6220coronation

[6220coronation]

[1967]

Modernization had finally completely taken hold. There was neither sight nor sound of steam engines in service. It was all diesels and electrics - engines similar to him.

Shouldn’t he be happy about that?

Steam engines terrified him. Sometimes, he still thought back to that yard full of rot. The sidings packed with dying locomotives, all screaming about how horrible engines like him were.

Didn’t he want them put out of their misery?

Even now, as he coasted down the main line, his mind raced. Thinking about how two years ago, a steam engine would’ve been heading this very train.

It didn’t feel right.

He glanced up at the station quickly approaching. Another engine pulled out as he neared. They hooted a cheerful greeting. 261’s reply was much less enthusiastic.

He whistled through the station, taking brief notice of Diesel 701 standing, waiting as passengers boarded his coaches. 261 wondered for a second if 701 knew the engine he’d replaced. If he’d ever gotten to meet them.

He likely hadn’t. 701 had always hated steam engines. He’d been elated to hear that they were on the chopping block. 261 could remember the night they’d talked about the fate of steam.

“Personally, I can’t wait.” 701 had said. “I almost wish I could drag some of those rusty, sooty old bastards into the scrapyards m’self. That’s some shunting I wouldn’t mind doing.”

261 grimaced, recalling the way 701 had chuckled - a laugh full of malice and bloodthirst.

The ‘Whistler’, as people called him, glanced past 701, taking notice of an odd shape amidst the discarded wagons in the sidings. The shape looked rusty and worn. 261 didn’t get a better look, as he was soon long past the station, once again alone with his thoughts.

[6220coronation]

I've just had a realization about Henry Mk1, the fictional sodor locomotive that was rumored to be built to stolen plans by an engineer jealous of Sir Nigel Gresley, but who stole the wrong plans. The engine was so flawed when built that they unloaded it to the first desperate buyer--Mr. Topham Hatt--who "wanted an Atlantic, but that ----- ------ ------ sent me that!"

So Henry I is said to have an undersized firebox, but he's also said to look like Gordon, and most of the best guesses for Henry's basis is that it was a modified Ivatt Atlantic stretched into either a ten wheeler or a Pacific. He also looks to have as wide a firebox as Gordon's in the illustrations and in the classic show.

an Ivatt Atlantic.

The A0 prototype--also thought to be Gordon as built, though he would have been heavily modified until he was mechanically identical to the A1s. (i.e., Flying Scotsman, Great Northern, etc)

Suppose Gresley's first thought was to stretch an Atlantic into a ten wheeler, and not a Pacific. With no room for the driving wheels, he'd have had to cut into the firebox, changing it into a narrow "keyhole" shape like Edward's. He would have done some calculations on the firebox's heating rate versus the power output of the engine, and determined that the loco wouldn't work, and then tossed the plans--right into the thief's hands.

My theory is that Henry I had the boiler barrel of a Large Boiler Atlantic, and he was built with larger cylinders (comparable to Gordon's, rather than the original Atlantic's). Maybe even three or four cylinders, maybe intended to be a compound like some of the Ivatt Atlantics iirc, but built by the thieves incorrectly as a simple-expansion engine. But he had a thin 'keyhole' style firebox squeezed between the rear drivers.

So Henry was lugging around Gordon-type weight, held a Gordon amount of steam and water, and had just as much tractive effort as Gordon... but with a firebox barely larger than Edward's. He'd take ages to build pressure, and when he did, he'd exhaust it faster than he could build up more.

He looks like he had a wide firebox like Gordon because in order to mask this obvious oversight, Henry's builders built the boiler jacket, the smooth painted outer hull, to be the same shape as an Ivatt Large Boiler Atlantic's boiler jacket, but most of it was just hollow.

Combine that with generally poor build quality--valve gear out of time, low factor of adhesion despite the extra driver due to oversized cylinders, leaky fittings and cylinders--and you got yourself a "deplorable" locomotive, but one that is ultimately recoverable if he's given the care he deserves.

Plus I like Henry being a ten wheeler pre- and post- rebuild.

[6220coronation]

Hey what's the common consensus for which railways the NWR bought/loaned loco's from in the early years.

I mostly try to narrow down the basis's of loaned engines to railways nearby like the LNWR, Midland, Furness and so on.

[6220coronation]

In Buccleuch Docks (Full Scene)

Posted a snippet of this *mumble mumble* ago, promised that the full scene would be delivered, and then forgot about it... until today, on my BoCo high.

What does a Coppernob and Edward reunion in 1964 have to do with BoCo, you ask? Well, this scene is merely Nobby getting a cameo in a big Edward/BoCo WIP I've been tinkering with... on the side...

But this sort of stands alone and should be of interest to Nobbyverse fans. However, this scene is not canon to Bird at Barrow Central (Coppernob not making a visit to Barrow post-bombing until 1996). Indeed, this scene for that matter is based on a rather idiosyncratic interpretation of what was going on with Edward and the N.W.R. immediately prior to the events of Main Line Engines...

Bonus: You'd otherwise not get to "meet" Hal and Sphyrna the Hammerhead Cranes for ages yet...

Warning: It may not be "canon" to Bird at Barrow Central but it is the same fellow so. Be prepared for the angst. Edward's got some stuff goin' on in this WIP too — even if he's a bit in denial about it.

Buccleuch Docks (1964)

Coppernob wasn't expecting visitors at that hour. The sun hadn't yet put in an appearance, so there were no passengers disembarking from ships. Even the Steelworks were quiet — apparently, operations were no longer 'round-the-clock. A few of the Twenties had been able to make a visit, even though Coppernob was at the wrong dock for them to swing by on their usual route, and he expected to see more of them before his week was out. But not at the crack of dawn.

The last Furness engine he had not counted on seeing at all. Coppernob had been loaned to B.R. and stationed at Buccleuch Docks for the week in a blatant attempt to steal some rail-enthusiast thunder from the North Western region, and he well knew it. Odds were that Charles Hatt understood he was being snubbed, and he might have warned his own famous engines off crossing the line and feeding into the ancient engine's publicity. 

But the Seagull showed up. Albeit before six a.m. there was a certain amount of discretion involved.

That's what taking the morning post will do for you.

After dropping it off for the mainland engine the Seagull navigated the yard until he was alongside Coppernob's makeshift plinth. His eyes widened when he saw the damage on the older engine's dome and boiler, but Coppernob was well used to that, and for that matter the Seagulls were well used to pretending not to stare. "Good morning, Nobby!"

"'Morning, Two."

At that the Seagull blinked, and his boiler gave a little shudder. "Oh, that still feels so wrong!"

"And I still don't see a nameplate."

"Nobody calls me that."

Coppernob snorted. "Oh yes, you're riding rather high these days, aren’t you? A book named after you and everything. It's lucky you have me to keep your wheels in trim."

"It isn't that. My new name would sound wrong coming from you, too. But you might use my old Furness number... there's no one else left to use it."

"That," said Coppernob, slow and deliberate (a mighty bulwark, warding off sentiment) "would be arrant disrespect to your new owners."

"Ah. And you're famously deferential, of course, to humans not named Ramsden."

Coppernob rolled his eyes. "Your lot always fancied yourselves barristers," he muttered... not quite as crossly, perhaps, as he'd intended. "Though that Charles Hatt is quite a muckety-muck among those national rail types, these days."

"Isn't he just."

"I can remember that boy boarding L.M.S. trains after holidays to return to his apprenticeship… he was slimmer, then."

There was a pause, as both watched the great yellow-and-black hammerhead crane slowly swing a piece of container freight. Coppernob was impassive as ever, but Edward was smiling.

It was the blue engine who next spoke. "Town has never been the same without you… I expect you’re getting a good many visitors here?"

"By the train-load," said Coppernob, matter-of-factly. "They really ought to have put me at the new station. Me being here is a disruption to dock operations."

"They may move you, yet. Have you seen the new station?"

"No. But you needn't wrack your smokebox thinking how to break the news gently. I know very well how ugly it is."

Edward smiled again, tamping down a nostalgic sadness that he knew Coppernob wouldn't appreciate. (Or that he would appreciate, but would take aim at anyway, by reflex.) "Gordon complained about the new station every night for two years."

"He left off complaining too soon." Coppernob eyed the younger engine, committing several mechanical alterations to memory. "Are those new frames?"

"No?"

"Don't take that tone with me. Well, if they're the same old, then that paint is doing wonders. New boiler?"

"No."

"Then why did they raise it?"

"They did swap out for a new one for a bit, while mine was in repairs, and that one required these braces. It seems they liked the look. I'm still not so sure."

"No one cares what you think, son," said Coppernob dryly. "If you please your directors, it's all that matters."

"Thanks, Nobby. Can always count on you."

"Always. You're still taking main line trains, then?"

"Not often." Edward grew quite animated. "My friend BoCo usually takes this train. He offered it to me for a day so that I could come see you. He's a class 28 — you've seen them, haven't you? The main line diesel-electrics that are stabled here. Do you know, they were built by the company that merged with Vickers?"

"All right, son." Coppernob eyed him askance. Not exactly reproving, but bemused. "I didn't need your friend's life story." A faint blush began to grow on the Seagull's smokebox. "What do you do these days, when you're not swapping jobs with dodgy diesels?"

"He's not dodgy."

"Mechanically, son. Mechanically. They have something of a reputation."

"Their engines aren't well-made," Edward admitted reluctantly. "BoCo's very clever about managing around it, though."

"Ah," said Coppernob. "So you have something in common, is that right? But this isn't what I asked."

