#train headcanon

So, first of all, Duchess of Hamilton never went back to the UK.

Duchess of Hamilton (6229) and Coronation (6220) had their nameplates swapped by the LMS when an engine was sent over to the US. 6229, in the guise of 6220, went to the US.

Streamlined locomotives were all the rage at the time, and railroads practically fell over themselves to get Coronation (as she was now known) onto press trains. The B&O railroad in particular was so impressed with her capabilities that they extended a formal offer of employment to her for service on their streamlined Royal Blue service. The LMS were surprised to get an offer to "purchase" their locomotive, but accepted nonetheless, as it meant a welcome infusion of cash in the dark days during the beginning of WWII.

Coronation fit right in with the Americans, having only been about a year old when she was sent to New York. Following the end of steam traction on the Royal Blue in the late 40s, (the B&O were early adopters of diesels.) she and her B&O coworkers found good employment on the New York Central, where she still runs to this day.

Since then, she's fully "gone native", marrying a J3 Hudson, (yes one of the streamlined ones) adopting both an American accent and three children, and being fully repainted to NYC silver by 1956. Flying Scotsman met her in Albany in 1970, and neither one of them recognized the other.

Actually, most UK expats don't recognize her, to the point where a common interaction is for her to be held up as an example of "look at her, she's integrated well into the US", only for the British engines to say "that's preposterous, she isn't English".

When it's pointed out that she's still obviously an LMS Coronation, the next response is usually screaming.

All that being said, she has no interest to come back to the United Kingdom, and wasn’t asked by the NRM anyways. 

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Second of all, the Great Gathering was... an event.

So, there are (officially) 6 preserved Gresley A4s.

Mallard - static, National Railway Museum (UK). Also an asshole.

Bittern - running, private owner, UK based

Sir Nigel Gresley - running, owned by a trust, UK based

Union of South Africa - running, private owner, UK based

Dwight D. Eisenhower - static (officially), National Railway Museum (USA)

Dominion of Canada - static (officially), Exporail (Montréal)

This is the official list, and for the first 4 engines, it's the truth.

However, things are a bit hazier on the other side of the Atlantic...

-----

So the thing that needs to be made clear right up front that in a sentient vehicle world, museums aren't like the NRM, where locomotives sit static for years on end, although obviously the English have museums like that because of course they do.

Rail museums in the rest of the world are much more like Colonial Williamsburg - a living history center staffed by volunteers who act out a prototypical setting from [insert decade here].

British Rail, being British Rail, didn’t know that and didn’t care.

-

4496, Dwight D. Eisenhower, having been named after the General-turned-President, had been earmarked for preservation by BR, and was summarily shipped off to the US National Railway Museum in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

In an entirely unintentional move, this donation MONUMENTALLY snubbed the Smithsonian, who refused to have any dealings with BR for decades, even for archival purposes. This, combined with the fallout from Operation Smash Hit, and the fact that the Smithsonian is Petty AF, meant that there was virtually no official trans-Atlantic cooperation between British and US museums for decades.

Dwight hit the shores of the US in 1964 New York City and was greeted by a marching band, a ticker-tape parade, and Presidents Johnson and Eisenhower, who were on-hand to personally make the engine a US citizen.

Always keen to curry favor with the government, the Southern Pacific railroad had a job offer waiting for Dwight right alongside the Presidents and the parade, and when he accepted, he went off to Sunny Southern California - someplace so opposed to Britain the he fell in love with the place immediately and refused to leave!

The ladies may have also had something to do with it as well - while most engine classes fell into a typical 50-50 gender distribution, the SP GS-4 class was all female...

[Pictured above - one of 28 very good reasons to live in California if you're a single British steam engine.]

Dwight does not kiss and tell, but at his wedding in 1974, all 28 GS-4s showed up - and he was only marrying one of them!

Since the 70's, he's become a mainstay in California, having been repainted into Daylight Limited colors in 1969, and retiring from railroad duties in 1999. After that, he went into the movie business, and is currently the head of digital media development at Disney.

His wife Irene (SP 4437) is also an interesting figure as well - following in the wheelmarks of the great female locomotives before her, she had an eye for business and a Stanford education before she married her husband, and was an initial investor in multiple tech companies in Silicon Valley during the 70's and 80's, but stopped doing that after her investment in Apple proved very lucrative. In 1996, she was convinced by a few people in the Stanford Alumni association to invest in another tech startup, this one an "internet search engine" called Google.

