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Chapter Text

Super Sprinter railcar 153301 was used to her existence being a dismally free of romance, excitement and even a splinter of gratitude. She got that idea when, then a class-155 Super Sprinter,  she was broken into two single-car units, an experience that was both traumatic and disorienting for many months as the two parts of her awareness slowly desynchronised. As a single-car regional vehicle, 153301 got used to being at the very bottom of the pile, being shifted from low-priority route to low-priority route and often spending longer in sidings than she did carrying passengers. 

Finally, her last operator, the Scottish region, had her mothballed. The storage sidings were cold, lonely despite the presence of others of her kind and depressing and she wasn’t surprised that no-one ever seemed to bother much with keeping her in running order. Overall, at this point, her being dragged along some rural line that, astonishingly, she’d never seen before with one of her class-153 brothers and two of her ultra-rare class-155 cousins, to some unknown scrapyard wasn’t a surprising fate. 

The real surprise was that she was being dragged by a steam engine. One garishly painted in yellow and red at that! 

153301 had been powered down for so long that there wasn’t even a hint of pressure in her brake system and the last remains of the fuel oil in her saddle tanks had long since evaporated. So, even if she’d wanted to resist (and it was an unthinkable thing for a train to even Imagine disobeying a human’s decision about them), she couldn’t. 

“I guess this is justice, huh? The old class 101s told us how they’d laughed as your kind were hauled off to scrap. When the time came, we laughed as it was done to them. Now, deepest of ironies, you're doing that to us.”

“Is that what you think is happening?” the steamer replied with a smile and a strange accent that made her think of some humans she encountered at Liverpool Lime Street. . 

“What else could happen?” 153301 responded morosely. “I’ve been at the bottom all my service life; no-one has ever cared enough to actually make me matter to them. I’ve just been that box on wheels; ridden and forgotten, even by my drivers.”

North Western Railway tender no. 16, Molly, laughed. “Oh Stevenson! You are in for a surprise!”

~*~*~

When she and Pug were Preserved in 1965, Jinty had actually thought that she’d had a stroke of luck. Almost all of her class-3F 0-6-0T brothers and sisters were earmarked for scrap yet some museum up in the North Country had bought her for display! That was the way it was for a very long time too: Jinty and Pug were cared for by people employed by a genuine Enthusiast who kept their parts lubricated. They even had the occasional day in steam to take visitors up and down a track in the former warehouse district in which the museum was built.

However, all good times come to an end. It was 13004, the newly-arrived class-13 diesel shunter who first noticed their owner’s increasingly worried expression. The number of visitors had been declining for a while and, with it, the amount of time and effort the Museum was spending on keeping her, Pug, 13004 and 69595 (a GER class-L77 tank engine) in running condition was rapidly cut back and Jinty knew that some of her parts might never move again.

Finally, the thing that she’d feared happened. Their owner had come to them and, clearly in tears, had apologised to them. The money had run out and the museum had to close. There was no-one willing to take the four of them for anything other than scrap and he couldn’t do that to them; they’d become friends, after all. 

So it was that, tarpaulins were carefully wrapped around their funnels, boilers, cabs and wheels and, from what little Jinty could see, the lights were turned off and the warehouse doors closed for what she was certain was the last time, turning what had once been her retirement home into a mausoleum.

“Here it is, Sir Stephen.”

“Ah yes, just where father said he had been stored.” Jinty blinked out of her trance-like state by the sound of human voices beyond the tarpaulin that had become the boundaries of her world. 

Someone was here! She heard people pacing in the distance towards one of her owner’s most prized exhibits and one that he genuinely felt strongly about. “Remove the tarpaulins if you please,” said the stern but kindly male voice.

There were a few grunts and rustles “Here you go, Sir Stephen! My father’s pride and joy!”

“He’s everything that we’d hoped to find. There is a lot of work to be done but I’m sure that my father's notes outline all that we need to do.”

“I knew that a true blue enthusiast like you would want to take on this responsibility sir. Not to sound too mercenary, but your very generous offer for this exhibit will go a long way to clear father’s old debts.”

The sharp tap-tap of footsteps grew closer. “What of these ones?”

“Nothing so special, I’m afraid. Just some preserved tank engines and a diesel shunter that father plucked pretty much off of the scrap heap because she was so different from most of her kind.”

There was a long pause. “I’d like to see them, please.”

Jinty could hear the hint of a shrug in the second voice. “If you say so, Sir Stephen.”

Jinty blinked, dazzled, after the tarpaulin was removed from around the front of her boiler. “My word!” said the first voice. “Jinty? Pug? Is that you? I never expected to see you two again?”

Jinty’s vision cleared and she didn’t recognise the portly man with the cheerful round face, the formal three-piece suit and the top hat. Surely it couldn’t be…? No, it wasn’t but what the other man had called him came to mind and suddenly, she knew. “Oh… young Mister Stephen? Is that you, sir? But you’ve… grown old!”

Sir Stephen Topham-Hatt laughed. “Just the passage of years, Jinty. Well, I never thought that I’d see this day! You two are hardly what I would have expected to find Preserved but what great luck for all of us!” The man reached out and touched Jinty’s boiler hatch and her eyes closed happily at the first caring human touch she’d encountered since they were all abandoned here in this failed institution. “The North Western Railway is expanding, Jinty, and I need more traction power. I wonder, would you be willing to offer it?”

“Us sir!” Pug gasped from out of sight to Jinty’s left. “Oh yes sir!”

“North Western? That’s a railway, right?” 69595 said eagerly.

“A railway?” 13004 said in her distinctive East Midlands accent. “No, 69595, it’s the railway! Every diesel knows the place as the Steamer’s refuge!” She sighed in a desolate way. “I guess you all get lucky today!”

Sir Stephen looked at the diesel shunter with stern but kind expression. “Why are you excluding yourself, 13004?"

The shunter snorted. "Everyone knows what your railway thinks about diesels. 08033 had plenty of stories about how your da sent him packing!"

Sir Stephen sighed, wondering how it was possible that the Devious Diesel's lies were still living on decades later. "Tell me 13004; are you willing to work? Are you willing to give all your effort in whatever yard to which you are assigned?”

13004 looked at the man in confusion. “Well… Of course! I mean… That’s what I’m for, isn’t it? But I’m a weird special design that no-one wants now the old Tinsley Yard is closed!”

Sir Stephen smiled. “If you want to be Useful, 13004, then I think that we can be of use to each other.” He turned to the person that Jinty guessed was their owner’s son. “Mr Herward, I'll take all five plus whatever spares your father stockpiled over the years.”

“All five?!? Oh, merciful God! You’re a life-saver sir! Our family's debts would be cleared by this! We'll never forget your generosity!”

“It isn’t generosity,” Sir Stephan said. “I’m simply doing the right thing.”

~*~*~

Sodor Diesel Traction Works read the sign. 153301 simply waited passively as a class-08 shunter detached her and her drag-mates from the steam engine, who was cheerful and kind, something that genuinely surprised her.

“God’s truth, they’re all a mess!” a fitter remarked from where he was looking under 155348’s side cowling. “Why the hell do those amateurs never maintain their machinery?”

“We’re just not important enough,” 155348 replied in a desolate tone. “As soon as we’re earmarked to take us out of service, they just let us rot!”

“Well, that mindset ends now,” the fitter said, his severe tone contrasting with the care with which he closed the cowling. He turned to the class-08 and gestured. “Okay Paxton, let’s get them into the sheds!”

The 08 rolled up and was quickly coupled to 153301 and her brother, 153384. With a roar of power that made both railcars envious, they were rolled away from the two class-155s towards the works shed. "Funny looking scrapyard…" 153384 muttered to himself

"Scrapyard?" the shunter, Paxton, laughed. "Oh, don't worry about that. You haven't been bought for scrap; you've been rescued!"

"But… But who would buy us?” 153301 protested. “We're just obsolete railcars! We've never been good for anything but routine work out in the countryside or the suburbs!" 

"Maybe that's what my owner wants," Paxton replied. "He wants engines who know how to work and work hard and reliably."

As the two railcars were pushed into the shed under the blazing overhead spotlights, 153301 felt something that she'd not felt since she and her other half were cut apart decades ago; she felt hope. Technicians crowded around and some began to climb up into her derelict and rotting passenger saloon. "Okay, lads, start with removing that old seating; they were good when Daisy was new but no-one would sit on them now!" 

"Old fashioned florescent tubes; I doubt that any of the igniters are any good after all this time! We'll have to fit new sockets for them to fit modern ones!"

153301's mind was whirling as the fitters rapidly took stock of her and 153384's condition and what their coming refit/rebuild would need.

"Here, Ted, what's Him in Charge's word for a name?"

"Weird but when isn't he? He wants to name the Super Sprinters after beetles. You're standing here in Ladybird!"

The other man laughed. "So, we paint her red with black spots?" 

"Who knows? Wouldn't be a surprise to me if we do!"

"Quit your gossiping you bunch of silly sods!" 153301… Ladybird… heard the man that was obviously the works supervisor call out to his workers. "Let's get started on assessing the spaceframe for corrosion!"

~*~*~

It was curious how engines seemed to internalise purely human attitudes regarding apparel. 

Jinty, Pug and the L77 had been stripped of their old BR black paintwork, their components verified as being without significant corrosion and then they had been repainted with pink undercoat. Why pink? Basically, it was the only colour that was in the Crovan’s Gate Works’ supply room for some reason. One workman had said something about ‘tradition’ but none of the engines understood that. However, being in just their undercoats made all three engines feel slightly awkward as if they were under-dressed in human terms. 

“I’m glad to see that your refurbishment is going so well, my friends!” Sir Stephen boomed cheerfully as he walked into the work-shed.

All three engines were slightly abashed but Pug was bold enough to reply. “Thank you sir, we’re glad to say that it is.” Pug hesitated before speaking again. “Um… sir? What… What is happening to the other fellow?”

