of a damper on the jubilant attitude of the staff, and they made themselves very scarce, very quickly.
The instant they were gone, the waterworks stopped, and Tornado beamed at Blue Peter, who was quite surprised at both the sudden start and abrupt end of the hysterics.
“Come on,” she whispered quietly. “We’ve got to go.”
“Go?” The older pacific asked, quite confused. “Go where?”
“Sodor, Silly!” she said, in a voice that she probably thought was secretive. “We’re breaking you out of here!”
“What? Why?”
“Haven’t you heard the news?” BoCo broke in. “The world is ending.”
“wha-I, when… it is?”
Blue Peter looked entirely too overwhelmed by the deluge of information, but managed to stutter out. “Ye-yes. They took him up the line to the museum for storage.”
“Yes, quite soon too. We’re taking you back to Sodor and by the by have you happened to see an engine that looks identical to me, by chance?”
BoCo’s face fell. “ That’s on the other side of the station. Damn it, how will we get him out of there?”
“Don’t worry,” Tornado’s eyes fairly twinkled as she said that, and both BoCo and Blue Peter began to think that they really should. “I can take care of that, but let’s go before anyone sees us!”
“Wait,” Said BoCo. “What about the couplings?”
Their crew had quite graciously agreed to see nothing and hear nothing in the Freightliner crew break room until it was time to leave. (Tornado may have annoyed them into submission. Maybe. Possibly. Yes, she did, and BoCo helped.) However this meant that they’d be unable to couple or uncouple anything once they left the depot. Fortunately, Tornado Had A Plan.
“Oi,” she whispered to the A1 trust volunteer. “Wanna have the night of your life?”
(BoCo and Blue Peter both nearly had their eyes pop out of their sockets. Tornado ignored them.)
The young man spluttered out a yes before he even thought to ask any follow-up questions, and very quickly coupled the three engines together, with Tornado and Blue Peter bracketing BoCo. He climbed into Blue Peter’s cab, and as soon as the dispatcher granted Tornado permission, the cavalcade was across the West Coast Main Line and into the Freightliner yard again.
Quickly stopping on their assigned road, Blue Peter was positioned at the rear of the container train, while Tornado and BoCo ran around to the front of the train, the young volunteer helpfully throwing switches (and returning them to the position they had been in afterwards) as needed. BoCo was now at the front of their odd little consist, and the volunteer had to stand in his cab with a radio to tell Tornado what signals were ahead, once she’d lied to ‘control’ about why she needed to go out on the main line again.
Unlike the heritage depot, the Crewe Heritage Centre was empty, it being long past their business hours. What little security there was, was focused inwards, not expecting sneak thieves to use the rails.
The museum grounds were small, nestled in between the V of two converging lines. Historic diesels in varying states of disrepair were scattered about the facility’s tracks. A small banner above the entranceway of the site’s sole building read “DIESEL DAYS - COMING 13 APRIL!”
BoCo’s brother - D5705, was easily visible from the tracks, parked next to a line of yellow, white, and red coaches that had clearly seen better days. An eye slowly opened as Tornado ‘peeped’ her whistle as quietly as possible. “I see that the Final Train has a sense of humour.” He rasped, his voice shaky and uneven. “Is it finally my time?”
“No!” BoCo said, much more firmly than he’d been intending. “It’s me, Fives. This is a jailbreak.”
The other eye slowly opened, the ruined diesel coming to wakefulness. “What odd company you keep, Two, and strange timing you have. But I will not be opposed to your plan.”
The Volunteer (who hadn’t introduced himself to BoCo, claiming that “the less you know, the better” like this was an actual criminal enterprise) hopped down, and quickly made the necessary connections.
“Go. Go with glory and make your life fruitful, oh-five.” Groaned a voice from the next track over.
The Volunteer looked around the diesels and his eyebrows shot into his hairline. “Oh wow! I forgot you were here!”
BoCo looked around his brother, and an eyebrow rose in surprise. “You’re not Ward… and what are you doing here?”
“I beg your pardon?” The partial APT-P set said, blinking the sleep from his eyes.
-
Ten minutes later, and a very chilly trainspotter with a cell phone arrived at Crewe station. He’d received a text from a friend - apparently the NWR had sent down a diesel and a steam engine on a container train to Basford. Hopefully he’d be able to get them when they-
A single solitary ‘peep’, and the sound of chuffing steam was the only notice he had the train was coming, and he almost fell off the platform when he spun around to see 60163 Tornado, 28 002 BoCo, D5705, and an ATP(?!) rolling quietly through the station.
Hie tried desperately to fumble for his phone’s camera app, but the dark conditions and poor-quality camera on his phone meant that he got a blurry, dark, and grainy smear of an image that showed nothing comprehensible at all.
He still tried to tell his mates, and posted the picture online, but nobody believed him - some laughed at him, and it was quickly forgotten about.
Tornado and BoCo had performed their heist without a hitch.
-----------
The Ides of March, Plus One Day
Bloomer was a notoriously slow riser. Even with a full head of steam, there would be mornings where he would have to be roused multiple times before he was fully awake. The crews got around this by just moving him while he was still asleep, and the old engine didn’t find it unusual to be finally woken up by the stationmaster “accidentally” spraying him with water while watering the plants on the platforms.
This morning, however, he was woken by an unfamiliar sound,and cracked one eye open to find himself in the yard - and it was in total disarray. “Land sakes!” He croaked as he woke up fully. “Lad! What’ve you done!”