So yeah, Dwight Eisenhower kept falling up and up and up all his life, and is now married to the richest woman in the world.

--

4489 Dominion of Canada was donated mostly by accident, having been forgotten in the back of Darlington sheds until 1966, when she was shipped off to the Canadian Railway Historical Society in Montreal.

As stated elsewhere, the Canadian Government considered any locomotive built in the UK to have UK citizenship, and therefore treated them as commonwealth citizens under existing Canadian law. (remember that Canada was still a colony at that time)

CN, the national rail carrier, was obligated to offer her a job under their charter, and she accepted, moving to Toronto to run intercity trains between Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa.

Within two years she was displaced from those duties by the introduction of a new, shiny, jet turbine powered train, and was summarily demoted to local commuter runs in the Toronto suburbs.

Moving to suburbia did one thing more than anything else - expose her to the people who live there. They all had complaints, they all had problems, and they all had no idea on how to fix them.

Being a helpful sort, Dominion decided that she could help, and promptly ran for Toronto city council in 1974. She won, and has been a fixture in local Toronto politics ever since - she even got to be Chairwoman of Metro Toronto (the closest thing to being mayor because Toronto's governmental structure is weird) until 1998, when Toronto was merged with the surrounding area to create a massive new region.

Having then done everything there is to do in municipal Toronto government, Dominion went on to become the Chief Executive Officer of Metrolinx, the agency that controls almost all of the transit agencies in Ontario, because, as she puts it, "I'm still a commuter engine at heart".

She's now painted in the current GO Transit paint scheme, and still does commuter runs- which is really weird looking now that there are double deck commuter coaches in a push-pull configuration, with a Gresley A4 doing the pushing.

------

Now, I mentioned that those 6 were the only ones officially preserved - there were two unofficial preservations as well...

-

4486 Merlin was properly Shanghied - he was yanked off the docks in Southhampton by a cargo ship in August of 1965, and was spirited away to parts unknown.

Those unknown parts turned out to be South Korea. There, he was given citizenship by the US-aligned military dictatorship (Korean history is wild) and was employed by the State-run rail operator.

As the military government began a hardcore plan to increase their country's wealth and industrial output, rail lines were being built across the country, and Merlin was soon awarded a position on the fastest train in the network, the Seoul-Busan Saemaeul-ho.

Because of his experience in running high-speed express trains, Merlin not only became the public face of Korean high-speed rail, but also became an "honored elder" amongst the other Korean engines, a position he still holds to this day - as despite being over 70 years old, he still runs daily trains on the fast services, easily keeping time with the Korean schedules as well as training the new high speed trains, including the KTX sets. He's on his 24th boiler by now, and has more parts from Hyundai than Doncaster.

An additional fact - Merlin actually has had a linguistic effect on Korean railroading, as his strange amalgamation of an accent - a strong Yorkshire accent that tried to be Received Pronunciation for 30 years, mixed with almost 50 years of middle-to-upper-class Korean - has filtered down through the ranks of KoRail, because all of his students want to sound like him out of respect. Human British expats in Korea will occasionally hear a locomotive speaking in English, and the engine will sound like a Yorkshireman every time and the Brits cannot handle it.

---------

4495 Golden Fleece is the only A4 to preserve himself - he saw the writing on the wall in the early 60s, and hopped a car ferry to France at the end of 1962. From there, he bounced around Europe for a bit before making it to the United States in the late 70's.

Of the 8 surviving A4s, he's probably led the quietest life of all - he moved to Miami before it got nice, and basically got in on the ground floor of CSX when that merger happened in 1980. He's now the head of terminal operations for the Port of Miami, but he's generally kept a low profile - not even having a chance to meet Scotsman due to his time in Europe.

He's still in contact with Dwight and Dominion, and has no real bitterness over not being "famous" like they are - he likes the quiet, and still lives in a modest house in Boynton Beach with his long-term girlfriend.

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

Soooo... the Great Gathering.

It was supposed to be a meeting of the 6 surviving A4s - a two year event held at the NRM in honor of the 75th anniversary of Mallard's record-setting run.

"Record setting" is a past-tense term here. While there have been no official runs, every single one of the Pennsylvania Railroad's T1 and S1 locomotives claim to have gone faster than 126 without meaning to, and numerous other locomotives on unofficial attempts done late at night on flat stretches of land across the country have hit 130+.