Edward twisted his lips briefly, the locomotive equivalent of a shrug. "I manage my yard, like always. I don't do much banking anymore, the trains are beyond me, but I help out here and there with branch line goods."

"Hmm. The steelworks engines say they heard your Controller uses you as something of an under-manager."

"The steelworks engines!"

"Yes. They're ex-Furness, you know. Well, the steam engines, obviously."

"Oh, I know. But I never knew them, you know. I hadn't expected they knew anything of me." Honestly the Sodor engine was surprised they were still extant.

"The Twenties have always kept up with the doings of the world. And they knew I'd want to know what was going on with you. Is what they say true?"

"No? Well, sort of. People have been saying I’m a manager now as a bit of a joke. Controller has put me in charge of trialling our newcomers for different things."

Coppernob's expression didn't change, except for his eyebrows to slowly rise. "That's a fair bit of responsibility."

"Well, I've been training up other engines since the '20s. But I'm expected to make recommendations now, and that's new... I suppose. The real difference is that this is fast becoming my only use."

Something between melancholy and bitterness stained those last words. Coppernob acknowledged it only by silence. They spent several minutes watching the activity in the docks. A great bulk carrier was being loaded at one pier. At another a tanker was slowly being siphoned of some of its precious liquid cargo.

"What's it like," asked Edward, "being back?"

Coppernob eyes followed the crate's progress upwards and then over to deck before answering. "The aluminum doesn't seem to do as brisk a trade as the hemitate did."

"No."

Coppernob was still not quick to speak. Edward, however, was these days a practiced listener, and wore him down. "More raw wool and foodstuffs go out. I suppose there are not so many locals to feed as there once were."

"Yes."

"The new crane seems strong."

"Oh, Sphyrna's very good. She's nice, too."

Coppernob gazed at the younger engine, eyes hooded against some hidden emotion. Or joke. "I suppose it would be ungracious of me to say I prefer the old one?"

"Oh," teased the ex-Seagull, "very."

"So many things these days, that I’m not to say."

"Of course you miss Hal," said Edward, more seriously. "There never was such a crane."

"His design was very common. But none braver, no." Coppernob snorted, but his heart wasn't in it. "People make much of what I did in the blitz, which was nothing. Hal kept this place going day and night. He couldn't take shelter when everyone else could. Nice easy target. But they had to take him out before they slowed him down. He never missed a beat."

"No."

"I wonder if the people remember him."

"The locals do," said Edward quietly. "One still hears him spoken of, sometimes. Our new Caledonian engines came and asked me if I knew who they were talking about, and they've only been here a couple of years."

Coppernob seemed to consider some more, eyes continuing to examine the yard. 

Finally, with an air of great deliberation, he gave his verdict. "I think my lot ran this place better."

Edward laughed, though subsiding to a diplomatic murmur when he spoke. "That's no very great boast. I hear those Hudswell Clark shunters are rather troublesome."

"To be sure. I've seen for myself." Coppernob, though to be sure his voice had been low to begin with, did not trouble to lower it further. Might have raised it, even. "Not open cheek and frank mischief, either. They've some sly game going. I don't know exactly what scheme they have, but whatever they’re about I know that a hundred years ago you could be scrapped for it without a second's thought. Do they try tricks with your lot?"

"Well, we generally shunt our own goods here. But no, they don't seem to dare give us trouble." Edward heard himself, and chuckled. "That may sound rather brash. It's because of our Controller. Though to be sure Gordon and our Scotsengines are plenty intimidating, even on their own." He gave Coppernob another would-be discreet survey. He was better at it than he and his lot had been back in 1908, that much was for sure. "How's the museum, Nobby?"

Coppernob thought it over. "All right. The Government projected 140 thousand visitors last year, and we had nearly 175."

"Oh, congratulations are in order."

"Government's still not happy. Somehow the money doesn't work out. But it sounds as though the money never is quite right, for a museum. I reckon things are going fair enough."

Edward waited, until seeing that was as much as he was going to get. "Do you like the other engines and things?"

"They're a little mad." Coppernob's mouth quirked as he owned: "So I get on with them. But don't pump me for tales about the others. Unlike some engines I hear of, we make it a point to guard each other's privacy."

"Well, then. Are many of the visitors Londoners? Or do they mostly travel in?"

"About half and half."

"... and do you like them?"

"A few, I suppose. Most I neither like nor dislike — they’re just part of the crowd."

Edward make a little hiss of amused exasperation. "Yes, but — are — are you happy there, Nobby?"

For his trouble he found himself, predictably, pinned by one of Coppernob's most inscrutable gazes. Predictable... and yet in years past it would have been more a blazing glare.

Certainly old Nobby had mellowed in the past few decades. But whether that was something to celebrate or something to mourn was unclear.

"Happy?" muttered Coppernob. "What is this preoccupation everyone has with happiness. In our day no one was happy or unhappy... men no more than their machines. You were decent or shiftless. Honest or ne'er-do-well. If you were happy you were born well or you were dead."

"Yes," agreed Edward. "I think it's been getting better, too. But now it's you who hasn't answered my question. Do you miss Barrow very much, or are you happy at Clapham?"

It hadn’t been easy to make himself ask. And when Edward saw his blank expression, saw how the ancient engine struggled with the question, he suddenly understood that none of them had ever before enquired after Nobby’s well-being, not really. No one had dared think of it. The entire railway, in Edward's day, had run on Coppernob being exactly what they all needed him to be: a source of legitimacy for the directors, entertainment for locals, an attraction for visitors, a role model for engines in service, an ally for the retirees, a minder for the young, a rod of correction for the errant, a reservoir of memory; the old number three seemed to have fulfilled all that was wanted of him effortlessly, with his own feelings immaterial. 

And now Coppernob blinked at him. Only vaguely annoyed, instead of wrathful.

"Oh, I'm all right enough. I miss Barrow as it was — but it's not coming back. Better to be among other engines like me and have something to do, than to watch strangers run this town. Clapham is a very comfortable place to sit around and be a well-polished curiosity. Though I rather miss Horwich."

"Horwich!" That had all been a bit surprising, a bit new. But it was that last sentence that really shocked the ex-Seagull. "I should have thought..."

It was Coppernob's turn to twist his lips. "I should have thought, too." Horwich Works had been a curse on Furness engines after the Grouping, its appetite for scrapping younger and younger engines never seeming to abate. In the immediate aftermath of the bombing of Barrow station Edward had needed to make several inquires before learning Coppernob's whereabouts, and the news "taken to Horwich" had chilled him to the firebox. He'd been genuinely surprised several years later when he'd had news of Coppernob putting in an appearance at some centenary celebration in Manchester... alive. "But it's not as if I had to see their scrap lines. If anything I felt closer to the rest there than here. Anyway, I liked being in the shop. There was always something going on — work-y, engine-y sort of things. The workshop really is the heart of a railway and while I was there I could almost feel... But then again, it was dark and noisy, and not the sort of place children come to visit. And I suppose these days B.R. is mismanaging it into the ground. I'm fortunate to be just where I am. Doubtless some other old thing is rusting away in storage because I have their spot at Clapham." And on that note, Coppernob seemed to feel confidences were over. "Tell that absurd Mogul to come over before I've gone."

"I will. Thomas sends his regards. He can't possibly get over this way, but he wanted to say hullo."

"Thomas... ah, yes, that's the little lost sidetank, isn't it." Coppernob's expression didn't change. "Haven't heard that name in a minute."

"Oh yes. I'm sure children who visit transport museums never ask every steam engine they see if they know Thomas the Train."

"Please tell me he has no idea how famous he is."

"Fortunately not. He knows he's a fixture on Sodor but not how far that fame extends. It's about the only secret Controller's ever tried to have everyone keep and succeeded."

"Speaking of fame, I don't know if you noticed that man in street wear. He's taken at least one photograph of us and will probably take more at close-range. You meant to be discreet — will your Controller be angry?"

"Oh, no. Why would he? No, I only wanted to come when it was quiet so as to not get you in trouble. I suppose the whole point in B.R. having you out here was to try to overshadow our region."

"Oh, it was. It very much was."

"Then ought I head off the man with the camera?"

"They care. I don't."

Coppernob gave a secret, wicked smirk, as if to his own self, and Edward grinned. For an instant it was the old Nobby, a Nobby that for the Sodor engine had been bumped askew on his pedestal since 1915, the fearless golden hero of his youth. "Right. Trust you for that. Though I'm afraid I must be saying good-bye. I'm to pick up that petrol and take it back over the bridge."

"Write more often."

"More often! You never answered."

"Perhaps I didn't. Do it anyway."

"Only, I thought I must have annoyed you."

"Son, your lot has been annoying me since before the turn of the century. Don't break tradition at this late date." The old engine looked typically indifferent. Edward knew that expression very well, too well to be fooled by it, but he looked his fill anyway, re-committing it to memory. Coppernob seemed to be doing the same with him, though if he really were then he was much more subtle about it. "After all, you're my only source for news of that blasted island. No more than half of any letter about that Vickers diesel of yours, if you please."

"Very well. And I'll pass on word to James and the others today. I'm so glad to have seen you again, Nobby."

Edward half expected an idle remark in return that he, handsome old Coppernob, was of course well worth the seeing. But Nobby's playful mood — or what passed as a playful mood, for Nobby — had already passed over. He was staring ahead listlessly. Perhaps the mention of tradition had sent him on a reverie. Perhaps he was gloomy at the thought of a new day entertaining modern, unsatisfactory Barrovians. Edward did not imagine for a second that Coppernob's heart was breaking to say good-bye to him. The old engine was too tough for that.