In an effort to help out heritage rail organizations, the Fat Controller leased older engines from their owners for duties that the NWR had on the mainland. For example, the Barrow yard shunter was a revolving door of small shunters that came from various preserved lines across the country. For the past month, a quiet but dedicated class 06 had been doing exemplary work, and it seemed likely that his contract would be renewed for a few more months.
“It wasnae me!” The shunter protested, and Bloomer had to blink more than once to confirm what he was seeing. The shunter was chained down to the top of a low loader wagon, ready for transport back to his home railway. “They said Ah’m a-goin and quick! It’s the yon diesel tha’s makin the muckle disaster!”
A growl answered this, and a red Class 60 emerged from the depths of the yard, a line of stone hoppers trailing behind her. She was a low-numbered 60, number 003, and a nameplate was affixed to her cabs: PRAETOR. “Ignosce. I am not well suited to such tight confines. Would I happily leave the duties to this peritissimus faciens, but alas I must convey him home with the speed of Mercurius.” Her expression darkened. “There is an ill wind coming, and we all must seek safe harbor.”
She’d stopped to allow the yard crews to hand throw a switch, and the instant they finished, she pulled away out of sight, giving both Bloomer and the shunter the distinct feeling that they’d just been dismissed.
“Aye,” The shunter answered, grunting slightly as his flat car rocked - the 60 had taken the line of hoppers and backed them down onto his low-loader. The guard was already affixing a rear lamp to the flat wagon, indicating that the train was getting ready to depart. “An’ it’s no just me - they’s sending everyone home - ye as well. Something’s going doon, an’ it’s happenin’ now laddie.”
With a stately horn blast, the 60 set off as soon as the colour light signal changed to green, and within a few moments the train had vanished from sight.
“What does he mean? I am home.” Bloomer said somewhat indignantly to his driver.
“It’s not like that Blooms,” the man said. “You know that virus thing we’re all panicking about? It’s happening now. Mr. Hatt is packing up everything in the yard and I mean everything.”
“Surely you jest!” Bloomer retorted.
“Don’t believe me? Wait ‘til the yard empties a little more and we’ll get our train. Then you’ll see.” He said ominously, before leaving the cab and walking across the sleepers to the station building, leaving Bloomer alone in the yard as he built up steam.
With the outbound track now empty, Bloomer had a prime viewpoint of the yard, and what he saw began to confirm his growing fears.
The trains were arriving, and were doing so out of order.
Usually, at midday on a monday, the only inbound mainland train (other than the odd slow goods train that wasn’t on the schedule) was the Scottish Motorail, which took automobiles and their drivers on a non-stop trip from Edinburgh all the way to the ferry docks at Kirk Ronan. The next several hours were mostly goods trains which ran as far as Barrow, before leaving their trains for Sodor engines to take later; the last of which was a container train from the Freightliner yard in Crewe. The Sodor Motorail came after that - it ran out of London a few hours ahead of the night express, with auto carriers bound for Barrow, Kirk Ronan, and Kildane; it would drop the Barrow and Kirk Ronan cars at the special motorail platform just outside of the station, and continue on down the mainline, while another engine would come up the line and pick up the cars for Kirk Ronan. Finally, just before dark, the evening Express, with Pip and Emma powering it, would glide into the station, stop to pick up and let off passengers, and depart as fast as it arrived.
That was the usual order of things.
Today, the Scottish Motorail pulled into the station right on time at 11:55, with a single Class 37 leading it. The engine was tuxedo black, with yellow warning panels and small leasing company logos by the cab doors, a serious expression on his face. Curiously, the train didn’t continue on to the Motorail platforms, and instead stopped in the station’s run-through track.
Bloomer expected the train to continue on at any moment, and was baffled when over a half hour passed with no movement. “Signal troubles?” He called over to the 37.
“No.” The engine called back, his London accent fit for the BBC. “We await another train. The ferries will hold for us, don’t worry.”
Bloomer eyed the large number of automobiles lining up at the Motorail terminal, but said nothing.
A further half hour after that, one of the platform signals dropped, and Bloomer’s eyes almost popped out of his head as Pip appeared in the distance. “Aye?!” He spluttered as the HST screeched to a stop at the platforms. Unlike the usual song and dance of disembarkation, where passengers departed the train and transferred to semi-fast trains for their final destinations, or took the pedestrian underpasses to the exits into Barrow, there was instead what could only be referred to as a stampede, as passengers - many wearing clothes over their faces and mouths - stormed off the train en masse, charging down the platform stairs to the underpasses with a clatter of voices and luggage. The instant the last ones had gone (a group of wheelchair users who were herded off the train and into an electric cart brought out by the station staff), the doors to the station waiting room opened, and an identical exodus of people came charging down the platform - easily two or three trains worth of people, who crammed into the coaches while mumbling about ‘distancing’. They were heavy enough that some of the coaches groaned from the strain, and when Pip and Emma set off again, their engines howled from the excess load.
“It’s bad out there!” Emma called as the train cleared the platform. “Euston’s a ghost town! We’re one of the only trains with passengers!”
A tight ball of worry had begun to form in Bloomer’s firebox, and with this it just grew larger.
As soon as the train cleared the bridge, the signals dropped and then rose again, to ‘slow ahead’. With a ‘peep peep’ that caused Bloomer to swear in surprise, Henry slowly rolled through the station tender first, a short line of wagons used for transporting steel coils following behind him.
The stationmaster met the train on the platform as it rolled through without stopping. “You get them all?”
“Yes,” Henry said he counted the trucks again - yes, they were all here. “They found one of them in the far sidings, but we checked thoroughly before we set off.”
“There’s nobody else!” The lead wagon confirmed. “And I’s not just sayin’ that. Everyone else belongs to the Shipyard, not Sodor!”