‘The other fellow’ was how the trio thought of their former owner’s ‘pride and joy’, an engine shaped like a diesel locomotive but who had some odd fittings and never spoke. He still had said nothing as they were hauled to Crovan’s Gate and remained silent as he was parked on the far side of the work shed and hidden away behind a steel-framed privacy screen. All they could see and hear of him was the clangs and screech of tools and the flare of welding torches against the ceiling and walls beyond the enclosure.

“Ah, a sad tale, Pug: He was a prototype from the Southern Railway but it was a difficult time when he was built and, due to lack of funds and some… unfortunate issues with his designer’s working style, his design was never closed and he was never completed. I’m afraid that we must do far more than the usual amount of work to make him a running engine.” None of the engines missed the lack of the term 'again' in that statement.

“He’s always been quiet,” 69595 said. “I don’t want to sound cruel, sir but it was always a little creepy.”

“He is an unfortunate engine and I’m not sure if he is even fully aware of himself yet,” Sir Steven said gently. “That will change now he is here but I must ask all three of you not to gossip and give him privacy to come to terms with things.” Sir Steven shifted slightly and turned his attention back to the three tank engines. “Onto slightly more immediate matters: My friends, I am glad to inform you that you have all been formally added to the roster of the North Western Railway. “Jinty, you are now tank number 20; Pug you are tank number 21.” He walked along the row of steam engines, noting Jinty and Pug’s beaming faces. He stopped in front of the L77. “As for you, my friend, you have been allocated tank number 23 and I would like you to bear the name ‘David’, after a sadly-passed but dear friend and colleague. Would you like that?”

“A name sir? I never thought I’d have a name! It would be an honour sir!”

Sir Stephen smiled. He looked at the condenser apparatus along the tank engine’s side. “Tell me, David: Did you ever travel underground?”

“Yes sir! I took Midland Railway trains through the City Widened Lines to Moorgate every day!”

Sir Stephen smiled slightly. “Oh, Janey is going to love meeting you!”

“Sir,” Pug said. “Um… Why is David number 23 instead of number 22?” Sir Steven looked at the divider screens at the far side of the shed, eliciting an ‘Ooh!’ of understanding.

~*~*~

Ladybird blanked stupidly as the shed doors opened up that morning at Vicarstown, sending bright sunlight shining into her eyes and catching her pristine new Brunswick Green livery with a cream-coloured stripe along the line of her windows and a silvery triple ‘zephyr’ pattern low along her sides. Sitting in front of her was what at first looked like a class-08 shunter but she had a double-module formation and her front module didn’t have a cab.

“Ey-op pet!” the shunter announced excitedly. “Ready for your roll-out?”

Ladybird was a bit startled. She’d been aware that there was less and less work being done on her over the past few days but being rolled out? Already? “Um… Sorry? You are…?” 

“You can call me Jackie, luv! Cab number D14 and loving it! Having a name is something special, eh? Makes you feel like you’re valued again! Well, got lots to do today so I can’t dally and chat!” With a snarl of twin KT6 diesels, the shunter slid forward until her Janney-BSI coupling locked with Ladybird’s. Then with a far more emphatic roar, the class-153 was towed out of the shed into the yard outside. 

The journey wasn’t far and Ladybird slowed to a halt by a fuelling rig. A fitter jumped from Jackie’s buffer beam onto Ladybird’s open connector tunnel door, reached inside and locked on the rail-car’s parking brakes. He then jumped back to unlock the couplers. “Okay, luv! Got to get the next part of this! Enjoy the sun!” 

Ladybird was still blinking in surprise as the class-13 shunter snarled past, heading back into the shed. 

A workman had walked up in between Ladybird and the fuelling rig and was muttering to himself as he read his instructions. “Um… What’s happening?” Ladybird asked.

The man grinned. “Well, we don’t have any previous experience with coupled multiple units, Ladybird, so we’re going to be testing procedures with you; no-one wants a repeat of trying to get Daisy to haul milk trucks! So, it’s time to fuel you up and see what quality of work we’ve done!”

At that point, Jackie re-emerged from the shed, this time towing the former 155343 twin-coach unit. “Just gotta position you right, gel!” Jackie was saying to the Super Sprinter as they rolled past, Ladybird catching the cab number D9A and a nameplate ‘Rosechafer’ over the windowless section containing the passenger toilets in the trailing coach. Ladybird reflected on the strange names that their new owner and Controller had given to them. She was Ladybird, her brother (formerly 153384) was Tiger (D10B) and the other class-155, 155348, had been named Stag (D10A). There had to be a reason for this odd numbering scheme and Ladybird wondered if this is the day when she'd find out.

After running through a switch-track at the far end of the yard, Jackie reversed direction and, far more slowly, pushed Rosechafer back towards her on the same line. After a minute of dead slow approach, the two Super Sprinters’ buffers touched and their couplings engaged. A fitter riding in Rosechafer’s cab jumped across and began to adjust the tunnels so that they were fully attached.

"Hey, Ladybird!" Rosechafer said nervously. “I… um… guess we’re going to run as a coupled train today?”

“Going to do it for a long longer than today, ladies,” the fitter said as he finished closing off Ladybird’s trailing driver cab's security doors and locking open the door from her passenger saloon so passengers and crew could walk directly between the two vehicles. “The North Western really doesn’t have much need for railcars with our passenger numbers. Three-car trains on the other hand?” He grinned. “I do hope that you two don’t have any problems with each other? You’re going to be coupled for just about all weekdays!”

Ladybird paused for a long moment. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a sister,” she said quietly, thinking of her other half, long gone now. 

Rosechafer was silent for a moment as she considered all the feelings running through the link with Ladybird. She'd never never thought much of the fate she'd avoided only by blind chance. “I’m glad to be that for you.” The class-155 paused before continuing. “I’m glad that we’ve both found somewhere where we’re valued and needed!”

Ladybird genuinely smiled. It seemed that the Super Sprinters still had a few more years of useful service in them after all!

Chapter Text

"The 7:14 North Western Railway Service to Carlisle will depart from Platform 4; calling at Askam, Kirkby-in-Furness, Foxfield, Green Road, Milkon, Silecroft, Bootle, Ravenglass, Drigg, Seascale, Sellafield, Brayness, Nethertown, Bees, Korkikle, Whitehaven, Parton, Harrington, Wokington, Himby, Maryport, Aspartria, Wigton, Dalston and Carlisle."

Unconsciously, Ladybird revved her NT-855-RT engine in anticipation, making Rosechafer's control-linked twin NT-855s rev too. She was almost dancing in glee on her suspension. After longer than she cared to try to remember in a storage siding, she was a working regional train again! Some engines might regard the long stopper service around the Cumbria Coast line a dreadful chore but, for Ladybird, it was proof that she wasn’t scrapped yet!

Of course, that long line wasn't something she was on quite yet. She was sitting at the Down Slow platform at Barrow-in-Furness, waiting for goods and passenger traffic across the bridge to clear through the station before she and her working partner were clear to depart. Sometime in the distant past, someone had the brilliant idea of connecting the Fast platforms to the bridge too (probably to avoid the station becoming a bottleneck) and the lines crossing the track to the bridge approach could block traffic from the slow platforms that were staying on the mainland.

"Easy girl," her driver counselled, caressing her Dead-Man's switch with a gentle touch. "Patience now; don't grind off your gear-wheels because you want to get going!"

Ladybird made a strange noise through her brake-pumps but she did try to relax. She focussed her attention on her passengers, mostly only adults at this time of the day; night-shift workers heading home to the various rural villages along the line.

Been a long time, hasn't it? Rosechafer whispered through their linkage. Since you've had passengers?

Too long, Ladybird replied. It's good to be useful again.

At that point, she saw who the cause of today's pause was: The blue shape of a Mackintosh 812 0-6-0 mixed traffic steam engine with the number '9' on the tender. She'd seen Donald and Douglas heading past the Works several times whilst the engineers finished fitting her out in the yard and the two LMS-designed engines had regarded her with a suspicious look. Now the older of the two (by a few minutes, apparently) slid to a halt in the Up Fast platform.

"Of all the wheesht!" he hissed as he released excess steam pressure. "What's the hold-up?"

Rosechafer looked up the line and, yes, the Up Fast signal was at 'Danger'. "Looks like a goods train is coming out of the road-rail transfer yard," she said, hoping to be helpful to the very much senior locomotive.

Donald shot the linked regional DMU and rail-car a look of surprise. "Oh… aye, yes lassie; I see that now." He looked out of the corner of his eyes and frowned. "Oh… and ye're yon sister is here too, ah see. Um… Can ye… Can ye talk too?"

Ladybird tried to keep a straight face. "Even though we're linked, we are still individuals," she said as politely as she could.

Donald smiled reassuringly. "It's hard, ye know? Ye multiple unit trains are a very different manner of beastie to us and our carriages. Never quite know who's the engine and who's the train but… Ye're both at the same time, aren't ye?" There was a long pause as the locomotive thought how to get past the momentary awkwardness. "Ye know… when the second Fat Controller started buying diesels, there was many o' us that saw it as a betrayal or a danger. Diesels had taken away our old lines and had been howlin' at the entrances to our sheds to drag us away for scrap. Never thought that we'd ever see th' likes o' you welcomed onto our island."

Ladybird and Rosechafer both felt a sensation not unlike nausea. They were both only too aware of just how antagonistic the relationship between steamers and diesels was back in the 1940s and 1950s and neither of them was sure if they'd ever be entirely welcome in the North Western. However, Donald really was thinking aloud rather than waiting for a reply of any kind. "Daisy… Aye, she was a snooty one at first but she loved her job and her passengers. BoCo… He was a'right, even though it took Oliver many a year to entirely stop hatin' him for what he was." The Mackintosh-812 seemed to remember where he was and who he was talking to. "It took me until Bear to realise… ye are engines too: Hard workin' and caring about their Services. Every one o' you who followed them: They were just as faithful and good as them. How they made motive power was… it was just a detail."