Indeed, it seemed he was too tough to even acknowledge his departure. Edward was about to give up waiting for a response, and he gave a whistle to signal his movement.

He hadn't quite gotten off his brakes, though, when Coppernob, voice urgent and somehow bare, stopped him with a single word.

"Thirty-Four. Don't — " Coppernob broke off for an instant. Then he took a deep breath and finished, as if angry at whatever invisible force had stopped him. "Don't let them do to you what they did to me."

Edward looked over at him.

There was a new Coppernob there. One he had never shown any of the Seagulls. One he probably had shown very few engines at all.

The old engine grinned twistedly, as if to mask it. "That is what young Hatt wants, isn't it? Have you get the newcomers settled, run out your boiler ticket, then stick you on a plinth, probably at that little station of yours. The railway continues to benefit from your experience without your operational costs. I remember. I know how it goes. Don't let them, don’t you dare let them. Better scrap than that. Preservation isn’t any sort of life."

Coppernob didn't look a bit sad. But the intensity of each hissed word betrayed years of solitary pain, and Edward was terribly shaken.

"I — I can't let them scrap me," said Edward numbly. "I've been fighting to prevent that for ages."

"I know."

"Not only for myself, Nobby. I'm not a coward, I know I'm no better than all my brothers who faced the torch. But it would set a precedent for the others — Thomas and the others. I must keep going, at least until they're safe — "

Coppernob gave a harsh laugh, humorless. "Save your puff. I know. Don't I know! You mustn't fall into every single trap I did, son. Anyway, what of it? Do you suppose your friends would be happy in that position? Could you stand by, and watch it happen to them?"

"I — don't know," said Edward, still blank. The truth was that he'd assumed that the younger engines, most of them more popular than he, would be kept operational even if the future Nobby predicted for him (a future that he himself indeed saw coming) came to pass.

Coppernob's gaze was piercing. "I tried to fight them. I knew what a terrible thing they were demanding of me. You won't even try to resist — I taught you too well, didn't I? Duty above all else — that's a rule for a younger engine. It was a good rule for all those other poor sods with their short, normal lives. But you... maybe it makes no difference. It didn't for me. But fight anyway. Once you give your railway fifty years of service, you're allowed to say no, damn it. Loudly, and often."

And then Coppernob looked away. Clearly he thought there was nothing more to be said. 

After a dazed moment Edward whistled again, limply, and chuffed off.

He almost forgot the petrol altogether.

[6220coronation]

Headcanon: Thomas, in-universe, is a ghost story.

We all know that Thomas's arrival to Sodor was a complete accident. He was never suppose to be there, and the LBSCR clearly didn't know about it until after the war. But they went ahead and marked him down as "Lost in war service" anyways, and the only reason Thomas stays on Sodor at all is because they didn't want to change their records, so sold him, which is a really shallow response anyways, but an entire class was withdrawn in BR days for bookkeeping reasons, so I suppose anything can happen. But what about all the other Brighton engines, and more specifically, all the other E2s? From their perspective, Thomas (Or 105) just went missing in 1915, and they never saw him again (Given that no one told them that "Hey your brother's still around, we just sold him to some backwater island railway lol"). It gets to the point that the other E2's create a ghost story surrounding Thomas and his disappearance from the LBSCR, as a warning to those ungrateful with their lot in life (I'm sure Thomas was just born with the "I wanna get out of this yard!" shtick lol). It could even help work in the "Ghost of Timothy" story, but as the other E2's just misremembering Thomas's name. They only knew him for a month, I doubt they'd have many memories of him lol. And who knows, maybe that ghost story was the one Percy quoted in Ghost Train, which would be really weird if Thomas learns that there's a ghost story about him.

+10 points if the story somehow makes it all across the world, and Thomas became famous world-wide before the RWS lol

[6220coronation]

Alternative Basis Headcanons 2

In a previous post, I covered the non British engines like Victor and Hiro and thought up alternative designs for them. This time, I’d like to go over some potential alternate basis ideas for other characters. So let’s get started, shall we?

–

First up is James. Canonically, he’s described as an experimental L&YR Class 28 fitted with a pony truck. But seeing as these engines never had such a thing, the next closest matches, shape wise, are the GWR 2600 Aberdare and the Caledonian Railway Class 34. Ultimately, I think the 2600 makes for a better alternate basis, since it has a Belpaire firebox.

–

In both the Railway Series and TV Series, Percy is depicted as a Frankenstein 0-4-0ST of unknown origin. Which got me thinking. The Caledonian Railway 264 Class looks quite similar to Percy, so I feel this basis is rather fitting.

–

Donald and Douglas are both fictional add-on members of the 652 Class. But the 652 numbers only went up to 57645. But since the first two members of the Caledonian Class 30 were renumbered 17646 and 17647, how about the Class 30 as their new basis?

–

Next up is the first and only cut character on this list, Barry. According to Christopher Awdry, Barry was envisioned as an Ivatt 2MT. But to differentiate him from Arthur, suppose his basis was changed to the Fowler 2-6-2T.

–

Stanley (no relation to the 10-12-D turned pumping engine) is based on a Stewart and Lloyd’s 0-6-0ST. But hear me out. This is probably just me, but the GNR J13 feels like a perfect alternate basis for him.

–

In the show, Flora’s basis is one of the Moseley steam trams. But this made it pretty easy to think up a potential new basis for her, the Great Eastern Railway G15.

–

I’ll be honest, I don’t really have much to say in regards to Billy and Charlie. Their basis is fine as it is. They’re still Manning Wardles, albeit, really old Manning Wardles from the BW&LR.

–

In Journey Beyond Sodor, Theo is depicted as a railway traction engine. But I may or may not headcanon him as Coffee Pot #1 in rebuilt condition.

–

In canon, Sonny is of a similar design to Bellerophon, a preserved tank engine. But my headcanon for Sonny is that he’s an LNER J62.

–

Regarding Samson, it took a little while to think of what to say about him, but here goes. Although Samson is based on a Barclay & Co tank engine, my headcanon for him is that he’s a North Eastern Railway Class K.

–

Whiff’s official basis is Aerolite, an engine built to pull the Mechanical Engineer’s saloon coach. I’ll be honest, I don’t really like the concept of a single wheeler being a garbage engine. So my headcanon is that he’s one of the LMS Dock Tanks.

–

I don’t have much to say about Scruff and Logan either, since they’re also both unchanged, basis wise. Scruff is an LNER Y3 Sentinel, while Logan is an S&DJR Sentinel.

–

Daisy is a single unit version of the Class 101, which doesn’t make much sense, since her basis is a DMU. The 121 Bubble Cars, on the other hand, were single units. So that’s my basis headcanon for her.

–

Norman is apparently based on BR 11001, and Dennis’s brother. But this poses a problem, since only a single example was built. To get around this, my headcanon is that he’s a BR Class 16, which suffered frequent breakdowns.

–

And lastly, we have Splatter and Dodge. During their only appearance, they were depicted as a pair of Class 08s. But there’s no shortage of 08s in the show, so to help these two stand out a little more, what if they were instead a BR Class 13?

–

Whew, this post was a real doorstopper. It’s probably going to be a little while before I post again, but I’ve already got a couple ideas in mind. One idea is a post going over the NWR shed codes, and the other idea I had is a post detailing the private industrial engines of Sodor. Anyway, I think that’s enough rambling from me.

[6220coronation]

Fuck it, I didn't want to make a post on this but it's bugging the hell out of me so let's exorcize the thought.

Lilo and Stitch is an extremely good children's movie. I've been working at a daycare for over five years now, and out of all the children's movies I've shown to an auidence of twenty or so school-age kids (i.e. between the ages of 5 and 12), the only movie that's held their attention as well as Lilo and Stitch is The Emperor's New Groove, and the only one that's held it better is An American Tail. Of those three, Lilo and Stitch has won the vote of "what movie we will watch" the most. It not only entertains kids, but emotionally captivates them from start to finish, because it very thoroughly understands how to engage children on their level. It's a smart, tightly written children's movie.

The feat of story-telling genius it pulls of lies in its ability to reach both where children's imaginations want to go and where their lived real-world experiences lie - most children's movies focus on one or the other, but Lilo and Stitch dives deep into both. On the imagination side, there's Stitch's whole plotline of being a little alien monster being chased by other weirdo aliens onto earth because they want to stop him from running amok and causing havoc (which, of course, happens anyway in fun cartoony comedy/action spectacle). On the real-world side, you have Lilo's plotline of being a troubled little girl who has an abundance of very real problems that, like an actual child, she struggles to comprehend and deal with, as well as the many adults in her life that care about her to some degree but all struggle to fully understand her. Kids want to be Stitch and run amok and cause cartoony havoc. Kids, even the least-troubled kids, relate to Lilo, because all of them have been in a similar situation as her at least once in their lives.

Balancing these two very different stories, with very different tones and scopes to their respective conflicts, is a hard writing task, but Lilo and Stitch manages to do it in a way that seems effortless with one very powerful trick. The two plots are direct mirrors to each other, complete with the characters involved in each having foils in the respective plot. To break it down:

Stitch, the wild and destructive alien gremlin who everyone has labeled as a crime against existence, is Lilo, the troubled young girl who's viewed as a "problem child" by all the adults in her life. In both plotlines, Stitch and Lilo are facing the threat of being "taken away" from the life they know because they act out, and in both plotlines, we see that this is an unfathomably cruel thing to do to them and will not actually solve the problems they have.