“All right,” The stationmaster said. “You’re going to Ballahoo - they’ve got enough space in the goods shed for this lot.”
“Right!” Henry whistled as he picked up speed, and soon crossed the bridge.
As soon as he cleared, the signals dropped and rose for the third time in a row - this time with an added signal for the goods yard - and a horn sounded in the distance, followed immediately by a steam whistle. “What now?!” Bloomer asked himself in frustration and worry.
‘What’ in this case turned out to be the container train, which had BoCo leading, and Tornado not only as the second engine, but facing backwards to boot. They led the train into the far side of the yard and stopped just long enough for BoCo to get pulled off the train.
Almost immediately, the freight yard staff sprung into action and pulled the couplings for the first ten container wagons, which were bound for Barrow. Tornado quickly puffed away with them to the unloading tracks, where they were set upon by the yard’s container handlers.
In the meantime, BoCo reversed away to the fuel track, which was close enough to Bloomer for him to ask questions. “What in the name of god are you doing?” He hissed to the diesel. “The world is apparently ending and you both go gallivanting off to the mainland?”
BoCo was unphased as the fuel was hurriedly piped into his tanks. “We’re fine, Bloomer. I’ll explain later.”
“You had better!” Bloomer wanted to question more, but the signals dropped and rose for a fourth time, and finally, the Sodor Motorail clattered in.
If the double-header of BoCo and Tornado was unusual, this train was downright startling, as both Daphne and Delta were pulling hard as they rumbled into view.
It was easy to see why Sodor’s two strongest diesels were needed for this train - the Motorail operations required some extra rolling stock to be kept at the terminal in London for emergencies, and it seemed like all of the emergency stock, along with every other motorail wagon that wasn’t on the Scottish Motorail, were on this train.
And they were full.
Not a single space was to be seen on any of the open wagons, and every passenger coach was filled to standing with passengers. The train was so long that when it pulled ahead of the switches to the Motorail terminal, it was not only on the bridge to Sodor, but Daphne and Delta were actually on Sodor proper before they backed the train into the terminal.
The motorail trains set down coaches and wagons here, with the car wagons on one platform and the coaches on another. With so many coaches and car wagons on this train, neither rake fit into the platform, and stuck out over the edge quite considerably.
Not that the passengers noticed or cared. Much like the Express, they streamed out of the coaches that were on the platform like rats from a sinking ship, and swarmed the station building to pick up their cars. As each wagon was unloaded by the stewards, people would hurry to their cars, oftentimes wielding cleaning wipes or disinfecting spray, and then leave the station so quickly that the tires chirped. One young man was reunited with his fluorescent green motorcycle, and proceeded to leave the station grounds with his front wheel in the air, before vanishing into the distance at assuredly unsafe speeds, his bike’s engine almost louder than Daphne’s motor.
Speaking of Daphne (and Delta), once the last passengers had disembarked, they quickly pulled forward, taking about half of the coaches with them, and then backed down to pick up half of the car wagons - only the rear half of the train was for Barrow or Kirk Ronan, with the forward section going to Kildane. The guard blew his whistle, and the two diesels roared onto Sudrian soil and quickly disappeared into the distance.
“People need to get home.” BoCo, who had been watching the proceedings with Bloomer, remarked simply.
“What?”
“It’s the last Motorail to Sodor - there’s no more trains after today.”
“Good lord.” Bloomer’s eyes widened as the full weight of the situation came down on him. “How bad is it supposed to be?”
“Edward says it’s like the early days of the Spanish Flu.”
“Half the world got that!”
“I’ve heard worse.” Called the 37 as he carefully shunted the Scottish Motorail into the platforms. Fortunately, the train had been put together in such a way that automobiles could travel down the length of the car wagons with the use of gangplanks between wagons, otherwise the train would have been much more difficult to put together. “The rumour up north is that the government has been deliberately under-reporting numbers so as not to cause a panic.”
“I’d say they didn’t succeed there…” Bloomer scowled as the doors to the station opened, and passengers swarmed the train. There was pushing, shoving, and shouting, and it took longer than usual to get everyone corralled into the lengthy train.
There was a whistle behind Bloomer and BoCo, and Tornado appeared, still running backwards. “Right, I’m off! Best of luck!” Behind her, the ten container wagons and another fifty empty flatbeds, hoppers, vans and tankers clattered behind her - just about every truck and wagon left in the yard. With great care, she threaded her train around the Motorail, and into the distance.
Bloomer was still goggling at the sheer length of the train when the end of it came by. “Eh?”
“I will tell you, later.” BoCo hissed as the rear of the train, which consisted of a brake van, a steam engine that looked a lot like Tornado, a diesel that looked exactly like BoCo, and… “Ward? What are you doing here?”, passed by.
“Who is Ward?” Asked the electric intercity train as he disappeared into the distance on the end of the train, a red lamp dangling off of his face.
There was a long pause as both Bloomer and the 37 on the Motorail absorbed what they just saw. “BoCo… did you and Tornado…” Bloomer began, but when he looked over to where the secretive diesel had been, he found that BoCo had driven away!
“Be seeing you! Stay safe!” The green diesel called from the yard, as he was quickly connected to the remaining container wagons, before powering across the bridge as soon as the signalman would let him.
“Thieving youngsters...” Bloomer grumbled to himself as the red lamp at the end of the container train vanished from sight.
“Very crafty, elder.” The 37 whispered respectfully, as the last of the cars were loaded into the wagons.
As the 37 started reassembling his train, Bloomer’s driver re-emerged from the station, fireman in tow. “Right-ho, we’ve got a few pickups to make and then we’re off.”