British Expats have also done better than 126 - Coronation claims to have hit at least 140 on a midnight mail train in 1980, and in Korea, Merlin claims to have hit 128 on a test train, although that was judged by timing mile markers as his speedometer wasn't functioning properly.

Problems arose before any of the engines had even reached the NRM, as Mallard's already sizeable ego had swelled to massive proportions, and several engines in the great hall were planning a justifiable homicide.

Then came the time restraints - none of the foreign locomotives were willing to uproot their lives and jobs for two years just to sit motionless in a shed. A two year exhibition was eventually negotiated down to a 6 month gala, much to the irritation and confusion of the NRM, who could not understand that the engines were still in service.

Then came the extra engines - Dwight and Dominion thought that the NRM knew about Fleece, and were quite insulted on his behalf when he wasn't invited - they threatened to not attend unless arrangements were made for Fleece to attend as well.

An utterly baffled NRM agreed, but also tore their record archives apart, as they knew that Fleece had been scrapped. The fact that his picture was plastered all over CSX's Florida Division website was all the more confusing as a result.

-

Meanwhile in Busan, nobody knew that Merlin had escaped the scrappers' torch and therefore did not invite him. He was only informed after K-Pop star Psy texted him from London to ask if he knew about the event, which was being advertised on television.

Merlin, having missed his friends from the LNER, decided that he would just crash the party, used some of his many vacation days, and took off for England on a cargo ship.

-

By sheer coincidence, all four foreign A4s hit the dock in Southhampton on the same day, and were delighted to see each other - especially Merlin, considering that everyone else had thought he'd died.

Meanwhile at the NRM, delight was not the word one would use. Befuddled, confused, shocked even, but not delighted. Their plans had revolved around 6 A4s, most of which wouldn’t be running - only to now discover that there were 7, all but one of which were functioning! (Mallard, the star of the show, was the odd one out, and it drove him crazy) 

Then they got a phone call from their man at the docks saying that another one had showed up, looking like he’d driven out of a K-pop album cover, and they just gave up and started screaming. 

-

Screaming is also what happened when the cavalcade of foreigners showed up in York - first of all, the quartet of new engines sounded nothing like they had when they left England. 

Dwight had willfully unlearned his Upper Crust British accent by 1971, and had fallen deep into a California accent (quite similar to what Scotsman sounds like - coincidence? No.)

Dominion and Fleece hadn’t tried to unlearn their accents, but 40+ years of living in North America can really dilute the Britishness. It doesn’t help that Dominion has developed most Canadian vocal tics eh?

As stated above, Merlin has a weird fuckin accent, and now he speaks English with a strong Yorkshire accent, but will occasionally and without warning drop into a Korean/Yorkshire hybrid accent.

The screaming also happened because the NRM had wanted to repaint the duo trio! quartet?! into LNER garter blue, and were promptly informed that “we’re painted like this for work! Don’t touch it!” (the sole exception was Dwight, who hadn’t pulled a real train in 14 years, but he liked his Daylight Limited paint), so instead of the new arrivals showing up in LNER colours, they showed up looking like THIS:

Having their long-lost siblings show up looking and sounding like THAT had quite an affect on the A4s and the other NRM engines: 

Bittern could not believe her eyes - to the point where she actually began making noise about seeing an optometrist

Union of South Africa almost backed through a wall

Sir Nigel Gresley was speechless for two days

Mallard was so angry that he actually chipped a tooth during one of his rants about “the impropriety of it all!!”

Evening Star laughed so hard that he managed to derail himself without moving

City of Truro almost cracked a piston from shock

Alycidon spent the entire gala coming up with more and more laser focused jabs at Mallard - who was so easy to fluster that the Deltic needn’t have bothered 

Oliver Cromwell and Green Arrow made fast friends with the new arrivals, and spent the entire time learning ‘Americanisms’ to annoy the other engines with.

But what about Flying Scotsman? Where was he in all of this? He was generally considered to be the “leader” of the NRM fleet (much to Mallard’s annoyance), and was usually who the other engines turned to when things started getting out of control. 

Did Scotsman calm things down? Like hell he did. The inmates were running the asylum from the moment that Scotsman saw the other A4s - more importantly saw Dwight - and immediately greeted them in flawless Californian. 