Dr. Jumbaa, the mad scientist who made Stitch because making monsters is what mad scientists do, and who had no intentions of ever being nurturing or parental to anything or anyone in his life, is Nani, Lilo's older sister whose parents died when she was young and now is forced to act as a parental substitute despite not being mentally or emotionally prepared for that responsibility yet. Both Dr. Jumbaa and Nani are trying to get their respective wild children in line with what society wants them to be, and both are struggling hard with it because they in turn have a lot of growing to do before they can actually accomplish that.

Pleakley, the nebbish alien bureaucrat who ends up being assigned to help Dr. Jumbaa despite being mostly uninvolved in creating the whole Stitch situation, is David, the nice but mostly ineffectual guy who's crushing on Nani and wants to help her but doesn't really have much he can provide except emotional support. Ultimately Pleakley and David prove that said emotional support is a lot more helpful than it seems on the surface, as they give Jumbaa and Nani respectively a lot of the pushes they need to become better in their parental roles.

The Grand Councilwoman, who runs the society of aliens that is trying to banish Stitch forever for his crime of existing, is Cobra Bubbles, the Child Protective Services agent who is in charge of deciding whether or not Lilo needs to be taken away from her home forever for, ostensibly, her own good. Both are well-intentioned and stern, with a desire to follow the rules of society and do what procedure says is the most humane thing to do in this situation, but both lack the understanding of Stitch/Lilo's situation to actually help until the end of the movie.

Finally, we have Captain Gantu, the enforcer of the Galactic Council who is a mean, aggressive, sadistic brute but is viewed as a "good guy" by society because he plays by its rules (well, when he knows can't get away with breaking them, anyway), who is the counterpart of Myrtle, the mean, aggressive, sadistic schoolyard bully who is viewed as a "good kid" by other adults because she plays by the rules they established (well, when she knows she can't get away with breaking them, anyway). Both Gantu and Myrtle are, in truth, much nastier in temperament than Stitch and Lilo, but are better at hiding it in front of others and so get away with it, and often make Stitch and Lilo look worse in the eyes of others by provoking them to violence and then playing the victim about it - in fact, both even have the same line, "Does this look infected to you?", which they say after goading their respective wild-child victims into biting them.

The symmetry of these two plotlines allows them to actually feed into each other and build each other up instead of fighting each other for screentime. The fantastical nature of Stitch's plot adds whimsy to the far more realistic problems that Lilo faces so they don't get too heavy for the children in the audience, while the very real struggles of Lilo in her plotline bleed over into Stitch's plot and make both very emotionally poignant. When both plotlines hit their shared climax, they reach children on a emotional level few other movies can match - the terror of Lilo being taken away from her family, and the emotional complexity of that problem (Cobra Bubbles pointing to Lilo's ruined house and shouting at Nani, "IS THIS WHAT LILO NEEDS?" is so starkly real and heart-breaking), is matched and echoed in the visual splendor and mania of the spectacular no-way-this-is-going-to-work chase scene where Stitch, Nani, Jumbaa, and Pleakley all team up to rescue Lilo from Gantu.

The arcs of the characters all more or less line up. Nani confronts her own failures to be a guardian and parent to Lilo and resolves to do better and learn from her mistakes. Jumbaa, who through most of the movie protests to be evil and uncaring, nonetheless comes to not only care for Pleakley, but more importantly for Stitch too, and ends up assuming the role he never wanted but nonetheless forced himself into from the start: he is Stitch's family. Hell, the moment that reveals this is really clever - Stitch goes out into the wilderness to try and re-enact a scene from a storybook of The Ugly Duckling, hoping, in a very childish way, that his family will show up and love him. Jumbaa arrives and, coldly but not particularly cruelly, tells Stitch that he has no family - that Stitch wasn't born, but created in a lab by Jumbaa himself. But in that moment Jumbaa is proving himself wrong - because Stitch's creator, his parent, DID show up, and did exactly what happens in the story by telling Stitch the truth of what he is. It can't be a surprise, then, that later in the movie Jumbaa ends up deciding to side with Stitch, to help him save Lilo, and to stay on Earth with his child.

David and Pleakley go from being pushed away by Nani and Jumbaa respectively to essentially becoming their partners in the family. The Grand Councilwoman and Cobra Bubbles finally see how cruel their initial solution of isolating Stitch and Lilo from their family would be, and bend the rules they are supposed to enforce to protect and support this weird found family instead of breaking it apart. Gantu and Myrtle are recognized for the assholes they are and face comeuppance in the form of comedic slapstick pratfalls. And most importantly, Stitch and Lilo both get the emotional support and understanding they need to thrive and live happy lives as children should be allowed to do. It's like poetry, it rhymes.

It's a very precise, smartly written movie. It's a delicate balancing act of tone and emotions, with a very strong theme about the need for family and understanding that hits children in their hearts and imaginations. It's extremely well structured.

...

So it'd be kind of colossally fucking stupid to remake it and start fucking around with the core structure of it, chopping out pieces and completely altering others, with no real purpose beyond "Well, the executives thought it might be better if we did this."

[6220coronation]

Express Engines

So, recently some friends of mine (@sparkarrestor chief among them) finally got me to watch some TTTE fan videos on youtube. I really never got into that stuff - I’m “an old” by Tumblr standards, and my first exposure to TTTE fan video content was back in the days of wooden models filmed with potatoes, and Trainz productions that still had the Fraps logo onscreen. Things were dire, and I never bothered to really investigate further in the intervening decade+. Watching it now, I’m absolutely astounded by the level of quality and skill that a lot of people on youtube have gotten up to. I find writing to be tedious and slow, but at the least I get a few new paragraphs or pages at the end of each night to read back through. Filmmaking, especially the animated stuff that these people are making, is such a long game that I don’t think I could stand it. 

One of the first things that Sparks (and @weirdowithaquill) showed me was Rhydyronen’s Express Engines, the superbly made adaptation of the second book in Sodor Island Forum’s (SiF) Extended Railway Series. (ERS)  I could honestly go on about the production quality and filmmaking skill involved in this for some time, but I feel as though after a while it would stop being constructive responses and more just me pointing at the screen and mumbling things about camera movements, so I’ll relent for right now. Just assume that I really enjoyed it and keep coming back to it.  

(That being said, watching “Fourth Time Unlucky” and “Keeping Up With Castle” made me feel like my third eye was opening several different times. I had no idea that some of the filmmaking techniques in this were even possible, especially the big conversation set piece in Fourth Time Unlucky.)

---

All that being said… I do have quite a few issues with the story itself. Not the cinematography, the animation, or the voice acting, but the heart of this work - the script. It’s not a problem with Rhydyronen, the creator, instead it’s something inherent to the work itself. 

Allow me to explain:

SiF’s ERS was very formative to me as “a young,” entering the fandom in the late -00s and early -10s. I read literally of them, and even went through the long-since-retconned V1 archive that is still present on the “Your Own Railway Series Style Stories” page. There’s a non-zero chance that I know more about this series of works than anyone who isn’t an active or former contributor to the ERS. Even to this day, I check in every other Saturday to see what they’ve put out. A lot of my works are based in no small part on the real world setting of Sodor-in-the-present that they’ve done. It’s a huge part of my life, and even if I never log in to the site again, its influence will hang over my life for years or even decades to come.

There’s just one problem with all of this: The ERS is, from a very fundamental standpoint, bad. 

I don’t mean this in a critical “this is terribly written” way - far from it, in fact. The real issue with the ERS is more fundamental: they created a world, a rich tapestry of words and stories, that draws from the works of Wilbert and Christopher Awdry… and then they made it profoundly miserable to be in. 

Now, this is not a bad thing, as @mean-scarlet-deceiver has rather masterfully written, but with SiF, it’s a more cloying and existential form of misery that doesn’t really do anything or go anywhere. Sodor is on its face a normal place to live, like any other part of England, but read almost any story and you will find things happening that seem to go against the grain of most TTTE fic writers, but also of just basic understandings of human decency. 

Starting off from the beginning, ERS book 42 Evan the Private Engine is a great example of what I’m talking about. Evan, the titular engine, is a privately owned narrow gauge engine operating on the Skarloey Railway. At one point, many years ago, he broke down and was abandoned by his owner in situ. Now, for everyone who is a dyed in the wool TTTE fan like me, search your feelings and think of what happens to this engine next. Is he adopted by the Skarloey engines? Do they re-home him somewhere else? Is this actually a story being told by Skarloey to the other engines? Vote now on your phones. 

[Buzzing noise] Wrong answer! What actually happens is that Evan is left where he is for so long that everyone forgets about him, and he’s covered in the overgrowth out by the lake. When he’s discovered “many years later,” he’s lost his memory, and will never get it back. 

This is the first book in the ERS. I told @lswro2-222 about this and she’s still mad about it. 

Things do not improve from there. The ERS is filled with countless stories of: 

Engines being forgotten about for decades, (ERS #152 – Scrapyard Engines) 

Engines being threatened with scrapping after suffering from mechanical issues (ERS #58 – Brave Mountain Engines)

When said engine (quite reasonably) tries to ensure their place on the railway by sabotaging someone else, they’re sent away for scrap anyways (ERS #70 – Norman the Mountain Engine)

Engines rather abruptly deciding to leave the island of Sodor, for almost no in-text reason. (ERS #221 – Dane the Electric Engine)

Engines rather abruptly deciding to leave the island of Sodor, just as their character arc was reaching a high point (ERS #320 – Procor the Mainland Engine)

Massive interpersonal conflicts between members of railway staff that would in any other universe result in someone quitting due to the toxic work environment. (ERS #462 - The Joint Controllers, ERS # 464 - The Fat Controller's Birthday Party)

Extremely out-of-place bouts of anti-diesel racism all the way in the 1990s (ERSN #9 – Dockside Engines)

The Fat Controller (among others) treating engines like children, property, or in some other extremely dehumanizing way, even if they had no control over the situation. (ERS #452 – Lorries and Engines, among many others)

I could go on for some time, and many of these are far from the worst examples. There’s also a huge number of baffling choices, like creating an engine that can only talk in horse noises, and then much later having this engine have a mental breakdown over his inability to communicate. (ERSN7 - The Pegasus Railtour Campaign) They also killed off Stephen Hatt, but did it in a way that rubs me the wrong way and does nothing to really add to the character's legacy. (ERSN #15 – The Hatt Family’s Engines) I could go on about this one for about as long as I could go on about Pegasus, but I don’t have that much time at any point between now and forever, so we'll leave it at that.) 