"Everytrain wants to be useful," Ladybird offered, surprising herself by doing so.

"Aye, lassie; that they do." Donald paused again. "Of course, there are diesels who aren't worth the metal they were forged from; that venomous lump o' slag 08033 and, of course, that monster Diesel 20. The thing though… The thing though is that ah've met many a steam engine that were evil to the core o' their boilers." The locomotive grinned bitterly. "Aye and they got what they deserved. No man or engine is going tae spin a wheel for a bad one when the day comes!"

The two Super Sprinters were unsure how to deal with this train-of-thought but Ladybird decided to take a risk. "I'm just so glad that the Controller is taking a risk on us!"

Donald smiled. "Lassie, Ah've known Sir Steven since he were but a wisp o' a boy. He knows good trains when he sees them. Ye two can be sure o' this: There was no risk. He knew that he and yeh kin were going ta do the job and do him proud." There was a pause before the locomotive grinned mischievously. "Even if ye cannae haul goods tae save yeh chassis!" The signal on the Up Fast line descended to clear and with a huge roar of steam as he built up pressure, Donald prepared to depart. "Remember this, lassies: This is the North Western. We care about who you are and what you do, not what you are."

With another blast of power, Donald pulled out of the station, slowly accelerating up the line. "Fweep! Good journey lassies!" he whistled as he began to recede.

"Big… tough… bul… ly! Big tough bul-ly! Big tough bul-ly!" the lead ore transport wagons complained as they clattered out after him.

The last through the station was an old Goods Brake of a kind the Super Sprinters had only heard mentioned before. For some reason, it was painted with 'GWR' in gold and 'Toad' monogrammed on his side. "A pleasure to meet you madams!" he called out.

"What was that about?" Ladybird asked aloud.

"I… think that was an apology… and acceptance!" Rosechafer responded, her voice quiet, thoughtful and maybe a little awed, The Guard, sitting in her trailing cab for the journey out to Carlisle, pressed the 'Right Away' buzzer button twice, making the Driver in Ladybug's forward cab respond in kind. The warning bleepers started to sound as the train's six pneumatic sliding doors slid closed.

~*~*~

BoCo, or so Ladybird had decided, was right. This was a beautiful part of the world and she now understood why her class-150 cousins on the so-called 'Riviera Line' in the south-west of the Mainland loved their work so much.

I suppose it's all about how you see it, Rosechafer suggested. Something is all the more beautiful when you value it and you are valued in return!

Since when were you a poet? Ladybird teased.

Maybe always; we've never actually known each other that long, have we?

Ladybird frowned and realised that was true. Well, there's no time like the present, I suppose? If we're going to do what Donald says and learn to judge trains on their behaviour rather than their traction type!

Rosechafer laughed. I think that you're taking me too seriously!

Ladybird was thinking again. Maybe that was a bad thing to do but she'd been abandoned for so long that she'd got used to thinking things through in her own mind. The thing is, Rosechafer, they really do things differently on this railway. She could sense the unspoken query. That brake car, Toad? I can't think of anywhere else where he'd be treated like that! Marked with a name? Kept clean and his markings in good condition? By the scrap sidings, I wouldn't be surprised if his Guard thinks of him as a friend!

The two linked units rumbled into Seascale station and got more-or-less the reception that they were slowly becoming used to receiving. The boarding passengers looked at surprised at the three elaborately-liveried regional train vehicles. A couple of them even took photographs! There were a few children on the platform at this station and one little boy elbowed his father hard. "Gor! Look da! They even gave them names like they do to the big engines!"

The two Super Sprinters couldn't help but preen a little as several flashes from camera-phones flickered against their pristine livery and windows. However, at that moment, something strange happened. Seeing the linked pair of class-150/2 Sprinters roll into the Down platform was no great surprise; as a regional line, Ladybird and Rosechafer would expect to see their cousins here but they weren't expecting the reaction. The lead unit glared at them; they'd been warned to expect this as some DMUs regarding working for the NWR as 'letting down the side'. However, the trailing unit, cab number 150288, reacted totally differently. "150277, look at their livery! Their livery!"

Reflexively, Rosechafer looked and, yes, they were still relatively clean as there hadn't been rain for a while and there was almost no mud on the Permanent Way. The other two Sprinters were also pristine in the midnight blue and white of Northern Rail so she didn’t see the problem.

The lead Sprinter looked at his brother in annoyance. "What about it? It's perfect; just what you'd expect from that bunch of over-enthusiastic preservation fanatics!"

"No! They're in North-Western colours! Don't you know what it means? Everytrain laughed at me! Said I was defective! Here's the proof though! Those two have been converted! They won't stop until we're all part of their railway! We have to run and hide!"

150277 actually felt an impulse that was strange to him but he couldn't help but act on it; his running mate was just too embarrassing to restrain himself from doing this, no matter how much it went against the grain to do so. "Ugh. Sorry about this, D9A, D9B. 150288 is a bit… strange and excitable when it comes to trains from your railway; pay him no mind."

"We'll all be burning coal and taking on names before long!" 150288 wailed as Ladybird led the service out of the station. "These are the End Times, I tell you! The End Times!"

"I've never heard of a 150 with a fault like that!" Rosechafer remarked aloud. Maybe they should be more understanding but the two Super Sprinters couldn’t help themselves but start laughing.

~*~*~

The remainder of the journey passed without incident.

Well not much incident. Both Super Sprinters noticed a definite spike in non-passenger crowds at the platforms they visited. They couldn't help but wonder what was going on.

A couple of three-vehicle sets from the new class-195 passed the North Western service as it proceed northwards. One was silent and just sneered at the older diesel vehicles. However the other one actually spoke as both services sat at Parton Station. "Preserved freaks," he muttered. "You'll never be more than that; never proper trains again!" As he pulled away, Rosechafer gave into temptation and gave a long low-tone blast from her horn that made the 195 snarl at the insult.

However, not everyone coming the other way was rude and both the Super Sprinters were happy to see Rebecca steaming towards them leading a four-carriage train. "Good to see you on revenue generating traffic, girls! Enjoy yourselves!" she whistled as the two services passed.

The show of casual friendship heartened both the class-15x cousins after the paranoia of the class-150 and scorn of the class-195. We're accepted, Ladybird said quietly. We're part of their railway!

All too soon, they were pulling into Carlisle platform 8 but Ladybird immediately noticed something was odd. "Rosechafer… There are an awful lot of photographers on our platform."

Rosechafer peered around Ladybird's side and saw that was indeed the case. "We don't have a Very Important Person as one of our passengers, do we?"

"Driver never mentioned it!"

As the train nosed slowly onto the platform, the flashguns started to flare and kept on doing so, making trains and crew alike have to blink the after-glare out of their eyes. It was Rosechafer who noticed that several of the photographers were wearing t-shirts with the logo Class-15x Society! Sprinters Forever!

Rosechafer whispered down the command link in disbelief. Ladybird… We have Enthusiasts! We have actual Enthusiasts! Ladybird was too shocked to respond as the crowd swarmed over them, barely waiting for the fare-paying passengers to disembark before being photographed and filmed standing on boarding plates and making victorious gestures beneath the cousins' side-mounted destination displays.

The service's Guard laughed as he walked through the emptying passenger saloons. "Welcome to the North Western Railway, girls! From here on, you're one of the Famous Engines!"

Chapter Text

To be a regional/suburban multiple unit was, or so cab number E4D, River, mused to himself, was to have a life of constant and sometimes disorienting change. He could say that more than most of his kind. Built as a class-319 'Flex' for the then-new Thameslink service through central London, he'd changed operators more than once, first going to Southern Rail and then to the other end of England to run in the livery of Northern Rail where the most complete change was made to him, adding D2856 diesels to his two driving carriages, paired with his pantograph. Many of his Flex brothers and sisters underwent the same transformation to class-769 hybrids, their diesels enabling them to work away from electrified overhead lines in rural parts of the North Country and Wales. However, only he and his brother had the fifth car and third diesel motor added by their works to meet the specifications of their most unusual new owner – The North-Western Railway.

Oh, the former 769949 had heard of the 'Steamers' Refuge' railway before, mostly as a hateful whisper from the dwindling number of the oldest mainline express diesel locomotives. However, he'd never thought that he'd ever find himself not just being purchased by 'the enemy' (as those old locomotives called it) but having a special extra conversion for their purchase of a part of the mainland’s railway network.

That first morning of service from Lancaster to Windermere Lake District had been quite the experience. He'd felt about as nervous as a train could feel as he'd sat at platform 3 at Lancaster with that gruff, wise old blue-painted Pacific A1/1 steam locomotive with the number '4' on one of his two tenders watching him in a measured way from platform 4, separated only by the reversing line running in between them. For a while, he'd been fretting that the steamer was going to laugh at his bizarre new livery, green on the leading coaches, maroon on the trailing coaches with an inverted triangular blue panel with his new operator’s logo painted over his centre windows on his middle coach acting as the junction between the two otherwise-clashing colours. 

"Well… I see that Sir Steven, the Controller, has chosen to name you 'River'?" asked the steamer, Gordon (River now noticed the gold-on-red nameplate on the fairing of his middle drive wheel) in a way that River felt was more a statement than a question. He was wondering how to answer the huge engine (as long as two of his own vehicles) when he continued. "Well, I have run the Windermere service for nearly two years now. It is a genteel service run for people on their way to a restful holiday. You are now running a rural tourist service, not a bumpy, uncomfortable city suburban service. Is that understood?"

Thoroughly disoriented and somewhat-intimidated River had agreed frantically. 