This actually set off the building’s security alarm, as Flying Scotsman saying “DUDES! Wassup?!” caused such an uproar that the noise broke several exterior windows. 

----

And all of this was in the first few days - there were six months left to go. 

--

There was one railtour attempt. It was supposed to feature Bittern and Sir Nigel running in tandem, but instead featured Dwight and Merlin, mainly because Bittern wanted to see what would happen. 

They exceeded the max speed limit for steam traction within 15 minutes, sparked a thorough investigation by the RAIB, and got all future steam powered railtours for the Gathering cancelled immediately. 

On the plus side, the two engines did prove that it was still possible for a steam train to hit 100 safely. 

--

One thing that baffled the other engines was the inordinately large number of people who turned up just to see Dominion, and the one person who kept turning up to see Fleece - it took a lot of explaining for them to understand that Dominion had been married three times, and had children (adopted) and grandchildren from all three marriages coming to see her. A similar amount of explaining was required to explain that Fleece’s girlfriend/partner wanted to see him too. 

The normally chatty Dwight and Scotsman would suddenly clam up whenever Dominion and Fleece teasingly tried to ask about their love lives, something which wasn’t unnoticed by the other engines, but got similarly nowhere. 

The answer to why they both shut the hell up was explained when a lot of shouting broke out in the yard of the NRM one day about a month into the exhibition:

Irene Eisenhower, not content to sit in California and count her billions, quickly grew bored without her husband, and decided to go to England and be with him. The fact that she definitely did not fit the UK loading gauge was never even a consideration, and so she just showed up in York on the back of a lorry, having informed no-one of her arrival, and content to just pay off the requisite people if a fuss occurred. 

A fuss did occur, and it was only ended when Scotsman managed to convince the museum’s curator (who at this point in his life was regretting ever thinking of this damned gathering) that Irene was a ‘temporary donation’ to the museum. 

[Scotsman, who definitely hid his Cali accent from museum staff the entire time, has one of the best poker faces in the world]

Dwight was overjoyed, and so was Scotsman, for initially unclear reasons. Then Irene managed to grab both her husband and Scotsman, dragged them behind a shed, and [THIS IS A PG13 HEADCANON] the both of [PG13]. Turns out that while Scotsman may have slept his way across the US a few times, he was actually ready to settle down with Dwight and Irene - they were a throuple way back in the 70s, and those passions haven’t faded. When Scotsman reluctantly left the US in 74, a lot of the reluctance was because of those two. 

This bombshell of a revelation went over interestingly at the NRM. Some engines (Green Arrow) were happy for them, some were incensed (Mallard - although it was for anti-American reasons, not homophobic ones), and some were intensely curious about what was going on in the outside world (Bittern). 

-

The ‘foreigners’ (as Mallard had taken to calling them), were deeply displeased at how their fellow engines were being treated - while a lot of them were ‘in steam’, some were not and might never be again, something they found abhorrent. Unable to do anything at that time, as the NRM was not a for-profit entity and therefore did not have anyone to bribe, (Irene’s solution to things is to throw money at the situation) the engines started talking about how life was different in the outside world - namely that engines were still working hard, even when they were over a century old and running on steam power. 

This was of great interest to engines like Evening Star and (6220) Duchess of Hamilton, neither of whom were likely to be steamed again, and Bittern, who was growing more and more curious with each passing day. Dissent began to slowly build against the NRM curators, and the culture of the United Kingdom in general.

-

One thing the foreigners did try do something about was Ellerman Lines. The poor bastard had been sectioned to show his inner workings, much to the jaw-dropped horror of the foreign A4s, who made such a stink about it that he was moved outside the museum by NRM staff, who must have thought that the engines lacked object permanence or something, because that didn’t make it better!

-

Irene Eisenhower, who was beginning to get really sick of the nonsense that the NRM called preservation, (Scotsman was not in running condition, and had been hastily reassembled mid-overhaul in order to be cosmetically ready for the event, and let’s not forget poor Ellerman Lines) elected to bring the event to a close on her own after only three months. She did this by eventually putting her immense wealth to good use, and called for a haulage service to rescue the engines from the NRM without the knowledge of the museum staff. Aside from the A4s, she also took Ellerman Lines, Scotsman, and Bittern (who had asked to go) with her, and only bothered to inform Ellerman and Bittern - she was not about risk Scotsman having another “think of England” moment and staying. 