Meanwhile, interesting characters are often created and then immediately set aside in favor of things that are nowhere near as interesting. Now that I know this is a matter of taste, but would you rather read about a diesel engine placed in storage for so long that she turned malevolently insane, (ERS #169 – Sudrian Diesel Engines) or various background characters like a skip lorry that interacts with almost none of the “main” cast of the island? (ERS #475 - Rocky the Skip Lorry) I know which one I want to see, which is why the insane diesel hasn’t gotten a story all to herself since her introduction in (checks notes) 2011. 

However, all of this pales in comparison to the real issue with the ERS - all of this is more or less subjective, but there’s a real, substantial, problem here: Nobody actually seems to like each other. 

Reading through the stories, there’s this overwhelming sense that none of the characters - engine, person, or otherwise, actually enjoy each other’s company unless it’s explicitly stated in text. Even then, that measure is sometimes shaky, as characterizations can change from book to book. Engines can be on good terms with each other in one, and the next, they can be snapping at each other for no clearly defined reason. 

Well, they might try to define it, but the ERS is rather insistent on following the short, easy to digest four-story format used by the Awdrys, which means that any character development occurs suddenly, and with little room to flesh things out. What this results in is often poorly-explained conflict that could be salvaged if they ever strayed away from the standard 4-story format. A good example of this is ERS# 340 - BoCo & the Freight Diesels. This book is actually one of the better ones in terms of character arcs - it follows a pair of class 60 diesels (Spartan and Wakefield) as they deal with the fallout of their brother/leader leaving Sodor unexpectedly. (ERS #320 - I could go on about that decision as well. The character was written out because it conflicted with what the actual, IRL locomotive he was based on was doing. Meanwhile, I’ve got City of Goddamn Truro running rampage through Sodor.) These three engines have better-than-average characterization due to the absolutely god-tier introductory story they received (ERS #151), but even still, the relatively short length of each book/chapter means that the contents of book 340 and the preceding stories don’t exactly give us enough insight into the engine’s psyches to fully grasp what’s happening. It’s not so much of a case of “telling instead of showing” as it is “this comes at you quickly and without any real advance warning.” This is probably more true to life with how people act under stress, but… this is fiction. You can show the audience what’s going on. There’s a good reason why some of the best works in the ERS are the long-form ERS Novels that allow characters room to breathe. 

(Also, in #340, the Fat Controller just absolutely rips an engine a new one for causing an accident, in the process completely sidestepping the fact that said engine had a driver and a second man on board the entire time. SiF does their level best to infantilize the engines whenever possible while at the same time making them 100% responsible for the failings of the people around them.)

Another great example of this is Daphne - the NWR’s Deltic that I stole for my own fan works because there’s a solid core to the character, but she’s been sadly let down by the works that follow. In the ERS she has a decently traumatic backstory, with lots of room for expansion of the character or at the very least, hints of other things. However Daphne is at most a secondary character to the ERS, and often appears in other stories, rather than her own. In these, the writers follow a handy rule of thumb for writing her: 

Deltics are loud, and so naturally, Daphne must be loud. Loud people are annoying, so Daphne must be annoying. Because Daphne is annoying, she must often speak without thinking. Because she speaks without thinking, she must be the most irritating bitch anyone has ever seen. 

I mean this seriously. Daphne’s entire role in a lot of the ERS is to show up, say something unintentionally insulting, and then drive away. She had a good introduction to the ERS in book #135, but since then she’s mostly been a loudmouth side character. Even her entry in the ERS guide says so: 

Daphne is best known as the big diesel with the big mouth! There is little denying that she is a good worker when she wants to be, but her occasionally spiky temper, bossiness and boastfulness can often lead to her fall from grace. She also has a knack of speaking without thinking, something that has caused many an upset or unfortunate incident over the years.

This is not an interesting character. This is an annoyance of the highest order and I don’t know why they keep her around.

At no point since her introduction over a decade ago has anyone tried to change this. They let her stagnate in the background while the fucking horse engine gets his own novel! 

-

I apologize, I’m getting slightly off track here. What I’m trying to say is that the ERS fundamentally does not understand its characters, starting at the Fat Controller and working their way down the list. There’s hundreds of episodes of someone getting yelled at for an incident outside their control, even when it’s plainly obvious that it had to be. Characters vary wildly, and act outside of what you would expect, considering when a story might happen in-universe. 

A great example of this is in Book #338. Honey, a new-build diesel shunter, is bought by the Ffarquhar Quarry Company and in short order, pulls every capital-D-Diesel trick in the book to get Mavis replaced… and it works. Mavis is hauled away on a lorry to an uncertain future, (she eventually gets bought by the NWR, don’t worry) with everyone in real fear that she’s going to get scrapped. Now, in my works, Thomas and Co. would probably commit murder; a lot of more normal folks might have the entire Ffarquhar branch in an uproar - something like the deputation that saved Donald and Douglas way back when. 

What SiF does… is nothing. Absolutely nothing. Thomas and Co. not only don’t try and get Mavis back, but they eventually welcome Honey into the branch line family a few books later (ERS #368 – Christmas at Ffarquhar) despite Honey being one of the only engines in the ERS or the original RWS to succeed in her evil mission. 

This is such a fundamental misunderstanding of the characters, starting with the most obvious one - Thomas the Tank Engine - that this almost would have to be set in the 1960s or 1950s. Nobody has grown attached to Mavis yet, and Honey isn’t obviously evil or something. 

Naaaaaaaaaaah. This story canonically takes place in 2018 and Honey speaks in Gen-Z/Millenial slang while actively sabotaging Mavis in broad daylight. I wish I was making this up. 

------

Apologies, I got off track again. 

So, what does any of this have to do with the Express Engines youtube video that I linked up top? 

Well, I think it shows rather clearly how the ERS rather wantonly misunderstands its own characters. Writers far better than I (@mean-scarlet-deceiver) have written pages and pages on the mental states of many of the RWS cast, most notably Gordon, who is the main character of Express Engines.

Again, Jobey has written far more on the subject than I have, but suffice it to say that by 1996 - the “canon” date of Express Engines - Gordon has mellowed out significantly. Even if he thinks that he’s going to be top dog on Sodor forever, he definitely isn’t up his own ass about it like how he was in the early days. He’s getting old and he knows it, and when Pip and Emma eventually do show up in the RWS, he’s remarkably mellow about the whole thing. Granted, that’s about 10-15 years further up the line, but it goes to show that he’s not going to go ballistic or act like a child at the first sign of his dominance being threatened like he might have in the 1930s. 

(Actually, having read all the books, I don’t think he’d act like that at most points after maybe WWII. A lot of his “I’m the fastest and the best!” schtick came from being a very big but very solitary fish in a very small pond, and getting him someone his own size to play with might have taken the edge off of his sense of self-importance.) 

Quite naturally, that’s exactly what he does in Express Engines. 

In the “book” version of the story, the main source of conflict is him lying to newly-arrived Sodor Castle about whistle codes, and this goes directly into the time trial section of the story, before wrapping up with a neat little bow of Gordon going off to get an overhaul. 

As a side note, the SiF-standard infantilization of engines starts off strong with this book. The primary conflict is Gordon feeling threatened by the arrival of a new express engine. What nobody has told him is that said new express engine is there primarily to cover for him when goes in for an overhaul. Why has nobody told him this? Because nobody told him he was getting an overhaul. The poor engine was going insane and picking fights based on literally nothing but a misunderstanding. 

Now, this is all fine and good - it actually reads a lot like Gordon just giving the new kid a hard time while working through his own insecurities, (something we can probably all relate to) but the video adaptation adds more stories, and goes… a lot further. 

For those who haven’t seen it, in the video, Gordon is basically being sidelined to the nth degree following Sodor Castle’s arrival, and it is driving him up the wall. Following the events of Fourth Time Unlucky, which covers the whistle code scene, Gordon and Sodor Castle are in a near constant feud, which comes to a head in the next (all-new) episode Keeping Up With Castle. In it, the primary set piece is a scene that @lswro2-222 called “Gordon McFuckin’ Loses It,” because, frankly, he does. There’s an extended race scene between a borderline-crazy Gordon and an all-too-smug Sodor Castle (seriously, he’s approaching unlikeable levels of smug and snooty) that ends with Gordon dangerously overshooting the platforms at Wellsworth. It’s very well shot, very well edited, has some great voice acting, and absolutely positively does not make sense within any existing characterization of Gordon that I have ever seen. 

I’ve thought about it for some time and maybe if this happened during the height of the modernization plan in the 60s, when everyone’s spirits were at an all-time low, it might have worked. It might have fit with the desperation and malaise of that era, maybe. For this story to take place in the late 90s, this is an almost impossible characterization of Gordon. I hate to be prescriptive of other people’s fan works and go “he would not fucking say that” but… he would not fucking say that. At all. Under any circumstances. It just wouldn’t happen. 