“Pickups?” Bloomer looked around the yard. “There’s nothing left!”
As it turned out, there was, just a bit. On Sundays, the railroad ran ‘period’ excursion trains down the main line, and they’d procured a pair of reproduction LNWR open carriages for when it was Bloomer’s turn. The coaches were expectant, apparently having been told what was happening by the shed staff. “Quickly please!” Maribel, the lead coach said. “We don’t want to get left behind!”
“Nobody is going to leave anyone behind!” Bloomer said firmly, ignoring a creeping sense of being ‘out of the loop’ - this was not the first time that someone had been worried about being left behind, as if the drawbridge were going to collapse or somesuch. He worried he was missing something important.
Following them was Lilly, a former passenger coach that had been turned into the kitchen coach for the Permanent Way train. She was a full sized Mark 2, and was now laden down with literal tons of kitchen equipment. Bloomer groaned a little as his coupling stretched out under her weight. “Too small for this nonsense…” He grumbled. “Should’ve had the thieving idiot do it.”
Next was a piece of little-used rolling stock: the railway’s scale test car. Named Ingot due to his weight and shape, he sat behind the shed unless a yard needed to re-calibrate a weighbridge used for weighing goods wagons. “This must be serious if you’re taking me with you.” He said as Bloomer dragged him out of his weed-covered siding.
“Steel, actually.”
“It, erf, seems, agh, that way!” Bloomer gasped as he lugged the heavy wagon into motion. “Do they fill you with lead?”
“Agh.”
Then, there was a very long trek out of the yard, (“Heavy, fucking train..”) across the station throat, (“Look Blooms, the Motorail left a wagon behind for us.” “Oh. Joy.”) and back down a track that ran around to the far side of the station, (“When did this get put here?”) a little used siding that P-way trains sometimes parked in… oh dear.
“Oh thank goodness!” Marion the steam shovel gushed as Bloomer pulled up to her. “I thought I’d be left here!”
Bloomer ignored her, staring at the siding in disbelief. “You all do see my driving wheels? How there’s only two of them?” He glared at the yardmaster and the stationmaster, who looked at him like he was the mad one.
There were four cranes/shovels - Marion, Eh & Bee the breakdown cranes, and Jebediah - a diesel crane who worked with the P-way team. Each one of them was a heavy beast in their own right, and Bloomer would probably wear a groove in the rails before he got them moving, let alone Ingot and Lilly.
“Don’t worry, we’ve got it covered.” The yardmaster said, climbing into Jebediah’s cab.
“What’s he gonna do? Push?”
“Yes, actually.” Jebediah glared. “I’m self-propelled and mighty strong, you’ll do well to note.”
Bloomer was entirely too out of his depth at this point, and mumbled a thanks as the already heavy train was coupled to the line of cranes. Blowing his whistle, he pulled away slowly, expecting his couplings to go tight and stay that way, but he was pleasantly surprised to hear Jebediah’s motor rev up, and then feel the weight go from “immovable” to “manageable.”
They made for a bizarre sight as they rolled out of the siding and backed into the station. When they first got moving, Bloomer had felt ridiculous and vaguely self-conscious, but that faded as he stared out over the yard, and found it totally empty. Between all the frantic train shuffling, and the reduction in traffic over the last week, there wasn’t a wagon, coach, or engine to be seen anywhere.
It was honestly quite spooky, and that was before he looked into the station building, which was empty as a tomb despite it being the middle of the day. Only the staff were left at this point, and they were leaving the station too, carrying personal belongings and certain company items.
Somewhere in Barrow proper, a clocktower bell chimed twice, and everyone looked towards it. “I didn’t know there was a bell in the town.” Lilly murmured.
“It’s because usually you can’t hear it.” The stationmaster said as he shoved a porter’s trolley loaded with cases of company documents and the cashboxes from the ticket booths into the Kitchen coach. “S’not supposed to be this quiet ‘ere.”
Bloomer had thought that the full severity of the events unfolding around him had sunk in, but as he listened to the tolling bell, while also watching the assistant station master lock the doors of the station, he suddenly felt like the world was ending.
Honk-honk
The spell was broken by a horn sounding from the junction behind them, and everyone who could do so whirled around to see a small diesel multiple unit roll into the station.
“What in the absolute fucking hell is that doing here?!” The stationmaster swore as the train came to a complete stop next to Bloomer.
“Hi.” Said the DMU - her number identified her as 170 640 - with some amount of embarrassment. “Sorry I’m late. Signaling issues.”
At this point there was some amount of shouting. It turned out that this train was the 0910 service from Manchester to Norramby, and was supposed to have already departed Sodor in the other direction by now. In fact, it had been so long, with so little notice given about it, that both the NWR signalman and the Barrow stationmaster had assumed the train had been cancelled.
When the multiple unit meekly said that her railway always got the train there, no matter what, there was a further round of shouting about blasted Open-Access Operators!
Like every other train that day, she was heavily laden with passengers, and the station staff had to guide everyone who wished to depart the train through a side gate on the platform end as the stationmaster stomped up and down the platform, bellowing into his phone at someone.
This turned out to be most of the people on the train, and once the stationmaster calmed down a little, he addressed the multiple unit and her driver. “Alright, here’s the skinny - you go over that bridge, there ain’t a promise you’re coming back over any time soon. The whole Island is locking down tonight. Unless you can get there and back in the next thirty minutes, you’re up without a paddle.”
“Well I suppose there’s nothing else for it,” The 170 said, her weak voice surprisingly steely.