"Good; you have been thoroughly upgraded for your new duties and I am sure that our Controller can rely on you to do your duty properly. I have done all I can to get the passengers on this line, regular or periodic, accustomed to the Standards of a Proper Railway. I would be most disappointed it if you ruined that reputation I have built!"

River probably had never run a smoother service in his service life. He still wasn't sure if Gordon's… what was she anyway… his Counterpart or something? Anyway, Rebecca, tender number 14, had assured him that it was simply 'Gordon's way' to 'measure up' new trains on the line. In River’s view it seemed more like a hazing ritual!

Probably the strangest part of River's acclimatisation to working on the North Western Railway was the different way in which his crews and passengers behaved around him. His new driver (and the new innovation for him of a guard) had both made it their business to be friendly to River, something that he was not used to at all. As for the passengers, River was used to being anonymous and generally forgettable and forgotten. However, the new passengers were genuinely excited by his presence, photographing his livery and chattering excitedly about his bright and freshly-refurbished standard-class and (new) first-class passenger saloons. Some passengers had even called him by name and thanked him for the ride! 

It was good to be appreciated. River had not been appreciated much in his service life and this had been a whole new experience for him. It was a strange new life in a strange new place, even though he'd only so far seen the Windermere line. However, he now knew another totally new experience: He wanted to learn and experience more about this strange place.

River awoke in the Carnforth Multiple Unit sheds alongside the two class-159s and the class-153/-155 duos. It was something about which he was quite used doing now, even occasionally sleeping through the two steam shunters, Jinty and Pug, being steamed up. However, this time there was something new. His eyes widened as a familiar warning yellow face rolled into the shed alongside him. "Okay, mate! Enjoy the shed! We'll have you working as soon as we can!" Jinty whistled as her driver decoupled her from the new class-769 and chugged away back into the Carnforth yard.

River looked over at his brother. "769959, is that you?"

"Hey, brother," the other hybrid multiple unit said with a slight smile. "It's me and I'm 'E5D' now… 'Boatman'… Is it me or are all modern trains given strange names on this railway?

There was a polite coughs and both HMUs started, looked ahead and to see a stern but friendly-looking tall chestnut-haired woman in a green pantsuit. "Gentletrains," she said with a quiet voice that River felt could probably cross a Big Station and bring someone running from the far platform. "Especially welcome to you, Boatman. I am Julia Hatt, your Deputy Controller."

Neither HMU was used to being just visited by such a high-ranking human; they wondered what this could mean.

"Hi, Lady Julia!" called one of the class-153s, bringing a slight upward twitch to the woman's lips. 

"Hello, Ladybird. I'll talk to you in a moment, if I may." The woman turned back to River and Boatman. “Now, although we do not have that much electrified line length on the North Western Railway, the last few weeks testing have shown that you two can run perfectly well on your diesels, so that has opened up some new route options on which you can run. Boatman, whilst you are learning the Windermere route as well as the ways of our railway under Gordon’s tutelage, River here will start running triangular services from Lancaster to Norramby and Great Waterton before returning. These lines were once solely run by The Other Railway but recent events have made it necessary for the North Western to take far greater charge of them.” The woman’s stern face suddenly transformed into a genuine smile. “River, I’m pleased to inform you that you will be the first train to run this new service.”

River didn’t quite know what to think about that! 

~*~*~

“Oh I do like to be beside the seaside!” Pug was singing to himself as he shunted River out of the back end of his shed. “So, you’re going to be running to Norramby eh, River? Lovely place; not as commercialised as the places down along the south coast of the Mainland and not even as bad as Blackpool or Morcombe. My Fireman says that it had an exciting history too!”

River shot the excitable green tank engine a nervous smile in response. Frankly, being told that you are going to run the opening service on a new line… or even just on one recently acquired by your railway… isn’t something that will make a train feel easy about things. There was a lot of responsibility for a previously-humble suburban multiple unit to carry!

After decoupling, Pug scuttled off to assemble the Furness/Cumbria Coast line train that James would shortly be taking to Carlisle. Meanwhile, with a sigh of pneumatics, River extended his pantograph to the overhead 25kV power lines. As the pantograph made contact, the HMU felt the charge flowing through his systems and he felt his Driver going through the start-up checklist in his cab. "Ready to go lad?" asked his driver and River gunned his electric prime movers in response. His driver laughed at that affirmative and with a touch of the controls, the train began to pull out through the yard and to the West Coast Mainline southwards from Carnforth with the characteristic pulsing whine of AC motors.

Cumbria was a hilly country and the journey down to Lancaster to start the run was thus a run through alternating sunlit and shadowed hillsides depending on their position relative to the low-angled dawn sun. River's years working for Northern Rail further south in the flatter midlands was just dissimilar enough for the run to be still a new experience for him. However, the real new experiences started at Carnforth where, at the South Junction, he was routed onto the curving Up Barrow platform instead of his usual stop at the Slow Main platform.

From there, it was off down the Furness loop to Barrow-in-Furness and then to the Bridge. It occurred to River that this was actually the first time he'd been to the island home of the railway that were his new owners as all his conversion work had been done at Brush's works in Crewe. Like most trains, the journey over the swing bridge was their longest ever over-water transit that River had ever made and he couldn't help but boggle at the white-capped waves being driven down the Sodor Channel by the strong northerly winds that day.

I'm a train, not a boat! Open stretches of water, even from a bridge, aren't my normal environment! River thought in a slightly-panicked internal monologue. Oh, he'd regularly passed over the river Thames when he was still working in London but the river was very narrow at Blackfriars bridge, so it wasn't so ominous. He never decided whether the wind was actually making the bridge rock slightly or if it was just his imagination and he really didn't want to ask his driver as it might be revealing too much! He definitely felt nervous as he passed under the neutral section of overhead wire at the bridge's central rotating section and suddenly the reassuring current was briefly interrupted, leaving only battery and momentum to keep him moving!

Then, much to his relief, he was on dry land again, rolling off of the bridge approach and into the shunting yard at the back of Vicarstown Station, once the North Western Railway's eastern terminus and one of its two engine stables. Most of that was gone now but it was still the Eastern terminus of regional trains to Peel Godred, Tidmouth and Kirk Ronan.

River glided into the station onto Platform 2. He briefly directed his gaze to the left and, much to his surprise, there wasn't a steam engine on the bay platform 3 but probably the strangest electric locomotive he'd ever seen! Normally, seeing a fellow 'sparky' would be a moment of familiarity but this was something new. The maroon-painted pill-shaped locomotive was about two thirds the length of one of his vehicles and didn’t resemble anything he'd ever seen before. Behind her was a short train of a half-dozen similarly-short wood-framed compartment carriages with what looked like some kind of DVT at the back end.

"Darling, why don't you take a picture?" the locomotive, with the cab number E1 and the nameplate 'Lady Jane' remarked archly.

"Oh! I'm sorry but I've never seen anytrain like you before! Where did you come from? Originally, I mean?"

Janey quirked an eyebrow but decided to indulge the younger train's surprised curiosity. "I am originally from the great Metropolitan Railway in the wonderful city of London!"

"London? Metropolitan Railway? You… you mean the Metropolitan Line, right?"

Janey sighed. "Yes, that's what those vandals from the London District Combine insisted on renaming it as when they took it over!" She looked over at the EMU and smiled gently but with just a touch of eagerness. "You are familiar with it?"

"Well, yes! I ran parallel to it on my every journey through London! My route ran alongside the London Underground from Kings Cross to Farringdon and sometimes all the way to Moorgate!"

Janey's eyes practically sparkled with glee. "Oh, darling! That's wonderful! You must tell me all about it! Farringdon Station and Moorgate are still in use! Oh, that brings back so many memories just thinking of it!"

River grinned at suddenly and so surprisingly being on such familiar territory. "Oh yes, Farringdon was the junction where my trains either turned to Moorgate or carried on through the city to Blackfriars! I went through it five or six times a day!"

Janey sniffled nostalgically. "How wonderful! It does an engine good to be reminded of the good old days! One day, I must talk Sir Stephen into letting me go back to try the Aldgate to Aylesbury run, now they've got everything electrified!" There was a sharp whistle and the signal for Platform 3 turned green as the gantry signals ahead showed Janey was clear to run onto the main line to Killdane and then onto her branch line.

With the familiar pulsing whine of AC motors, Janey pulled out with a cheery high-pitched blast of her siren. "Farewell, darling! We'll have to talk again! See if you can't talk dear Sir Stephen into adding Peel Godred onto your schedule! We Metropolitan trains need to keep up the old company's reputation you know!"

River was a bit dazed as the preserved Metropolitan Line train pulled away, with its Driving Trailer bringing up the rear and, much to River's disorientation, sending him a saucy wink. "The lads back home at Bedford would never believe me," he muttered to himself. River was pretty sure that he'd just made a friend but he was going to have to think about whether that was a good thing!

~*~*~

No matter how many times he did it, it was still something of a shock. All his service life, River had known that, for an EMU, 'running off the wire' was a humiliation and probably a career-ending mistake for a driver. So, it went strongly against the grain to deliberately do so. As he took the leftward diverging line after leaving Ballahoo Station, the overhead power lines stopped just two catenary gantries past the junction and River's pantograph electric pick-up jerked upwards because of the sudden absence of overhead tension. There were a few breathless moments of coasting purely on battery power before his three diesels caught. There was a sudden burst of charge form their alternators and, as River's driver pulled the gear lever into 'drive', the train jerked slightly as traction was restored under the auxiliary motors. Meanwhile, with a near-silent hiss, the pneumatics retracted River's pantograph flush to the roof of his middle vehicle

"There we go, lad, just like the tests! No difference to the traction switch-overs at Oxenholme!" River's driver patted his train's dashboard sunshield comfortingly. From the first run up to Windermere he'd realised that the class-769 didn't like running off the wire whilst in motion and he'd been working hard to make it feel a little less traumatic. Procedure said that there was no stationary switch-over at the last electrified station on this service as Ballahoo was a very busy station and trains had to be in and out very promptly.