In a similar vein to that, the characterization of the other engines really chafes at me. Sodor Castle shows up, seemingly displacing Gordon to the slow services, and the immediate response is to embrace the newcomer while mocking Gordon. This is perhaps the closest to “canon” I would say the video comes - the engines would do that at first; Gordon getting one-upped so publicly by a Westerner would be hilarious for a good long while. The issue, however, comes from the fact that nobody ever seems to notice that Gordon is legitimately upset by this whole development. They either continue mocking him or actively take Sodor Castle's side, which isn't something you do unless you have a rather strong dislike for someone. Not exactly the way you'd think the engines would act after being shoved together for 50-70 years… unless you write for the ERS. 

Also, I have a particular bug up my ass about Sodor Castle in this video. He's almost too smug and prissy to be likeable. A lot of his lines work really well as singular lines, but the instant you realize the circumstances they're said in it all falls apart. As an example, during the race scene in Keeping Up With Castle, you'd think he'd be concerned or worried when Gordon goes screeching through Wellsworth with his brakes hard on. Even if he dislikes Gordon by now, the passengers must have gone through the far walls of the coaches, and instead Castle takes the time to gloat. It's the little things like that that really get me - the writers are obviously aware of what's going on, and choosing this particular response says a lot in a very unintentional way.

And, on the subject of saying things, I do want to make one point clear: This is not a mean-spirited “takedown” of the ERS. Any fan work that’s gone on for literal decades, with hundreds of distinct stories and characters, is commendable just in the sheer effort exerted by those involved. I will gladly applaud SiF in their work to have a consistent quality and tone to their work, even if it's not one that I universally agree with. 

Furthermore, I like the ERS. While many of the stories in it are misses, when they hit it out of the park, they really do it. The ERS Novels, especially numbers 1, 2, and 9 (The Life & Times Of Jim The Jinx, The Peel Godred Railway, Dockside Engines) are unironically good.

Many of the characters, especially those introduced in the ERS’s early days like Daphne, Winston, Samarkand, Zelda, and the Class 60 trio, are legitimately interesting, and had captivating introductions to the franchise. Sometimes, SiF even predicts the future, adding Pip and Emma to Sodor years before Chris Awdry did, and did so with an excellent set of stories that heavily influenced my own interpretation of the characters.  (and then, in a classic SiF move, they de-canonized those stories once it became clear that they couldn’t be reconciled with new Awdry canon) There is a lot of genuine skill that has gone into the ERS, and it’s definitely influenced the entire TTTE fan community whether you realize it or not. (Everyone calls the works diesel Wendell. Why? SiF named him.) It certainly influenced me, and that’s why I feel the need to write this all out. This series has been a significant part of my life for a significant part of my life, and it disappoints me to no end that it stumbles so often. This isn’t a callout of “you suck,” instead it’s a callout of “do better, please.” 

--------------

This viewpoint has taken me several months to collate into a single thinkpiece. I kicked the idea around for a bit, thought it out more, watched the video a few more times, and then realized that I’d have to talk about SiF a lot. (oh no, what a tragedy.) So here it is. Hope you enjoyed it.

------------

Oh, one other thing. 

While I was watching the video, and thinking about how wrong this all was, and then I thought, “well I’d do this differently.” 

And then I did. 

And then things got very out of hand. 

I may have stolen some characters from SiF. 

(Don’t worry, they’re some of the ones that I like, from the few books that I enjoy.)

Anyway, here's Express Engines. 

2001 

It was barely spring on the Island of Sodor, and already the railway was being pushed to its limits. Congestion at other ports on the mainland had forced more ships into the port of Tidmouth (and, by extension, the ports of Knapford and Arlesburgh), and so the cargo trains got longer and more frequent. 

At the same time, the Easter holidays coincided with a spate of unseasonably early warm weather, so the island was swarmed with people seeking sunny beaches and scenic getaways. Tourist class tickets were in especially high demand, and on some days the Limited and the Midday Express would strain under the weight of five, seven, or even ten third class coaches. 

Fortunately, none of the engines were “down” for heavy maintenance, so while there wasn’t a scrabble to find available motive power, some… interesting schedule choices had to be made. 

-

“Henry, it’s occurred to me that I haven’t seen you leave to pull the Kipper in some time.” Gordon said one morning. 

“I haven’t been.” Henry yawned. “BoCo’s been taking it.”  

“BoCo?” 

“He said yes, don’t worry.” Henry said blearily. 

“But why aren’t you-”

“Because I’m getting about two hours of sleep if I take the Kipper and the morning stopper train, and that’s if someone isn’t snoring loud enough to shake the dust off the ceiling beams.”

“I assure you that I do not-”

“S’not you, you daft thing. It’s James. I think there’s something wrong with him.”

--

Bear growled in displeasure. It was a deep, bass-y sound that seemed to echo through the ground, and Bill and Ben fled back to the clay pits in terror. 

“-and if I catch you pulling that ever again, I’ll be the last thing you ever see!” 

Edward looked on in awe. “Can you teach BoCo how to do that?”

--

Duck goggled. “I think I’ve seen it all now.” 

Emma smiled meekly. “I know it’s a little unusual, but-”

“I didn’t mean it as a bad thing., Duck cut in graciously. 

“Oh thanks.” She looked around. “I wish we didn’t have such a long train, we could probably come down here more often. It’s very pretty-”

“Oi!” cut in Mike, from the Small Railway’s tracks. “What’s wrong wit’ Oliver?”

Looking back, Duck could see Oliver trying and failing to hide from Pip, much to her chagrin. 

“Don’t worry about it! He deserves it!” he said after a moment’s deliberation.

--

“Excuse me,” the big EWS diesel asked as he rolled into Crovan’s Gate with a line of flatbeds. “But is this a heritage railway or something? What are you doing here exactly? Are you on a railtour?” 

“Railtour?” James sniffed. “I’m not a railtour! I'm late! Ta ta!” 

And he steamed away in a hurry. 

“That… didn’t answer my question.”

----

During this time, the Fat Controller was nowhere to be seen. Rumours flew between the coaches and trucks that he was out finding them another engine, but the engines themselves knew better. 

“From where would he find a King class?”

“I don’t know! But there’s a biiiiig engine back there under a sheet, and a bunch of paint all labeled “GW Green” sitting around - more than Duck and Oliver could need put together!”

Well, some of them did. 

“James, what now?” Henry groaned as he rolled into the shed. All he wanted to do was sleep,but it seemed like this wouldn’t happen soon. 

“Look,” James spluttered, as Gordon and Bear stared with skepticism heavy on their brows. “All I know is: Engine, sheet, paint, and soon!”

“Soon?” Bear scoffed. “Soon what? Soon the hols will be over? Soon that summer will come? Show me some proof.”

“Oh for- what about that tarped over thingy that came in last Christmas? I saw it! That’s real!” 

“That could be anything!” Gordon butted in. “There’s dozens of preserved lines that wish to make use of our facilities. For all we know, it is a King class that’s being restored for a museum!”

Henry suddenly felt very bemused. He had something to say now, but it needed to be timed perfectly.

He waited a few minutes, as Bear and Gordon continued grilling James over details that he couldn’t possibly have known. It was quite funny, but not as funny as what he had to say. 

Finally, as his eyelids drooped and his fire died down to embers, he saw his chance. “Excuse me, if I may.” He yawned. Gordon and Bear stopped mid-sentence to look at him. From the startled look Gordon was hiding, it seemed like they’d forgotten he was there.  “But I did overhear from the coaches on the Limited, who themselves overheard from the Fat Controller, that we are getting another engine - just not a King, but instead, a Castle!” 

The reactions of the others were priceless, and held just long enough for him to close his eyes and fall happily to sleep!

-----

The next morning, The Fat Controller arrived as the sun rose. “Well, my ears have been burning all morning,” he said jovially. “So I assume you already know about the new engines,-”

“EngineS?”

----

Last year - around Guy Fawkes Night

Stephen Hatt strode into his office to find his secretary holding the phone about three feet from her ear. Even at that distance, a great commotion was clearly audible. 

“The National Railway Museum for you sir,” she said, straining to keep the phone as far away as possible. “Mind the volume when you answer.” 

He gave her a wide berth and an askance look as he entered his office. Sitting down at his desk, he picked up the handset out of reflex, and quickly set it back down again. Carefully, he moved the phone to the other end of his desk, and pushed the speakerphone button with the corner of a particularly tall book. 

Pandemonium burst forth from the device, and it took a moment for Stephen to pick out the sound of a human voice over what sounded like a fully-involved riot in the background. “Hello? Stephen? Are you there? It’s Andrew. Look, Stephen, I shan’t mince words with you, but we’ve made a terrible mistake and you’re the only person left who can fix it.”

Stephen, having recovered from being assaulted by a wave of sound, raised an eyebrow. “Fix it? I haven’t even been told what the problem is yet!” 

“What? Can you speak up- oh for goodness’ sake!” There was a sound of a phone handset being put down, and then the sound of a door opening. The sounds of the riot became louder and more pronounced for a moment, and then there was a bellow of “QUIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEET!” that shook the phone. 

The door then shut with a suddenly audible click, and then Andrew was back on the phone. “I’m terribly sorry about that.”

“What is happening over there?” Stephen asked, agog. 