“Yeah.” Said her driver.
“We’re going over.” | “We’re dumping them here.”
“WHAT?”
Man and DMU stared at each other for a moment, and then there was more shouting and arguing, this time about cowardice and stupidity. It went on for some time, until eventually the DMU had tears at the corners of her eyes, and the driver was storming off down the station road in search of alternative transport back home.
Bloomer looked at the little multiple unit with newfound respect. “That took some nerve. Good lass.”
“Thanks.” She sniffed weakly. “I can’t just leave - what would that make me?”
“A Bad Engine.” The coaches and cranes, and P-Way equipment said firmly. Bloomer and the station staff still on the platform looked at each other for a moment at that, suddenly confident that wherever this unit ended up getting stored until she could be sent back, she would be well cared for.
The last passenger - a man on crutches - was escorted out of the station on an electric cart, and with that the station doors were securely locked. A spare driver had been part of the station staff, and he hopped into the DMU, taking her across the bridge just before the clock tower tolled 2:30.
“Hopefully this all blows over!” She called to Bloomer as she receded into the distance.
“I can only hope…” Bloomer said as his odd train set off for its last stop.
There was a single Motorail wagon left on the platforms. He was an older flat wagon, with Whitewall stenciled on his front end. The electric cart from the station bounced across the staff crossings with a porter at the wheel, and its charger cable bouncing around in the cargo tray. It joined a Mercedes Unimog lettered for the P-Way gang, the stationmaster’s personal car, a huge porter’s trolley the size of a Mini, and a few motorbikes and bicycles belonging to the station staff on the back of the wagon. Staff jumped out of the coaches and quickly strapped down the cart and went around checking the other straps. A few of the Motorail staff came over and boarded the train as well, while one man (who shouted that he lived in Barrow when asked why he wasn’t boarding) locked up the station and dragged a gate across the automobile entrance before walking off towards the city bus stop on the corner.
The stationmaster got out of his seat in Maribel, and marched forward to take a spot in Bloomer’s cab. “Go forward nice and slow. We’re stopping once we clear the switch.”
“Sorry?”
“Just a few more people.”
Orders now given, Bloomer and Jebediah slowly pulled and pushed the train out of the motorail siding and onto the main line. Once Whitewall had cleared the switches, they clunked into place, and Bloomer and the rest of the train watched in astonishment as every signal in the yard and the main line dropped to red. Soon thereafter, the signalbox door opened, and the signalman came out, a bag over his shoulder and his face hidden behind a paper mask. He turned off the lights in the box and locked the door, before coming up to Bloomer. “You’re the only train for two miles. Treat everything between here and the bridge as green.”
For effect, he unfurled a green flag, waved it, and then clambered onto the train, sitting as far away from everyone else as he possibly could in the crowded open air carriages.
Once again, Bloomer was struck with the sudden sensation that the world as he knew it was coming to an end. With a subdued whistle, he set off again, leaving Barrow-in-Furness station and yard as quiet and empty as a tomb.
The train slowly rolled over the bridge, and Bloomer gasped as he saw the difference between the island and the mainland. Sodor was quiet, the streets of Vicarstown still except for a bus and a police car driving along the waterfront. A few people with cameras were in the park by the station, photographing his approach.
Barrow was alive and noisy. Traffic rumbled and roared, the sound of people talking and chatting from bus stations and bike baths was audible even over his own chuffing. In the distance, the Jubilee Bridge was choked with traffic - police cars on the Sodor side of the bridge were stopping each car, and forcing most to turn around and leave. Those allowed through the bridge were almost all cars with license plates from Sodor or the Isle of Man - any one without had a large sticker applied to the back, although what it meant wasn’t immediately obvious. As the train went by, a flurry of radio calls, some of which were audible on the cab radio - meaning the railway’s dispatch was involved to some degree - went through. On the road bridge, the police began waving through what traffic there was - it seemed like most, if not all of the Sodor-plated automobiles had gotten through already - and then made some kind of waving motion to the bridge operator. Red lights began to flash, and the road bridge began to raise, cutting off Sodor’s road network from the mainland.
Meanwhile on the railway bridge, a man stood aside the tracks, a yellow flag in his hand. It was the bridge operator, and he hopped onto the footplate as Bloomer steamed by, a bag in his hand.
“Thanks.” was all he said, and Bloomer had another pit-of-his-firebox moment as he realized that he had been out of the loop, somewhat badly.
The bridge control cabin was on the mainland side of the bridge, but there was a small emergency panel on the Sodor side. The driver applied the brakes, but didn’t stop, as the train drove by the small electrical box. The bridge operator jumped down, ran to the box, wrenched it open, and in one smooth motion jammed a key into it, turned it, and pushed a yellow and black striped button, before removing the key and slamming the box closed. He was so quick that he was able to clamber onto Jebiediah’s cab steps as the diesel crane rolled by.
Behind him, a klaxon sounded in the distant bridge cabin, and an automated gate closed over the tracks. A pair of massive locks proceeded to open, and with slow mechanical precision, the Walney Channel railway bridge began to cycle open, severing the last link between the mainland and the Island of Sodor.
Bloomer, pulling what the media would later refer to as “The Last Train,” felt a chill go down his boiler as the massive bridge span locked into the upright position. The world has just changed, He thought. And it won’t be for the better.
------
A few days later, as the Virus hit the mainland in force through packed Chunnel trains and repatriation flights, and as the first few cases sprung up inside the Island’s hospitals, Bloomer knew he was right.
I don't know what it says about me when I see a prompt called off the rails and immediately do 1,800 words about Bulgy before a train is even mentioned.