The haulage firm was efficient and the cargo ship was waiting, so the engines were in international waters before the NRM opened the next morning. 

Much swearing occurred in England that day, and the NRM’s image has yet to fully recover from the PR story that they had sold Flying Scotsman (and Ellerman Lines) to a reclusive American billionaire. 

Privately though, the NRM does not care, as that story is a lot better than “Someone stole our engines and we’re not allowed to get them back because as it turns out we’re slaveowners, so no international court will help us.”

Also, despite their multimillion dollar “donation" from the I. Eisenhower Opportunity Fund, they still haven’t been able to fully pacify their engines, all of whom have somehow gotten the idea that they should be running in main line service like they live on Sodor or something...

--------

Dwight, Scotsman, and Irene all live happily together in the sprawling Eisenhower estate in Malibu. Irene is currently lobbying the California state government to legalize polygamy, with moderate success. 

-

Ellerman Lines, after a lot of therapy and a full rebuild, is now working on a short line in Wyoming. He likes the scenery.

-

Bittern followed Dwight, Irene, and Scotsman to Los Angeles, and used her ‘connections’ (Dwight) to get a supporting role in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Since then, she’s gotten several roles based on her own merits, including an Emmy nomination for Best Guest Appearance in a Comedy.

-

Merlin spent a few months in LA before he went back to Korea. He is very thankful that he was able to reconnect with his brothers and sisters, and that his homeland has good internet, as he video calls his family across the Pacific almost every day.

-

Golden Fleece still lives a quiet life in Florida, but finally decided to tie the knot, and married his girlfriend in 2017. The ceremony was supposed to be quiet, but Irene Eisenhower has no idea what that word means. 

-

Dominion of Canada continues to baffle non-local trainspotters when she runs commuter trains into Toronto. She is now a great-grandmother. 

-

Dragons teaching Diesels

2001

Most diesel engines dislike being cold started.

Cold starting occurs when a diesel is started while their fuel and engine block are both cold. Diesel engines do not work like petrol engines, which use a spark plug to ignite the fuel, and instead compress the fuel vapour, causing it to ignite on its own. This is called compression ignition. 

When the engine block or the fuel is cold, the fuel does not compress properly, and it means that some of the engine’s cylinders will fire, while others do not. This causes the engine to fire unevenly, makes a ghastly knocking sound, and produces a lot of smoke and soot - commonly called clag. 

On the Island of Sodor, a cold started diesel also produces another ghastly noise - this time coming from the Steam Engines watching. They assume that something has gone dreadfully wrong, and make many unhelpful comments about the clag and the noise. 

Bear and BoCo are well aware of what cold starting is, and try to avoid being near other engines - partly so that they can cold start without Gordon or James’ unhelpful commentary, but mostly so that no one could hear them yelling...

“FUCK!” BoCo swore from within a cloud of soot and clag. It was a bitterly cold February morning, and nobody wanted to start properly. His engine was knocking like it belonged in an old jalopy, and he felt most uncomfortable. 

Bear grimaced in sympathy as he shot his own tower of clag into the otherwise crisp morning air. His motor mounts were going to ache later, and- “Aggh!” He cried as fire shot out of his exhaust vents. 

Another issue with cold starting was that unburnt fuel would build up within an engine’s exhaust manifold. Once the manifold got hot enough, the fuel would then spontaneously combust - sending huge gouts of flame out of the exhaust stacks. Bear hated it when that happened, as it caused a very unpleasant sensation. He knew BoCo hated it as well. 

But, for some diesels on the island, it seemed to be the highlight of their day…

“Three, two, one, GO!” shouted Pip and Emma in unison. At their call, massive pillars of flame shot out both sets of exhaust stacks, bathing the yard in a bright orange light for a moment. 

“How do you two enjoy that?” He asked. Before this winter the HST pair had been stabled at Barrow, but had been moved down to the Tidmouth diesel shed in the summer of 2000. Now that he was regularly in close contact with them, their numerous eccentricities began to stand out.

“It’s fun!” Came the response from the blue and yellow passenger train. 

From inside his cloud, BoCo hacked incredulously. “Fucking How?!”

 “You have to do it right.” Said Emma. The massive grin on her face meant that she was eagerly anticipating somebody asking her to demonstrate the ‘right way’.

“There’s a wrong way?” Bear raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t letting her get what she wanted that easily. 