“My problem.” Andrew said, his tone hasty. He clearly expected the noise to start up again. “We’ve done some, uh. re-arranging of our collections you see, and two engines were put together who really have no business being anywhere near-”

“CITY OF TRURO I WILL KILL YOU TONIGHT.” A female voice came through loud and clear, to the point where the speakerphone vibrated halfway off the desk. “KEEP TALKING AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS.”

Stephen’s expression became slightly more fixed, and he stayed quiet for a long moment. 

Andrew could feel his hesitation. “Please. We haven’t been able to open for three days. They’re on opposite sides of the building and they’re still at it. We have to get one of them off property.” 

“Andrew…” Stephen said slowly. “You do recall that City of Truro had a most remarkable change of fortune some years ago, correct?”

“Stephen,” Andrew was close to begging. “Nobody will take him. We have to do something!” 

“Your use of the word 'we' is very inspired, Andy.” Stephen was actually going to have to get up and walk around his desk to reach the phone. 

“Wait! Wait!” His finger stopped inches from the “end call” button. “We’ll do anything! Name it!” 

The Fat Controller smiled. “Anything, you say?” 

-------

The engine had been brought in under cover - both tarpaulin and darkness. Once it had been delivered, it had been immediately shunted away into a far corner of the works, away from prying eyes. 

It was only then that the cover was removed, and the engine was revealed. A six-coupled Westerner, one of the great Castles of yore. She - and she most definitely was a she - was resplendent in Great Western Green and Gold, complete with all the little filigree marks that only a steam-era Swindon would apply. The paint had barely lost its luster, and it appeared from the outside as though this engine had been shunted through a portal in time. 

The only part of her that showed any age at all was her face. Around her eyes and brows were laugh lines and wrinkles, a generation of smiles and conversation physically worked into the structure of her beauty. 

She wasn’t smiling now, though. Frown lines cut into her face unnaturally, as she sent a venomous glare in the direction of the man standing by her pony truck.

“You were much more compliant back at the Science Museum,” he said, continuing an argument that had been ongoing since the moment he’d arrived in her line of sight. 

“I was valued at the Science Museum,” she snapped, putting heavy weight on the word valued. “And then you deaccessioned me.” 

“We were renovating!” He protested. “I would’ve thought that you would have loved being amongst your own kind. You were to be put in your own special museum!” 

“I was in the Museum longer than I ever was on the rails, but you never cared enough to find out which setting I preferred, did you?” she hissed. “All you wanted was Neil’s job!” 

“Sir Cossons stood down to run English Heritage and you know it.” 

“All I know is that you were in there for less than a month before I was 'better suited for display in York!'” 

“So you could be put in Swindon when the museum there was ready!” 

“But I didn’t want to go to Swindon!” she screeched. “And in any event, This. Isn’t. Swindon! You and Andrew sold me rather than deal with Truro!”

“Truro is more…” 

“Say that he’s more famous than me. Say it. That’s all Showboat Sharp ever cares about. Not that he’s totally unsuitable for public display, or that he-”

“He can keep his mouth shut when Andy tells him to, which is more than I can say about you!” He looked at her with disgust in his eyes. “You are a train! You are supposed to be seen and not heard, and no more!” 

Whatever she was about to say in reply - and it would have been vicious - was cut off by the opening of a distant door. A top-hatted figure emerged from the outside, and made his way towards them. 

“And,” the man whispered. “We didn’t sell you. I gave you away. It’s the only way the fat bastard would take this deal.”

There was a quiet “so glad to be valued...”, but it was lost in the arrival of the top hat wearing man. “Ah, Dr. Sharp, and Caerphilly Castle, I’m Stephen Hatt. Wonderful to meet you both in person.” 

“Charmed.” Lied man and engine as one as a small crowd of workmen filed in behind the man. 

Without prompting, the portly man clambered up onto Caerphilly’s bufferbeam to address the room. To her surprise, he did so gracefully, managing to not snag himself on her lamp irons, and his shoes were sturdy boots that gripped the metal properly. Maybe he wasn’t an officious fop after all?

“Well everyone,” he said, facing the group. “This is the surprise that I have been talking about. Without going into too many details, it seems as though the Science Museum’s recent renovations have left Caerphilly Castle without a home. Now, she was originally relocated to York, however a…” He paused diplomatically. “Certain engine caused much trouble for her there, and she has now made her way to us. I’d like to thank Dr. Sharp, the director of the Science Museum, for this kind contribution to our railway.”

“How much did you pay for ‘er?” came a voice from the front of the group of men. “Was it market value for once?” It was followed by poorly-suppressed laughter from the crowd. 

Even with his face away from her, Caerphilly could see that Stephen’s body language turned slightly defensive, but before he could say anything, Dr. Lindsay Sharp PhD., head of the largest  Science Museum in the United Kingdom, spoke up. “Actually, you have received her gratis.” he said with a smarmy smile. “We’re just glad to see her go to a good home! Hopefully you can put her on display someplace where the public can learn from her.”

Less-suppressed laughter met this. Stephen Hatt turned to look down at the other man. “Lindsay? Forgive me for disagreeing with you in public, but you do know that we intend to restore this engine to traffic, right?” 

There was a not insignificant amount of spluttering and swearing. Dr. Sharp had absolutely not known that. 

Caerphilly hadn’t known either. “You want me… to run again?” she said, not quite believing what she was hearing. 

“Of course!” Stephen said kindly. “Gordon, our primary express engine, is coming up on his boiler ticket, so we need another express engine to fill the gap.” He paused seriously. “Did you think that we were going to stick you on a plinth somewhere?” 

“I… I really did sir,” she said quietly. “I didn’t think that anyone wanted steam engines anymore.” She blinked. “Goodness, if I’d known, I would have insisted on having someone else come with me! Lord knows that Evening Star is never going to run under the current administration.” 

Stephen missed the acid glare she sent Dr. Sharp’s way. “Oh, how funny it is that you mention that. We actually have a 9F that we purchased recently. You’ll be meeting her soon enough, her name is-”

[6220coronation]

Please make a post about the story of the RMS Carpathia, because it's something that's almost beyond belief and more people should know about it.

Carpathia received Titanic’s distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.

(Californian’s exact position at the time is…controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic’s distress rockets. It’s uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)

Carpathia’s Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic’s aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.

All of Carpathia’s lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.

I don’t know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.

Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake–prepping a ship for disaster relief isn’t quiet–and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.

And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.

Here’s the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms–which, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she’d done that, he asked her to go faster.

I need you to understand that you simply can’t push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless–it’s difficult to maneuver–but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can’t do it. It can’t be done.

Carpathia’s absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can’t-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.

No one would have asked this of them. It wasn’t expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a responsibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.

They damn near broke the laws of physics, galloping north headlong into the dark in the desperate hope that if they could shave an hour, half an hour, five minutes off their arrival time, maybe for one more person those five minutes would make the difference. I say: three people had died by the time they were lifted from the lifeboats. For all we know, in another hour it might have been more. I say they made all the difference in the world.

This ship and her crew received a message from a location they could not hope to reach in under four hours. Just barely over three hours later, they arrived at Titanic’s last known coordinates. Half an hour after that, at 4am, they would finally find the first of the lifeboats. it would take until 8:30 in the morning for the last survivor to be brought onboard. Passengers from Carpathia universally gave up their berths, staterooms, and clothing to the survivors, assisting the crew at every turn and sitting with the sobbing rescuees to offer whatever comfort they could.

In total, 705 people of Titanic’s original 2208 were brought onto Carpathia alive. No other ship would find survivors.

At 12:20am April 15th, 1912, there was a miracle on the North Atlantic. And it happened because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small and unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided: I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.

I think the least we can do is remember them for it.

[6220coronation]

Theo Basis Theory

Ok, hear me out. What if Theo is actually TK&ELR Coffee Pot N° 1?

[6220coronation]

how fast would the engines typically be going, realistically speaking?

like, how fast would percy be w/the mail train? does gordon regularly clock top speeds w/the express? how about emily on coaches? what about thomas hauling the construction machines? or henry and the flying kipper? and branchline engines? how slow is a slow goods train?

and most importantly, how fast was molly when she ran away with the empty trucks? /j/j

[6220coronation]

reblog if your name isn't Amanda.

2,121,566 people are not Amanda and counting!

We’ll find you Amanda.

[6220coronation]

Anniversary

This story is dedicated to Reverend Awdry, David Mitton, and Britt Allcroft.

May 12th, 2025

At Tidmouth Station, a large number of engines had gathered. Stepping onto a podium, Sir Richard Topham Hatt cleared his throat, then began speaking. “80 years ago today, The Three Railway Engines was first published. This book would lead to not only a long running book series, but also a popular television show that airs in many different countries around the world.”

”Therefore, in commemoration of this milestone, I would like to request that our special guest, Christopher Awdry, do us all the honors.” Christopher Awdry then strode forward, grabbed the tarpaulin, and pulled it off to reveal an ornate bronze statue of the Thin Clergyman, David Mitton, and Britt Allcroft standing in front of the Three Railway Engines.

Tidmouth then erupted into a cacophony of noise as the engines whistled and blared their horns, but none whistled louder than Edward, Gordon, and Henry.

[6220coronation]

TTTE AU Rambles

So, been a little while since my last post. Recently, I’ve been thinking of some concepts for Thomas AU stories. Here’s a couple potential ideas I had in mind.

Idea 1: an AU where the North Western Railway is formed in 1923 instead of 1914/1915.

Idea 2: an AU where the NWR quits using steam like the other BR Regions.

Idea 3: a Railway Series AU where TATMR takes place between Enterprising Engines and Oliver the Western Engine.