(Also, this happens just before the events of Day 14's story)
-
Smashing!
Bulgy is a rather disagreeable old bus on the Island of Sodor. Many years ago, he had gotten stuck underneath a bridge on Duck’s branch line, causing damage to both it and himself. As a result, his owners abandoned him in a field next to the line and the farmer who owned it used Bulgy as a henhouse!
However, this was not the end of Bulgy. Farmer Drury, his new owner, was a very successful man who owned several farms across the Island. As his business grew, he repaired Bulgy and put him back on the road as a farm transport vehicle and rolling storage bin - a duty that Bulgy hated even more than being a henhouse!
He complained bitterly about his treatment for many years, often irritating Farmer Drury in the process, and thus ensuring that he would never be anything more than a dirty work vehicle for as long as Farmer Drury owned him!
Eventually, Bulgy’s fortunes improved - although his attitude didn’t - when Farmer Drury retired and handed the business over to his son David.
David Drury had gone to school on the mainland, and unlike most Sudrians, was rather obsessed with old cars instead of old trains. He owned several classic race cars and the Island’s only Ferrari, so when he discovered Bulgy in the back of his father’s barn he was immediately taken with him. Almost before Bulgy knew what was happening, David Drury had restored him to ‘concours condition’, and he went from a dirty, dusty, and creaking work van to a pristine ‘show bus’ so fast that his eyes spun!
Now Bulgy was more or less permanently retired, living inside a nice warm garage on the outskirts of Marthwaite village. He never had to work, or get dirty, or even go out in the rain!
Except for one time…
April 13, 2015
Bulgy was startled awake by the door to his garage being thrown open. “Whassat?!” He groaned, trying to blink the sleep from his eyes.
“Come on Bulgy!” It was David, his owner. “We’ve got a sticky situation down in Hackenbeck. Let’s go!”
Far, far too quickly for Bulgy’s liking, he was started up, put into gear, and driven away. “What’s wrong?” He asked. “Where’re we going?”
“Those moro-” David started angrily, before calming himself. “I have been trying to rebuild the roof on one of the storage barns in the Hackenbeck farm for a month, and when the roofers finally show up, they didn’t check the weather, tore off the roof with no plan to finish it, and it’s going to rain this afternoon, so we need to finish the roof today or the entire harvest will be ruined!”
“Whaddya need me for?”
“The van broke down! You’re the only other big vehicle I’ve got that’s road legal!”
“You’re gonna make me work?!”
“I’m sorry Bulgy, but it’s only for today - look, I’ll make it up to you later, okay?”
Bulgy acquiesced, but grumbled all the way to Hackenbeck.
The barn was located near the railroad line, accessible by a dusty and rutted tractor path that crossed the line at one point. Bulgy grimaced as he bounced down the “road” - this was no place for a show bus - even the four wheel drive pickup trucks were complaining about the potholes, and he could feel his paintwork getting dirtier with each passing second.
It didn’t get any better after that - his owner was serious about him working, and Bulgy made five trips into town for supplies like wood planks, nails, lunch, scaffolding, and even huge buckets of tar. It was disgusting and dirty work, and he hated every minute of it - at one point, men had to stand on his roof to do work, and after that he was quite literally dirty from top to bottom.
Then the rain came.
According to the weather forecast, the real downpour wasn’t to start until later that night, but the broken clouds started to knit themselves back together as the clock struck four. The men had just enough time to hang tarpaulins over the unfinished sections of roof before the deluge started, so the grain harvest wasn’t spoiled, but everything else was soaked. Anyone who couldn’t hide in the barn took refuge inside Bulgy, and he growled as muddy boots clomped across his floors, sweaty clothes fouled his seats and dirty water dripped off of his bonnet and into his eyes. “I thought I was done with this sort o’ nonsense…”
Fortunately for Bulgy, the rain shower was short-lived, and everyone resumed work after it passed, leaving him alone for the first time since the morning.
“Oi! Mate!” Evidently he couldn’t be alone for too long, could he?
Cracking an eye open, he found a big Volvo HGV with Irish registration plates idling next to him. “Can you please bother someone else?” He asked, doing his best to be polite.
“Rude.” The lorry said before continuing on anyway. “But I’m in a bit of a pickle - ya see, I’m supposed to be in someplace called “Wellsworth”, but my GPS conked out me, see? So now I’m lost.”
“Have your driver talk to Mister Drury - it’s his farm you’re on.” Bulgy said dismissively.
“Driver?” The lorry said, before looking at Bulgy more closely. “Oh, this is one of those places.”
Then the lorry drove away, leaving Bulgy confused and feeling vaguely insulted. “Well I never...!” He said, before realizing that he probably had at some point.
“Well, s’not my problem anymore.” He said after a moment. Seeing as everyone else was occupied, he closed his eyes and tried to take a nap.
“Come on Bulgy, no rest for the weary!” David Drury said as he hopped into the driver’s seat.
“What now?”
“That lorry has gotten himself good and lost, so we’re going to show him the road into town.”
“Why’ve I got to do it? I’ll sink into the mud!”
“You’ll do it because everyone else is busy.” David said. Looking over at the other quad bikes, four-by-fours, and Land Rovers, Bulgy was forced to admit that he was the only vehicle not in use at the moment and so he bounced and juddered and sloshed along the now-muddy path towards the road.
Then there was trouble.