"Still got power, still got power," River muttered through his throbbing diesel motors.

The turning branch line was now a single track running hard up against a tall cliff and… You know Pug was right, the slowly thickening urban landscape of Norramby was pretty with it quaint old-world houses and, beyond that, the beautiful golden white bathing beach. The scenery was a welcoming distraction for the HMU.

"Next station Norramby St Finan's; alight here for Norramby Pleasure Beach and change for Norramby Pier tramway!" River's Passenger Information System announced in a neutral feminine voice (and that always had annoyed River ever since it was installed) as he began to slow down into a single-platform station with a three-vehicle light railway train sitting on the far side.

"Hey, New Iron!" the light railway train (likely a fairly low-powered DMU) with the nameplate 'King Crovan' said. "I'll probably see you on the way back!"

Everyone here is just so friendly! River marvelled, not for the first time as his passengers poured out of his saloons, the platform staff scrambling to assist some tourists with some unfeasibly large collections of luggage.

"Coo, lookatim!" River directed his attention back to the platform where three boys, probably pre-teens, were looking at him thoughtfully from their seats on the back of a platform bench. River still wasn't entirely used to the North Western's liberal attitude to non-passengers going onto the platform on trust that they wouldn't board one of the trains without paying. "Izee one o' those diesels the Fat Controller bought then?"

"Dunno," one of the others said thoughtfully. "E's making diesel noises but e's got an 'E' cab number like 'er 'ighness!" The three boys pulled out notebooks and diligently wrote 'E4D' and the time seen. There were a couple of flashes as they used their phone cameras to capture a picture of River's leading cab.

Suddenly, River decided to join the boys' games. "Actually lads, I'm not electric or a diesel!" The three boys reacted to River's strong London accent, so different from their native Sudrian. The HMU smiled at his three new admirers. "I'm really both!" Yes, that was true and, as weird as his new service life was turning out to be, he was proud of he and his brother's unique features.

"Cor!" was the response. River's driver was actually doing a good job not laughing at the boys slack-jawed expressions as he released his train's brakes and pushed forward the throttles, pushing River into the final mile to Norramby Beach Station.

Chapter Text

Jinty and Pug had always prided themselves as not being particularly tribal Engines. They didn't mind diesels, honest! They had actually never met an electric engine before that time they were the understudies for the entire NWR roster when they went to Euston for the first Great Railway Show. However, both agreed that Janey was a strange, eccentric but lovable Engine!

That said, the yard at Carnforth did something to both class-3F 0-6-0Ts. Maybe it was the sneering disdain of the class-390 EMUs or the deliberately-impersonal and detached behaviour of the various operators' goods locomotives. However, they both started feeling a bit uncomfortable around the multiple units stabled at Carnforth Yard. This was strange and unfortunate really because, if they'd bothered to stop to ask, they would have realised that all six of them had their own stories to tell and their own fears about their futures.

Still, there was David, Rebecca and BoCo regularly carrying out services staged from here. Somehow, assembling trains of carriages and needing separate locomotives seemed more right to the two Tank Engines.

Despite having meaningful work for the first time in decades, the scorn (and, occasionally, fear and resentment) of the trains from The Other Railway played on Jinty and Pug's own emotional scars after their long abandonment at the closed museum. It was inevitable that it would lead to trouble eventually. It all came to a head on what Pug would later call 'a really bad day'.

Both tank engines were in a bad mood already and Ladybird and Rosechafer's uncharacteristic poor  temper as they'd rolled through on their way to Carlisle via Barrow just set their mechanisms on edge (the linked DMUs would later admit that they'd had a bad argument with Sergio at Lancaster).

Molly would later apologise for her own impatience. No locomotive or integrated train liked running late and the tank engines seemed to be having trouble working out which train was which didn’t help in the slightest. "Here, Jinty! Where's my train?" Of course, all the good will in the world didn't stop the big engines sometimes getting snappy if too many minutes seemed to be wasted.

"Just bringing it over now, Molly!" The yellow Claud Hamilton-class 4-4-0 wasn't exactly seething but it was pretty obvious that she wanted her dry goods wagons back now as the yard workmen had unloaded the crates destined for the distribution centre just outside the station. Jinty trundled over with a long train of box-cars.

As Jinty was hurriedly shunting the train into place behind the uncharacteristically-fussy Molly's tender, Pug was shunting another train of box-cars up behind Spam-Can, who was idling in a siding at the other end of the yard. Fortunately, most diesel locomotives could see both ways and this probably avoided an embarrassing mix-up that would have caused long delays and maybe even the loss of cargos. "Here!" the diesel snapped as he glared at the trucks. "That isn't my train! I've got a train of boxed cereals, not a load of scrap car parts!"

Pug glared at the nearest truck, which grinned back innocently and made a show of whistling an idle tune. That fact was that most trucks of any particular type were more-or-less identical unless you were checking the goods manifests and serial codes in the work logs. Pug's Fireman hadn't been doing that because the Crew had been in a hurry. With a squeak of suddenly-realised horror, Pug rolled back from the trucks and raced towards his twin sister, his whistle shrieking. "Jinty! That isn't Molly's train!" Molly heard that too and it was a good thing that she did as she was just pulling out of the yard.

As the two tank engines raced to and fro to untangle the resulting mess, Tiger chuckled to himself and decided to throw back at Pug a comment he'd made about multiple unit trains that he'd made to Jinty in the shed. "I guess they all look the same to you, eh, Pug?"

As Tiger and Stag growled out of the station heading north-west towards Barrow, Pug seethed. "I'm sure it's their fault somehow," he muttered.

"I'm sure it was!" Jinty agreed. "We've got to find some way to pay them back!"

~*~*~

"Well, I'm sure that you thought that was very funny, didn't you?"

Jinty grimaced as she took in Lady Julia's completely stony expression of obvious disapproval. Actually, she and Pug had been laughing fit to burst their boilers as they deliberately ran slow over the junctions and thus blocked the lines on the down side of the station as a seething Ladybird and Rosechafer waited to leave and other trains stacked up on the up side of the station waiting to get into effectively blocked platforms. Both tank engines had thought it most apt to make those sneering 'diseasels' late for a change. They just hadn't realised that, unlike on their old railway, complaints about delays always got to the Controller's office.

"Please Lady Julia! It isn't our fault! They were laughing at us and we had to pay them back!"

Hearing those words, the woman turned her glare on Jinty and the blue tank engine immediately thought about how comforting a scrapyard would be right now. "Jinty," Lady Julia remarked coldly. "I happen to know for a fact that you are too experienced and proven an engine to be so silly about this." If it were physically possible, the squirming class-3F would be tapping her fingers together in embarrassment. The brunette woman turned to Pug. "As for you, Pug? I've heard about your muttering in the sheds and the yard. Have the class-15xs done anything to justify your scorn?"

Pug looked down. "All the multiple units from The Other Railway are just so mean!" he complained without much hope that it would help.

"Oh, and you thought that you could get your own back by being mean to your colleagues who had nothing to do with them?" The woman shook her head and turned away from the subtly shifting tank engines, who were unable to meet her gaze. "I'm afraid that I cannot afford to withdraw either of you as you are continuously required here in the yard but you are on very thin ice."

"Please ma'am…" Lady Julia looked over at Tiger, who was sitting in the station with Stag and waiting to be cleared out to continue their run to Lancaster. "Ma'am, don't be too rough on Pug and Jinty. I did tease them over the problem with Molly and Spam-Can's trucks!" Pug looked at the class-153 railcar in shock and, if anything felt even worse that the diesel was standing up for him.

"Well, that is very generous, honest and praiseworthy Tiger," Lady Julia responded. "However, Pug is his own engine and needs to take his own responsibility for his actions. Jinty does too." The woman looked at the two tank engines and, satisfied that the message had got across, strode over to the station to catch Bear and Bridget's next train back to Tidmouth.

~*~*~

Ooh Trevisthick! I have messed up! Jinty thought as she pulled out of the yard for the junction with the Morecombe branch, towing a short train of fuel oil tankers and trucks full of heating gas cylinders. I get a second chance and I pick a fight with the railway's newest trains and when they're carrying full passenger loads too! Oh, and just to make me feel like an overflowing tank of boiler sludge, one of them then defends me and Pug to the Deputy Controller!

In the core of her being, Jinty knew that she'd earned a day locked up in the sheds for her misdeeds and pointless spite. The DMUs had never done her any wrong and that mess in the morning with the two goods trains had solely been due to her and Pug not paying enough attention as to what had been parked where. She'd just got so upset! Maybe the problem was that, as Thomas liked to do when she'd met him before the First Great Railway Show, she'd been trying to impress all the younger engines and trains? Well, maybe; if that had been her goal, no matter how subconsciously, any hope of that was gone now.

Jinty felt her brakes engage and looked up and mentally gave herself a shove for not noticing the Distant Signal showing Danger and for her Driver having to engage her brakes rather than her doing it immediately. "Bert!" her driver said to her Fireman. "Run ahead down the line and see what's up will you?"

The light goods train sat and waited for a while before Jinty's fireman came back. "It's the junction with the Heysham Port spur, Davey! The points have seized slightly open and the middle vehicle of the stopper triangular service has partly derailed!"

"Maybe we can rescue them?" Jinty asked eagerly, forgetting her past regrets at showing off in the light of this new opportunity.

Her Driver tapped her master brake/steam pressure display affectionately with his knuckles. "Well, we'll go slow up to the Incident and see if we can help, my girl, but let's not get too ahead of ourselves. The Controller might want one of the bigger locomotives like Emily handle this!" Oh yes, Jinty had forgotten the emerald-painted Sterling Single's reputation of being a 'rescue engine'. This was sort of her job, after all!