Idea 4: a TV Series AU where TATMR takes place while Edward’s away being mended after Old Iron.

[6220coronation]

This is super random but do you have any headcanons about FC1’s family/upbringing prior to Swindon? I’m currently doing AU Things where his dad is going to be relevant…

I'm really interested if you're cooking up content that has any bearing on FC1's background!

I don't have detailed ideas myself, I've wondered bout it but don't feel I have the cultural competency to do it justice. I vaguely think of him as having pulled off a significant class jump. It wasn't every handy child that swung an apprenticeship at Swindon, though. I'd probably default to using the bios of figures like Henry Stanier (or James Ramsden...) as a base model.

There are merits for having him as a native Sudrian or a "come-over" originally from East Anglia...

[6220coronation]

Alternative Basis Headcanons

So, let’s talk. The non British engines like Hank and Philip, I’ve recently been thinking. How can these characters feasibly work on Sodor, and still fit the loading gauge? So, I’d like to propose some alternatives.

But before I start talking about the characters, here are some rules I’ve set for myself.

Rule 1: if possible, they must have the same wheel arrangement as in canon. Rule 2: they must be an engine built in Britain, or was shipped over to Britain.

–

Canonically, Hank is a Pennsylvania Railroad K4. But seeing as the K4 is too large to run in Britain, what if Hank’s basis was changed to a USATC S160?

–

Another engine I’d like to talk about is Hiro. Hiro is a JNR D51, but this poses a problem. The J51 was built to run on meter gauge, whereas Sodor is standard gauge. So for those of you who adhere to TVS canon and don’t want to drastically change him, I’d like to propose that he be changed to a GWR 7200 Class.

–

Next up is Victor. The problem with Victor is that he’s narrow gauge, while the engine he’s based on is standard gauge. To rectify this, I changed his basis to an LMS Kitson 0F.

–

Now to address the elephant in the room, Bash, Dash, and Ferdinand. I know that these characters are controversial, and not well liked by the fandom. To be honest, I don’t really care for them either, but I might as well get them out of the way.

Bash and Dash are both geared steam locomotives. Specifically, a Gypsy. But seeing as only one of these locomotives still operates, the new basis for Bash and Dash is the LSWR S14.

–

And now for Ferdinand. In the show, Ferdinand’s basis is a Class C Climax. But I’m disregarding that. Ferdinand’s new basis is a North Eastern Railway Class E1.

–

Regarding Porter, he’s one of the USA Tanks used at Southampton Docks. But unlike Rosie, who was built by Vulcan, he would be one of two examples built by H. K. Porter, hence his name.

–

As mentioned above with Hank, Connor and Caitlin wouldn’t fit the British loading gauge. So Connor and Caitlin are now both Princess Coronations.

–

In Tale of The Brave, Timothy’s basis is an oil burning tank engine. So assuming it’ll fit beneath the bridge to the Clay Pits, Timothy’s now an NBR G Class.

–

Speaking of Tale of The Brave, now it’s time to talk about Gator. Gator is based on one of the Columbian Steam Motors, but I envision him as an LSWR G16.

–

Oh boy, Sam. Realistically, his basis being the 2-6-6-6 Blue Ridge doesn’t work. Unless Sodor/England somehow upgraded their infrastructure to accommodate engines of his size, he wouldn’t be able to run, period. And so, there’s only one way that Sam can be a large engine, and still fit the loading gauge, have his basis be the LNER U1.

–

And now it’s Philip’s turn. I know Philip is also a controversial character, and not many fans like him, but I figured I should talk about him anyway. As with Hank, Philip is also based on an engine from the Pennsylvania Railroad. But I feel that his basis should be a BR Class 06.

–

Lexi is another character whose basis doesn’t make much sense, but for different reasons. The engine Lexi’s based on would have long since been scrapped by the time of JBS, so I propose that her basis should be changed to an SECR E Class.

–

Finishing off this post, is Nia. As with a couple other characters mentioned earlier, Nia is rather, divisive. But I don’t really want to delve too deep into that, so here’s my take on Nia. In canon, she’s an ED1 tank engine from the Kenya-Uganda Railway. But as with Hiro, her basis is meter gauge, so she wouldn’t be able to run on Sodor. To get around this, she’s now an L&YR Class 26.

–

Whew, I wasn’t expecting this post to get so long. But that’s what happens when the words keep flowing. None of this is canon to the show, these are just my ideas on what the characters should be. If anyone wants to incorporate things from this post for their own AU, go right ahead. Anyway, that’s enough rambling from me.

[6220coronation]

My First Story

I wrote this like 2 years ago, and have only now rewrote it for an au that I haven't touched in a while lol.

TL;DR Sodor is more industrialized, the pre-NWR railways are more prosperous, and industries are backdated. It's all mainly inspired by Sudrian Histories so go check that out.

Please enjoy and please be nice lol.

The Loaned Engines

  Edward the Blue Engine was, to put it simply, exhausted. Being one of the NWR’s only tender engines, he was frequently used, and frequently tired. Now don’t get him wrong, he had been expecting hard work, (It was much better that sitting in the shed out-of-use back on the Furness), but this was more akin to being run into the ground. He had to deal with Express trains, boat trains, light goods work (which he had to shunt himself) and even the evening mail train! The only other tender engines were Crovan and Varian, though Edric was converted from a tank engine, and he wasn’t fast enough for most of Edward’s trains, and with Crovan and Varian already busy with goods trains, almost exclusively double-heading, this left the newly-painted blue engine in a bad mood, though he tried to hide it as much as he could.

“Oh - I hope the Director can get some more engines loaned in!” said Edward in the sheds that night, “I am EXHAUSTED”

“You and me both!”said Rognvald, a tank engine from the old WSR,“These yards are extremely difficult to handle right now…. And that’s not even mentioning the station and the coaches and the bloody stupid workmen and the rude foreign engines who always seem to have an opinion and-”

“‘Vald, your rambling again”

“.......sorry Edward, it - it's just a lot right now…”

“ Well besides” , continued Edward, “Isn’t Thomas helping out?”

“ Pah!--the idiot does more harm than help. He gets on my nerves far to easily”

“ Now, now, he isn’t that bad-”

“ NOT THAT BAD - but of course you would say that, you're the only one he listens to for some reason!”

“ Well….anyways, I have to leave for the mail, bye ‘Vald! ”

Rognvald only gave a grunt in reply. It was a good thing he did have to leave, or else he would have said some very bad words just then…..

The Fat Director came the next day. He had important news that all the engines would be thankful for. Though he considered just leaving then and there when he had trouble getting everybody’s attention….

“ SILENCE! ”, he bellowed at last.

“ Now then, now that I finally have your attention, I am very pleased to announce that the LNWR, Highland railway, and Great Central have agreed to loan us some big engines to help us out! They will be arriving in a few days, and I expect you all to give them a warm welcome and if you all ruin this in any way I will. go. Feral. …. Now have a good day! ”

He left for the station cafe.

“He said that all in one breath…”

A few days later, Edward was shunting some coaches. He dropped them off in the carriage sidings and made his way back to the sheds. He was mildly surprised to see 4 large engines simmering outside the sheds. Two were painted green, with red-and-white lining and red frames to match. One was a darker green with long splashers, and the last was painted Black. All of them were just lazing about with differing expressions on their faces.

‘Must be the loaned engines’ He thought. ‘I should go introduce myself!’

“Hullo!”

The engines looked at him. The black engine was unamused and frowned, the dark green engine was angry at something, and the green engines looked mildly intrigued.

At last,  the black engines spoke.

“Who are you, exactly? We were told that this No-Where railway’s main passenger engine was to arrive here. Are you covering for him or something? Also, you really need to be cleaned, I mean you are filthy!”

“And tiny as well!” Said the larger green engine.

Edward frowned. He did not have the energy for this.

“ I am the main passenger engine, I’ll have you know! I’m Ed-”

“ You can’t be serious...”

The look on her facing was one of disgust and disbelief, and was shared with the larger green engine. The dark green engine was annoyed and the smaller green engine thought it was a great joke.

Before Edward could reply, the Black engine spoke again.

“It’s no wonder that your Directors had to beg for us to come here, if they have tiny things like you running around!”

“Yeah!”said the larger green engine, “ You’re ancient, I mean, you look 40 years old! ”

“ I’ll have you know that I’m only 25! ”

“Whatever ya say blueberry…”

“ BLUEBERRY ”

“Aight that's it-SHUT UP”

All three arguing engines looked at the dark green engine. She looked livid.

“ Ahm no’ dealin’ wit this right now. I’m fookin’ tired, I’m angry, and I’m at some fookin’ railway in the boonies where their best engine is a blueberry-”

“ I say!- ”

“ Now I'm goin’ tae go take ah nap. Don’t talk tae me fer the next few hours unless ya want meh tae run ya into the shed wall.”

With that, she reversed into the sheds.

The smaller green engine soon began snickering.

“ That. Was. Hilarious! Honestly, I can tell I’m gonna have a good time here! Now, since Miss Green-bean is done, I’m gonna go find something else to do! See ya real soon blueberry!”

With that, she left for the yards.

Only the black engine and big green engine were left, but Edward decided that he was just too tired for this right now, and left, leaving the two engines alone.

He made his way to a siding nearby the station to rest when he saw Thomas.

“ Hullo Edward! ” called Thomas. He then saw the expression on Edwards face.

“ What's wrong? ”

“ The loaned engines ”, Edward replied, before he promptly went to sleep in the carriage sheds. 

He knew the next few months would be so tiring. Thomas, who actually picked up on what Edward really meant, frowned.