The railway line was on a slightly raised embankment to allow for drainage. This hadn’t been an issue before, but now the small hill leading to the tracks was nothing but slippery mud. Furthermore, the path itself was narrow, with only enough room for one vehicle to go through at a time - if two were coming in opposite directions, one of them would have to pull off to the side of the road. As they approached the crossing, an orange tractor with caterpillar treads was pulling a trailer over the line, so Bulgy and the lorry pulled over at the bottom of the hill to let him pass. As they set off, neither Bulgy, David, nor the lorry realized that the road up to the tracks was nothing but mud - the tractor had made it look easy with his treads, and didn’t say anything more than “Hello!” as he passed them. Not realizing what was about to happen, David drove Bulgy up the hill from a standing stop.
If they’d been traveling at speed, they might have made it, but when Bulgy’s front wheels bumped over the rails, his back wheels weren’t going fast enough to push him over, and he stuck fast on top of the tracks, his rear wheels spinning furiously but unable to gain any traction in the slick mud.
“Oi!” Yelled the lorry as mud pelted him. “Stoppit! Yer stuck there! Get a chain and I’ll pull ya free!”
A rummage through storage compartments in both Bulgy and the Lorry revealed that neither of them had a chain strong enough. David called back for one of his employees to send a thicker chain - they arrived on a quad bike, along with the orange tractor - who introduced himself as Terrance - and his driver.
“I say,” Terrance observed idly as the men tried to figure out where they could attach the chain without damaging Bulgy. “You picked a most inopportune time to do this - Thomas will be most upset if his passengers are delayed.”
David, Bulgy, and the lorry went very still and very pale.
“You did call the railway, didn’t you?”
“Jus’ hook that chain to anything!” Bulgy bellowed. “Get me off of here!”
“Now let’s… let’s be calm.” David sounded anything but as he poked his mobile phone urgently. “We still have time to call - all we need to do is find out what the bleeding number is!”
As it turned out, they didn’t have time.
A steam whistle sounded in the distance, putting everyone into a panic. David’s employee tore off on the quad bike, trying to stop the train before it arrived, while David and Terrance’s driver tried desperately to mount the chain. “It’s not going on! There’s no hook on this end!” They yelled.
“Get in, put him in low gear, and when I say, step on it!” The lorry ordered. David scrambled into the driver’s seat, and frantically engaged first gear.
The whistle sounded again - the noise echoing off the surrounding hills to the point where its location couldn’t be determined.
The lorry grimaced. “This is gonna suck.” He muttered, before revving his own engine. “Now!”
Bulgy’s engine roared, and mud flew everywhere. Black exhaust poured from the lorry as he engaged his low-range gearbox and charged up the incline.
With a thunderous CRUNCH he slammed into Bulgy’s rear bumper.
The whistle sounded again, this time much longer and more urgent. The quad bike must not have gotten very far, which meant that the train was close indeed.
The lorry’s wheels spun, but he revved his engine well past the red line on his tachometer as he put all of his considerable strength against Bulgy.
The train appeared from behind the trees. Terrance noted with some detached portion of his mind that it wasn’t Thomas pulling the train, but rather a big engine he’d never seen before. As soon as the engine saw Bulgy, they yelled in panic and put on their brakes, but it wasn’t going to be enough…
The lorry’s wheel dug deep enough into the thick mud to find dry dirt. With a lurch and a roar he surged forward, shoving Bulgy off of the line and onto the downhill on the other side. Seconds later, the lorry followed, his back wheels clearing the tracks in just a few seconds.
But there was still his trailer. It was a long canvas sided box trailer, fully loaded with cargo, and its wheels sank into the mud a few inches as it rolled up the hill. Those few inches were the differences between safety and disaster, and the trailer’s low-hanging side underride guards caught between the rails with a screech that brought the lorry to a standstill.
“Go!” He shouted to Bulgy as he roared his engine, trying to break free.
Bulgy needed no encouragement, and raced forwards as the train got closer and closer.
The lorry pulled so hard that the trailer’s king pin snapped in half, and he shot forwards, leaving the trailer sitting astride the train tracks.
Terrance and his driver could only watch in horror as the train got closer and closer, before…
Later
Stephen Hatt arrived at the crash site to find a much more colourful scene than he’d been expecting. “Is that… paint?” He asked the Hackenbeck stationmaster, who was acting as the incident commander.
“Yes sir. The lorry was full - over thirty tons worth.” The man said as he strategically stepped over puddles of silver and yellow that were soaking into the ground despite the best efforts of the cleanup crew. Tornado had still been going at well over thirty miles an hour when she impacted the lorry, and paint had been fired in every which way as the trailer had more or less exploded on impact. Following that, there was a two hundred foot long streak of Dulux-coated destruction leading down the trackbed as the mangled trailer had been dragged along before it came apart at the seams and was deposited along the lineside.
Then there was Tornado herself, who had collided with the trailer before it started to come apart, and had therefore been impacted by individual cans of paint, instead of a fine spray of liquid colour. As a result, her LNER green was covered from buffer to cab in huge blotches of dull green, bright yellow, metallic blue, glossy red, vibrant purple, and flat white from individual cans smashing against her. In some spots, the colors had mixed together, forming steaks of orange, brown, black, and gray that ran down her boiler in a way vaguely reminiscent of a Jackson Pollock painting.
Fortunately, no one was hurt. Tornado was pulling a goods train, and despite some minor damage to her buffers and front end - miraculously, her smoke deflectors hadn’t been damaged thanks to the trailer having canvas walls - she had only derailed her leading bogie, and was actually smiling as gold paint dripped down her nose. “Well, I think I caused some confusion and delay, didn’t I?”