The blue-painted class-3F slowly edged down the track towards the junction, the bungalows of Morecombe town replacing the farm fields. Finally, a frowning Ladybird appeared ahead of them. "Oh thank Benz! Help at last!" the class-153 called out happily.

The signalman was also waiting and met up with Jinty's Driver, Fireman and the train's Guard. "Hey Davey, Bert! I've talked to Sir Stephen and he's authorised you to make an attempt to clear the points so we can try to reset them!"

"Are ye daft, man?" the train's Guard remarked. "We've got a fuel oil and pressurised gas load. Shake that up enough and everything for half a mile in every direction might be gone!"

The Driver waved. "Don't lose your cool, mate. We'll park the train further up the track and decouple!" The Guard still wasn't entirely happy but he cooperated, using his brake van's full emergency parking brake and then heading up the line setting up detonators and reflective warning markers every hundred yards or so.

Meanwhile, Jinty nervously edged forwards and her fireman, riding on her buffer beam, watched as the Jinty's coupler and Ladybug's met and locked into place. "Will you trust me?" Jinty asked the railcar. The odd look she got in return just made Jinty feel terrible again. For all their occasional salty interactions, the railcar literally had no idea why she shouldn't trust the tank engine! Her fireman attached the brake pressure hoses to the DMU and watched as the railcar's driver disengaged his own brake controls put her gears into neutral, putting Jinty completely in control of the ad-hoc train.

Jinty's Driver had joined the crew of the DMU, the Inspector from Morecombe Station and the signalman at looking at Rosechafer's partially-derailed trailing vehicle. "So," he said. "Push or pull?"

The Inspector shone his torch around the DMU's undercarriage and thought for a moment. "The rear bogie is the one off of the track, Davey. We'll push to get it back up onto the rails and, hopefully, the railcar will follow the straight-line force." Jinty's Driver nodded and jogged back to his cab.

The Driver and Fireman spent a few minutes building up Jinty's steam pressure before her Driver opened her regulator and pushed the button to unload sand onto the track to increase her traction. "Come on!" Jinty puffed. "Comeon-comeon-comeon-come…" There was a tortured shrieking sound as the middle vehicle of the linked DMU was forced by the alignment of the forwards and rear vehicles to re-mount the rails and, with a very heavy thump, land back onto them. "Phwhee! Done it!" Jinty whistled exultantly before she heard another metallic groan and tilted over to the left. "Oh, shaved sprockets! Now what?"

'Now what' was the worst possible luck: Either the weight of the train rolling over the partially-closed points or the edge of Jinty's wheels getting caught in the place where the two elements of the points met had forced the points slightly open and Jinty had derailed! Jinty sighed miserably. She'd tried to make things better but, instead, she'd made it worse! So, they were going to have to wait for Emily anyway!

"Hey, Davey!" Ladybird and Rosechafer's driver said. "If you release your brakes, we've got over seventeen-hundred horsepower and empty saloons!"

Jinty's driver blinked. "Are you insane? Your girls aren't goods tractors! You'll tear off your trailing buffer beam trying to haul that amount of dead weight!"

The diesel driver shook his head. "We'll take it slow to reduce the snap force! Daisy regularly hauls milk tankers or mail cars and she's got far less powerful prime movers! It isn't in the specification book but with all the passengers and their baggage off, we've got a lot of excess power!"

Davey looked at his miserable-looking engine and at the hopeful-looking Ladybird. "Ah, hell… What's there left to lose? The alternative is to wait five hours until a rescue engine gets here!" He scratched his chin. "Okay, I'm riding this one though! The moment we're back on the rails, you go back to neutral gear and let us push you the rest of the way! My girl is designed for this stuff!"

"Can you trust me?" Ladybird asked as the two crews set up for the unprecedented act.

Jinty smiled in response at her sister train. "You trusted me, didn't you?"

The DMU visibly tensed as three NT-855s began to roar on and off as, in Rosechafer's leading cab, her driver pulsed his throttles in neutral gear. Jinty's driver braced himself against his boiler bulkhead and kept his hand on the regulator. The Fireman waved to show the other driver that all was ready and jumped off of the footplate. Jinty was expecting a sudden tug but, instead, there was only a slowly increasing load on her front coupler. "Move! Move! Mooovvve!" Ladybug and  Rosechafer were snarling in unison. Much to her surprise, Jinty realised her wheels were moving along the track bed and… touched the rails head-on!

Neutral gear! Jinty yelled down the command telegraph link as he driver pushed her regulator open. With a roar of steam, the tank engine rode up the end of the points 'main' track and back onto the rails. Jinty's driver kept the steam on until his engine was well clear of the damaged points and then applied the brakes. There were cheers from all of the onlookers and even a few camera flashes. Jinty wondered if she'd just become a News Headline, at least in the local area.

The DMUs engines were spooled back to idle and Jinty felt their own brakes engage. After a few minutes, their driver sauntered over to Jinty as her driver wiped his face with an oily handkerchief. "That sir, is how we do that!" the diesel driver said with a grin, earning an only half-serious dismissive wave from Jinty's Driver.

After a workman who had come up from Heysham Port in a lorry had forced the points closed with a reverberating blow from a sledgehammer, Jinty was able to retrieve her train as the linked DMUs headed into Morecombe.

There was a bit of a wait standing after recoupling with the goods train whilst the Inspector verified her state and that of the points. Then, Jinty set off to join them by the seaside.

The trucks were stowed in the station's goods siding and Jinty had collected an old works carriage and a flatbed truck of tools, parts and spoil from the same sidings, she was ready to head up the line again so that the Inspector and the emergency work crew for the branch could start a full fix on the points.

"Thanks for the push," Rosechafer said with a grin with her cousin smiling too.

"Thanks for the pull!" Jinty responded, giving both diesels a friendly smile.

After later telling her brother about this adventure, both engines decided that the time had come to turn over a new leaf and be a bit less confrontational. Oh, they both occasionally snapped at the others in stressful situations but never with any real malice. Furthermore, they never played pranks again, even when the multiple unit trains from The Other Railway really deserved it.

Most importantly, Jinty personally would not allow anyone to ever tell her that the class-153/155 couldn't pull goods if they had to!

Chapter Text

Sitting on the goods loop between Vicarstown Station and the Barrow Swing Bridge, Henry was peering into the near white-out conditions on the bridge itself. "Well, I think that pretty much ends this day!" he remarked dryly. "A shame because Sundays have recently become quite busy over to the mainland!"

To his left on the Up Main line, D12, Screech, the former 159109, felt that the clone Stanier Black-5 had a point. It wasn't a windy day; there would be no question about the bridge being closed then. However, the snow fell heavily in this part of England and drivers would struggle to see anything. On a rural line with so many unmonitored foot crossings, that could be extremely dangerous. No doubt all these issues and others were being hashed out in the Inspector's office at the station, possibly with the Controller's own instructions being given over the phone. Both trains’ crews were there now and would have to wait to learn what was decided.

Henry cleared his throat at that moment. "So…" Screech looked over at the green locomotive, puzzled that he looked somewhat embarrassed to ask the question. "Where on Earth did you and your brother get your names?"

Screech chuckled. "Blame James, if you want to think of it that way!"

Henry was proud that he'd avoided the reflex to grimace. No-one at Tidmouth Sheds were about to forget that it had been James who had campaigned hard to have BoCo be given the nickname 'Buzzbox' instead. As far as Henry could be certain, the Hughes class-28 was not intentionally rude; he just didn't think tact to be something particularly worthy of his concern and he genuinely felt that something as reductively descriptive as possible of an engine was the only 'efficient' name for them. "So… the noise of your gearing system?"

"And my engine," D11, Growl, coupled to his brother's rear, added with a game smile.

Henry rolled his eyes before continuing in a hesitant tone of voice. "You know, Sir Stephen would be glad to give you any name if you wanted a change; James would just have to learn to accept it."

"We liked them," Screech remarked. "It was literally the first time anyone thought of us as anything other than numbers and we wanted to remember that."

"Besides, I think it's very assertive!" Growl added.

Henry sighed. Sometimes, he despaired of ever understanding younger engines.

“Okay, lads!” The driver assigned to Growl and Screech on this joint working was jogging the length of the linked DMUs. “It’s not such a cold day and the snow isn’t settling much, so the Controller has come to a decision. We’re going to continue the journey through to Lancaster unless we encounter any drifts.”

“Are they serious?” Henry gasped in horror. “In this weather?”

Henry’s driver patted his control panel reassuringly. “It’s mostly in the air at the moment Big Green Hal. So long as we don’t go over-speed, it should be safe enough.” He grinned. “Snow is less likely than rain to stain the paint-work, huh?” Henry muttered under his breath. It had been over half a century and still he hadn't lived that silly youthful incident down! At least they weren’t singing that song Thomas had made up about it!

Henry looked over at the linked DMUs. In his experience, the newer the train, the more sensitive they tended to be to off-normal conditions. “There will still be some settled snow. Won’t you fellows need the lines de-iced first??”

“So long as it isn’t too deep, we should be okay!” Screech announced. He shot a glance at the shovel-edged fairing around his forward coupler. “We were built for regional traffic; this is technically a cow-catcher but it should double as a snow-plough of sorts!” 

Henry shot the DMU a look that said: ‘Better you than me!’

Screech listened as his Guard made an announcement over the Tannoy that they were about to get underway again and that there would be some further delays due to the weather. The passengers gave a dismal cheer. Guess it’s up to us to get them through then! he told Growl over their control linkage.

The other class-159 responded: Still getting used to this!

~*~*~

No-one was expecting the service to break any records. If anything, as Growl and Screech pulled into Barrow-in-Furness Station’s Up Slow platform, most of the waiting passengers seemed genuinely surprised to see the Brunswick Green-painted coupled DMUs at all. A Northern Rail class-195 on the Down Slow platform, bound for Carlisle, based on its passenger information displays, boggled at the older multiple units. “What are you two doing out? I’ve been stuck here for an hour!” 