“Now, now,” Stephen said as he inspected her himself - the Trust was going to have a conniption as it was, so he’d better make damn sure that there was nothing seriously wrong. “I wouldn’t say you were responsible for this,” His eyes sparkled mischievously as he looked over her damaged front end. Nothing seemed to be too amiss other than the obvious, thankfully. “But I would say that you have busted your buffers.”
Tornado laughed as the rest of the breakdown crew sighed deeply.
--
It never did rain that night, (“Whaddya mean it didn’t rain?! I almost died for nuthin?” “Calm down Bulgy.” “Calm down?! Mister Drury, those blasted trains almost turned me into scrap! See, I was right! We need to rip up all the rails and turn them into nice smooth Boulevards!” “Not this again…”) and with the dry conditions, it only took Wendell and the breakdown train until midnight to finally get Tornado to the works. It was very late, and everyone was very tired, so Tornado and the cranes were already asleep when Wendell shunted them away.
Wendell was himself exhausted, and rolled into his berth at the works intent on sleeping until someone came to wake him up.
“Oi - wha’s the score with the mystery one?” Bloomer hissed from where the men had been working on him.
“I think she was at a heritage railroad for a while.” Wendell groaned as his crew set his brakes and left. “She definitely knows more about BR than any other engine I’ve met.”
“How so?”
“She knew the firing order of my engine - I think it’s safe to say that she was someplace with an archive, or the NRM has gotten very loose with their records department.”
“Huh,” Snorted Bloomer, who, like any engine that had been within earshot of Gordon in the last few years, was well aware of the NRM’s fall from grace. “Mebbe she’s just a smart egg.”
“Easter egg, more like…” Wendell yawned. “Hard boiled and painted and all; She just took a lorry’s worth of paint to the face and thought it was the highlight of her day.”
“Paint?” Bloomer peered outside of the shed doors. “Mercy me! Look at her! She’s coated!”
Wendell didn’t respond, and when Bloomer looked over, he found the diesel already fast asleep.
“Ugh, young engines these days!”
----
Several days later
The men had had their work cut out for them. The paint was latex and enamel based house paint, and it didn’t want to come off without strong solvents, the use of which also stripped off Tornado’s paint and undercoat. It took two whole days for the men to find all of the paint - it had worked its way into every crease and crevice in Tornado’s body, and if the Fat Controller hadn’t authorized copious amounts of overtime, it likely would have taken far longer.
This process was not helped by the fact that removing Tornado’s plating revealed the numerous modifications she’d received from her time in Germany - while they were safe from the paint, they weren’t safe from the deeply curious mechanical staff, who swarmed over her with cameras and notebooks, trying to determine what everything was. If it weren’t for the works manager telling them to get back to their jobs, they likely would have stayed there all day!
Eventually, the mechanical staff were shooed away, the paint was stripped off, a spot of rust on her running board was found and cleaned, the workers were able to finish, and Tornado was finally reassembled and rolled into the paint shop to be repainted into LNER green.
Except…
“We don’t have any green? On this railway?” The foreman stared at the head painter disbelievingly.
“Not this shade.” The woman said. “And somebody didn’t clear it with me before they started stripping, which means there’s none to sample, so we can’t make more.” In anticipation of a new coat, they’d decided to strip the paint off of Tornado’s tender as well. At the time it had seemed like a good idea.
“Don’t we have other greens?”
“Yes. Great Western green.” A long pause followed this. “Do you want to be the one who painted the pride of the LNER in GWR colours?”
“BR Blue?”
“Only the diesel shade of Rail Blue.”
“Henry’s Green?”
“On backorder.”
“... James' Red?”
“No.”
“Well, what do we have?”
“In sufficient quantities?” A tin of paint was produced. “This.”
“We can’t use that! They’ll think we’ve bought her!”
“Well it’s either this, or we ask the Skarloey Railway if they’ve got any of their red going spare, but considering she's bigger than all of their engines put together...”
“Okay… point made, but we’re going to have to make sure that we don’t do any of the striping or numbers - I don’t want the rest of the engines to think that we’ve bought her or anything.”
-
Tornado was actually hyperventilating as the paint shop workers buffed and polished the freshly-applied numbers and striping. She’d caught a few glimpses of herself in the mirror mounted on the far wall, and had been unable to contain herself since. “You’ve got the pictures?” She asked the head painter.
“Of course we have,” She said genially. “Now let’s get you outside for some more in the sun. Maybe we’ll even get everyone for a posed shot like they did in the twenties.”
They’d done a pressure test to make sure that nothing had been damaged in the collision, and Tornado had just enough steam left to roll into the yard under her own power.
In the yard, the midday sun was shining, the air was clear, and there were many pictures to be taken of her new paintwork. It took over an hour, and when the workers finally retreated into the sheds to work on “other jobs”, she was left alone.
“I still can’t believe it.” She said to herself quietly. “It’s like I’m really one of them.”
When the paint crew had told her they only had the NWR’s blue paint on hand, she’d been a little excited. Now that it was applied and dry, she was much more so. The red lining and gold numbers on her tender and frame completed the look, and if one ignored the smoke deflectors and squinted slightly, she could almost pass as a copy of Gordon.
Even without any steam, she could feel the excitement bubbling up through her boiler. “I’m a really useful engine you know,” She sang to herself, not really caring if anyone was listening.
“All the other engines they tell me so,
I huff and puff and whistle, rushing to and fro,
I’m the really useful engine we adore!”
She’d found the instrumentals of the song somewhere, and it quietly began playing.
“I’m the one!
I’m the Really Useful Engine that we adore
I’m the one, I’m the Number One
Torna-”
“Peep Peep! Hello Fatfac- oh you’re not Gordon!” A blue tank engine had pulled alongside her.