Screech smiled. “The North Western always tries to get through. That’s not just our attitude but the crews and management too!”

The other DMU seemed genuinely surprised to hear that. “Well, more fool you then! I’m glad that I’m stuck here rather than freezing my wheels off in this blizzard!”

Growl looked around. “Well…. I wouldn’t call it a blizzard. It’s just heavy snow-fall!”

“Yeah,” Screech agreed. “Now, I’ve been out in blizzards when I was still running in South Western’s colours! It’s amazing that stuff could come down so hard in the south!” He shot the Northern Railways train a condescending grin. “Besides, a long run would warm up your wheels quite nicely!” 

The DMU from the Other Railway shot the linked Turbo Sprinters a long, measuring look. “I never thought I’d say this but I think that old lunatic 150288 is right! Joining that Railway does do something to a sensible train’s thinking! Or is it something to do with the fact that you’re obsolete models now?”

“I tell you what, 195121,” Growl remarked. “You sit here in the station where it’s safe but cold. We can talk about who is thinking clearly when we roll back the other way and you’re still covered in snow?”

At that moment, the ‘Right Away’ indicator appeared at the head of the platform and the guard (riding in Growl’s leading cab) leaned out of the window and blew his whistle. As Growl and Screech rolled away, 195121 would have shook his head sadly if he could. “Brave trains or foolish? I don’t think I want to guess!” he muttered to himself.

The snow was actually slacking off as the two DMUs head up the line towards Roose. “Real white-out today, lad,” Screech’s Driver remarked, peering out of the windows. Both the ground and the sky were the same uniform white at the moment and that made it hard to see what was going on. Sensibly, Screech was keeping his speed below 20mph to maximise the chance of stopping in time.

The snow crunching under their tyres was making both trains feel nervous. ‘Low traction conditions’ was something neither of them particularly enjoyed. If there was going to be a need for emergency braking, this would add a few dozen feet to their stopping distance! I’m beginning to think that the joke is on us! Screech remarked to Growl over their control link whilst peering ahead trying to assure himself that there was nothing on the track. No snowdrifts yet, Screech told Growl through their control linkage, trying to sound positive. Not so bad; we've got this!

So long as we don't have to do an emergency stop! Growl added. Well, the passengers are relying on us! They were too! At Dalton, the train had been met by a fairly-crowded platform and another group of passengers who seemed genuinely surprised to see a train arrive. Both DMUs were still blushing a little at the words of thanks and praise they’d received as their passengers had boarded. Being called 'brave engines' was a new one for them both!

At that point, Screech felt his brakes engage and he came out of his musings. “Is there an obstruction ahead?”

“Looks like the snow’s drifted bit ahead!” his Driver told him.

Screech frowned as he considered the conditions. The snow had finally stopped but, here at the mouth of the Lindal Tunnel, almost the only bit of hilly country in the otherwise flat and open route, there had been enough of an incline for the hours of snowfall before to settle deeply. “Oh, axle grease and exhaust caking!” the class-159 snapped. “This is the world’s revenge for us teasing that class-195, isn’t it?”

Growl looked around his brother and considered the sight. “It isn’t that deep, is it? I'm pretty sure that we've got the traction to spare to force our way through that so long as someone can put some sand on the line to let us get traction! Or… maybe we can back up and build up some speed and momentum before we reach the drift!"

In Growl’s leading cab, the Guard was seated, talking to the Conductor about the delay and they both reached quite strongly at the implied hint that the two trains were planning to do something heroic and probably damaging. “Now come on, lads,” said the Guard. “You don’t have snowplough fittings!” 

“No….” Screech agreed. “I do have my cow-catcher plate though…” The DMU revved his engines. “I’m sure that we could push through. It’s only a little more than axle-deep!” The Guard and Conductor exchanged alarmed glances as they felt the timbre of the motors intensify as if Screech and Growl were actually planning to charge the snowdrift.

The Driver frowned and made sure that he had the throttle lever all the way back at ‘idle’ and the semi-automatic gearbox was locked into 'neutral'. “No you won’t, lads. I know just how brave you two are and how dedicated you are to your passengers but you’re not going to go beyond your specification and railway procedure because of pride, got that?” The rumble of the six NTA-855 motors managed to communicate both units' disappointment but the Driver didn’t feel any hint of likely rebellion. He triggered the cab-to-control radio and reported the blockage to headquarters and got the reply he expected: Hold until help arrives.

Meanwhile, Screech was basically sulking and occasionally revving his engine impatiently. Then he saw three bright lights approaching through the supposedly-blocked tunnel on the reciprocal Down line.

"Peep-peep! Never fear, friends! The rescue party is here!"

"Pug?" Screech was stunned. "You have no idea how glad I am to see you!" The apple green type-3F 0-6-0T tank engine had a snowplough attached to his front buffer beam with small lights at either end and a high-power floodlight at the base of his funnel.

"Hello there, Screech!" The tank engine seemed a little smug but, in the end, who could blame him? "Sorry that I wasn't sooner; I've come all the way from Carnforth but I had to keep stopping to ensure my workmen could clear the line! Oh, speaking of which…!" The tank engine blew his whistle loudly; the doors of the branch line-type carriage he was hauling opened and a team of workmen spilled out, going back to the two trucks at the back of the train to collect tools. As they did so, the gritting machine in between the carriage and trucks was industriously pumping grit onto both sets of tracks and track-bed.

"I was about to try something to push through," the class-159 remarked. His Driver felt the glare but wasn't ashamed for holding the diesels back.

Pug was thoughtful for a moment. "You know, I can't honestly say you wouldn't have managed it! If there's one thing I've learned recently it's that you 15xs are tougher than you look; maybe tougher than most of you realise."

Meanwhile, the Driver was patting Screech's controls reassuringly. "See, I told you that there was no need to do anything silly! The Controllers had everything planned in advance!"

As soon as the workmen had completed clearing the tunnel approach the twin DMUs powered up their engine and pulled away. "Tee-toot! Thank you Pug! Hope the rest of the day goes well for you!

"Peep-peep! Thank you Screech, Growl! I'll see you as you come back!"

~*~*~

At Ulverston (a larger station with overtaking passenger loops) everyone was pleased to see that the hot lunch trolleys had got to the station and there was a pause as the pallets of heated rolls and drinks were loaded (with the First Class passengers having the cost included in their tickets). It was a small touch that made the passengers a lot happier about having risked the trains on a day of bad weather.

After leaving the big town, the service was non-stop until Arnsdale and, now that the line was cleared of the temporary speed restriction by Pug's hard work, the twin class-159s used all their power to get up to 80mph and win back as much time as they could. As they raced along, they were glad to note that the passengers seemed happy at being underway and at such a pace. Both DMUs noticed the way that many of then watched as the train raced over the Leven Viaduct and onto a more scenic part of the route running along the north side of Morecombe Bay.

Pug's hard work was paying dividends and the line was fully open again. They greeted David as they passed him heading out; the class-L77 0-6-2T tank engine was hauling the four-carriage slow train taking passengers along the coast to Carlisle. "Phwee! Show 'em you can do express schedules, lads!" the former GER locomotive whistled happily.

After crossing the Arnsdale Viaduct, they stopped at Arnsdale Station opposite a class-170 Turbostar in the colours of Northern Rail who, as was typical, wasn't particularly talkative although he mentioned that he was the first train other than 'one of your lot' allowed onto the Furness Loop after the weather eased and Pug had cleared the line). Despite the newer diesel's ingrained reluctance to acknowledge anything good about the North Western Railway, he nonetheless made a reluctant acknowledgement that he'd still be stuck at Carnforth if it weren’t for 'that Steamer'. "Our controllers would take ages to get a plough train out from wherever it was," he remarked. "Having a service yard so close to the line is a lot smarter! Your railway got that much right at least!"

Pug will be pleased to hear that! Growl chuckled. Praise from a modern diesel multiple unit!

Pug would be pleased with any acknowledgement, Screech countered with a laugh. He takes pride in his work and doing what he can; I… think that I feel that way too!

Finally, the service arrived at Carnforth, actually only 30 minutes late which, given the conditions at the start of the journey was nothing short of a marvel. Of course, the journey was far from over: They would continue to Lancaster, where they would then wait for an hour in a siding before heading back (not separately as they would on weekdays and Saturdays; on Sundays, the schedule was for the class-159 brothers to run infrequent joined semi-fast services to and from Tidmouth). However, as Carnforth was the Junction Station, a lot of passengers were alighting to transfer to other trains. The two Turbo Sprinters felt more than a little abashed by the passengers' praise for their bravery of heading out into the snow.

On the platform for trains heading back to Sodor, Boatman was waiting for his path to clear, his thrumming brake pumps being the only noise he made whilst under electrical power. "Well, look at the two Really Useful Engines!" he teased.

"Better believe that is what we are, Sparky!" Growl remarked but without heat. "Regional DMUs always for the win!"

"This railway though…" Screech began and then had to pause. "It's like nothing else. We get thanks and, you know, I think that this operating company is the first time that I've felt that we're part of a team!"

Growl agreed with that. "Yeah, we're all hauling together to get at the same destination even if we aren't part of the same service!" The DMU paused before continuing. "By the way, Screech, thanks for backing me up back there with our crew."

The leading class-159 smiled slightly. "Yeah, well I felt the same way. People were relying on us and I didn't want to let them down." He thought for a moment. "You know, I don't think that I ever felt that way before the North Western bought us!"

"It's a totally different way of working," Boatman concluded. "You know what? I like it! It makes me feel important and significant as a train! This is what being a railway train should be like; not just running back and forwards but being a part of people's lives!"

Then both guards blew their whistles and the two services set off again with cheerful toots of their horns. It was all part of their new reality and the new reality of this formerly-isolated corner of The Other Railway which was now part of the North Western Railway.

Chapter Text

By his own admission, David, tank no. 23, had a mostly-unremarkable service life up to the point when he was finally retired from the Easterm Region of British Rail in 1962. Frankly, just shuttling commuter trains up and down the Lea Valley Lines in north-east London was a rewarding enough job for him and he’d been quite happy to be Preserved, even if the museum was on the other end of the country. 

However, that had been the end only of the unremarkable part of his service life. The owner of the Museum had treated him as something special and he’d enjoyed talking to the twin Fowler 3Fs who shared the exhibition hall with him. However, any hope of an unremarkable retirement after an unremarkable life ended when the museum closed down and he was left under a tarpaulin for an indeterminate amount of time. Although he was very grateful to Sir Stephen Hatt for rescuing him, his new life on the North Western Railway had been a completely different one with a lot of unique personalities and experiences in this very different part of the world. There was no hint so far that these new unique experiences were about to end any time soon either!

“Oh I do like to be beside the sea-side… Oh I do like to be beside the sea….!”

David was on the Down Slow at Carnforth, getting ready for a journey up the Furness Line with a train of four passenger coaches and one of the new mail cars that they’d started hauling after the Controller had realised just how much domestic package deliveries were needing carriage and looked at the green-painted singer with a raised eyebrow. “So, I’m thinking that you’re looking forward to taking over this run for the next three months?” he asked with a quiet undertone of sarcasm.

Pug, one of those Fowler 3Fs he’d met at the museum and was now tank no. 21 in the same railway, grinned over at David from where he sat on the Up Slow platform, waiting to depart with a train for Morecambe. “It will be great to get back to passenger service!” he responded. “Don’t get me wrong! Shunting in the yard is an interesting job but actual revenue-generating services! Well, that’s something every Engine worth their wheels wants to do!” 

Pug and his twin, blue-painted Jinty, were starting a schedule of swapping yard duties and hauling trains down to Morecambe and its small spur service to Heysham Port. It was quite clear that Pug was raring to go on his first journey. “Ah, David! You don’t know how lucky you are! You’re always running passenger trains whilst I spent the last twelve weeks doing nothing but shunt and haul the occasional goods or works train! Getting out of here will be…” The engine sucked in a deep breath of air through his pumps. “Oh, it will be so good!”

Off in the yard, Jinty rolled her eyes. “Okay, Pug! So, you like to stretch your wheels! Don’t go on about it!” The green-painted tank engine stuck his tongue out at his twin.

David’s Guard blew his whistle and waved his green flag. The class-N2 blew out extra steam through his draincocks. “Well, enjoy your run and mind you remember all the tricks and skills that got rusty during all your time in the yard!”

As David chuffed away, Pug spluttered: “See here! I will never forget anything!” David never replied but Pug could very clearly hear Jinty’s laughter from where she was putting together a train for Rebecca.

~*~*~

Stupid David! Stupid Jinty! Pug was seething as he steamed along the Morecambe branch-line towards the seaside. The very thought that I’d forget anything important! 

Despite being a major seaside resort in its heyday, Morecambe had become increasingly forgotten over the years. The Other Railway ran regular trains from Preston but they were infrequent, so the North Western’s trains to and from Carnforth were the main connection for the town now and Pug’s three carriages were more than enough for the small resort town now, during off-peak times. There was enough spare traction capacity that he could even carry a milk tanker and a truck of propane tanks (these having long since supplanted coal as a domestic and commercial heating fuel).

Pug blew out an aggrieved puff of steam and focussed on his journey. The line threaded through the flattening hills and out onto the southern shore of Morecambe Bay. These weren't exactly new waters for Pug. After his rescue and restoration, he'd helped Katie and Jinty with the improvements for the Furness Line and had thus spent a lot of time on the north shore. Odd really, that he'd managed to cross from one side of the mighty expanse of water to the other without getting wheels wet… Well, not much. Rain was a common issue in this part of the Mainland after all.

Of course, the humans did have a habit of spreading everywhere and the unspoiled countryside didn't last long. Pug entered into the huge Morecambe conurbation and, as he slowed to enter the station, he made a rude noise to the Billy Hill Junction that had caused his twin sister so much trouble not so long ago. 

The train slid to a halt at Morecambe Station and Pug grinned as he looked down the road to the seafront. It was too much to hope for that the Fat Controller would fund an extension tramway to the road running along the beach but seeing the tourist areas from his spot was more than pleasant. This early and in this season there weren't many people alighting at Morecambe but Pug hoped that later journeys would include some families taking a trip to the seaside!

~*~*~

When the North Western Railway took over the lines around Morecambe Bay and up the Furness Coast, it carried out a lot of modifications to stations. Some were obviously necessary, such as the installation of reversing lines at terminals as well as coal and water infrastructure. However, some were strongly criticised by other Train Operating Companies as white elephants motivated more by Sir Stephen’s desire to recreate the ‘golden age’ of railways in the 1930s to 1950s rather than any serious commercial need. 

However, it hadn’t turned out that way. Because of these changes, Pug chugged up the reversing line and then slid onto the two trucks at the end of his train. Once detached, he pulled the milk tanker and the enclosed goods wagon filled with propane cylinders out of the station to a junction to a recently-restored goods siding south of Morecambe Station proper. The green class-3F slowly shunted the trucks into the siding (ignoring their muttered protests) that had its own unloading platform and shed. This siding was owned by a general goods merchant on the seafront who found it profitable to provide cold milk on-tap to several ice cream retailers along the front as well as providing propane both for retail and wholesale purposes in the town. Overall, it had been a surprisingly profitable venture for the NWR to support (and more so for said merchant). 

Pug waited patiently as his fireman uncoupled him from the trucks. Once emptied, they would be collected by whoever was scheduled to do the last run of the day. “Peep-peep! All yours, Mr Arkwright!” Pug whistled cheerfully as he backed out of the siding and back to the station, ready for the second leg of his journey.

For reasons long lost to history, the only line to Heysham Port, a small dock that received some goods shipments but most importantly also operated passenger ferries to Knapford and also to the city of Douglas on the Isle of Man, didn’t connect directly to the branch but could only be accessed by backing out of Morecambe Station, over that blasted junction that derailed Jinty and her DMU friends. More than two thirds of Pug’s passengers were going to the town, where there were many factories and various works. 

Just to make things interesting, there was no turntable at Morecambe; the same heavily built-up urban sprawl that meant that the Railway could not build a direct line from Heysham up to Carnforth and Lancaster meant that there was really no room for such things unless Sir Stephen wanted to spend thousands of pounds on purchasing people’s houses and shops just to demolish them to make way for this track (which would cost even more). Pug admitted that this made him envy Ladybird, Tiger, Stag and Rosechafer. They didn’t need to reverse down the long spur line. Their drivers just walked to the opposite end of their train, reverse the gears and just drive up the line without any complications

Heysham could not be more different from Morecambe. There were few holiday houses, only densely-packed workers’ terraces and the nearly-featureless metal boxes of warehouses, workshops and factories. Like Morecambe, the station was practically on the sea-front, indeed Heysham Port Station was built on the jetty for the ferry dock, making it a most convenient destination for passengers to Sodor and Man. At the station, Pug took on coal and fresh water as his carriages were quickly emptied of busy travellers who had only finished the first leg of their journey and taking on others who now wanted to go home. Then he reversed again and he was able to travel the right way back to Morecambe.

~*~*~

Another evolution of the running order of the train at Morecambe followed and then Pug pulled out (running backwards again now), heading back for Carnforth. 

This, or so he felt, was what it was to be a mixed traffic locomotive. It was busy, tightly scheduled and with little time for dreaming except on the longer runs between stations. However, he loved it! It was so demanding and fulfilling! On his way up the line, he passed a class-170 Turbostar coming from Preston via Lancaster and, like so many of the Multiple Units, he got no response either to his whistle or to his Driver’s wave of acknowledgement. He had listened to Bear and Bridget complain about the ‘strange’ engines from the Other Railway and had to agree with their annoyance at the way they tended not to even act like they could talk!

However, Pug could talk and he spent a long time talking to his carriages on the way back up the branch. Some less-experienced engines thought of carriages as being silly lumps of wood, steel or aluminium (or combinations of all of them). However, Pug knew better. Carriages encountered more passengers than most engines ever did and learned their rhythms and habits. It was always useful for an engine to know if their passengers had enjoyed a journey or had noticed anything odd.

As he approached Carnforth, Pug met up with a more sociable train. “Tee-toot! Hello Pug!”

“Fwee! Hello Ladybird! Hello Stag!” The paired DMUs were running the next NWR service to Morecambe and would doubtless have to suffer the Turbostar’s scorn for working for a ‘Preserved Railway’ when they passed it later on their run. However, Pug had long got over his resentment of the DMUs. They had proven themselves, just like every other engine that worked for The Fat Controller’s railway.

As he entered the complex of tracks around Carnforth, he saw Gordon waiting to leave for Lancaster, Boatman setting off for the Bridge and Norramby and David pulling a train in from Carlisle via Barrow. Most notable was the coal drop hopper and the water tower over the yard, all resplendent with the North Western’s lion riding on top of a winged driving wheel logo. Based on what Katie had told him, Pug realised that Carnforth had really seemed to come alive since the North Western took it over. The staff and trains all seemed to be happier and more involved with the life and activity of the station. The renovations that The Fat Controller had funded had made it appear brighter and had given it a new lease of life.

Yes, Pug mused as he slowly rolled into Platform 1 to let his passengers alight and then to shunt his carriages into a siding to await their next departure. Yes, this isn’t a part of the Other Railway where our trains run, not anymore. This is very much part of Our Railway now. This is a part of the North Western Railway!