“Of course there is! It’s the wrong way if it hurts!”

“We’re catching on fire. How does that not hurt?”

“By being a dragon, silly!”

“What.”

“Just be a dragon!” Pip shouted from the other end of the HST trainset.

“You still haven’t made sense.” Bear puzzled as his engine finally started firing on all cylinders. 

More bursts of fire belched from within the BoCo-shaped cloud - his motor just wasn’t having it today. 

“Bear - stop. What is the right way Emma?” Implored the cloud. 

“I - I don’t know how to explain it,” she began. “But you need to - it feels like-”

“Just breathe in through your exhaust manifold!” Bellowed Pip, as if this made any sense.

After a few minutes of listening to BoCo making bizarre sounding whistling noises, Bear began to think that Pip and Emma were making fun of him. His only evidence against this was Emma’s genuinely earnest expression as she tried to talk the diesel through this ‘breathing exercise’.

Finally, a hacking cough emerged from the Cloud Formerly Known as Boco, before a giant column of flame shot ten feet horizontally out of where BoCo’s mouth would be. 

Swearing loudly, the Hymek lurched backwards as Pip and Emma cheered. 

“Was that supposed to happen?!” He cried. 

“Yes!” Pip called as BoCo began to fire on all cylinders. 

Bear goggled at her, to which she wryly grinned, before shooting her own blast of flames - right out of her mouth. 

“See, this is why we’re the Dragon Sisters!” She said exuberantly. 

“Really?”

“Nah. But it sure is fun!” 

As Bear pondered the class 43’s sanity, BoCo’s cloud dissipated, revealing a happy Metrovick - engine now firing on all cylinders. “Pip, Emma, however did you learn how that worked?” He asked as his crew emerged from the yard office - totally ignorant to the many bursts of fire that had just happened. 

“I dunno,” Emma said after a moment of thinking. “It just sort of happened. But it’s really cool! I can do it whenever I want to as well!”

To prove this, she smiled, and a small burst of flames licked around her teeth, but didn’t explode outwards like before. 

“What an incredibly odd thing for the factory to do to you. Carry on.” BoCo was at a loss for words and was unsure if he should be concerned, but decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and said no more as his crew ran across the yard and into the warmth of his cab. His cold engine had made them very late, and they wasted no time in driving him away. 

“You weren’t built like that, were you?” Bear said as BoCo disappeared into the distance. 

“No.” Said Emma. 

“Can you teach me?”

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

Revenge is best served on fire

BoCo lived on Edward’s branch line, serving as the primary freight diesel for the industries in Suddery and Brendam. As a result of this, he is often forced to be in close proximity to Bill and Ben. 

Bill and Ben are two yellow menaces tank engines that work for the China Clay company in Brendam. Originally, they were restricted to working just on the small industrial spur that served the clay pits, but as cargo traffic increased in the late 1990s, they had been given permission to travel as far as Wellsworth to deliver their trains of clay directly to the main line. 

This sounds like good news for BoCo, as it means less work for him, but in actuality it is the opposite. 

You see, Bill and Ben are very dedicated pranksters, and spend many hours having fun at BoCo and Edward’s expense. While the pranks only work occasionally, their goal of annoying BoCo and Edward is often met regardless. 

One day in March, BoCo was resting between trains at Wellsworth Station when Bill and Ben peeped into the yard, a long string of clay trucks rattling behind them. 

Maybe they’ll be too tired to do anything. He thought to himself. 

“Oh! There’s BoCo!”

“He’s sleeping! Let’s do plan seven!”

How naive I must be. 

BoCo kept his eyes shut as Bill and Ben began babbling to each other in German. He had no idea how or when the terrible twosome had managed to learn it, but it had proved most irritating - which was probably why they learned it in the first place.

 “Mal sehen, ob er das merkt!”

“Ja!”

BoCo had no idea what they were saying, but knew he’d be annoyed by it. Perhaps a pre-emptive strike could be arranged…

Breathing in deeply through his exhaust vents like Pip and Emma had taught him, BoCo waited until the twins drew nearer. 

As they got close, he dropped his jaw open as if he was about to begin snoring. After waiting a few more seconds, he let out the deep breath he was holding. 

A massive blast of fire shot out of the Diesel’s mouth - BoCo couldn’t see it, but it almost scorched Ben's eyebrows off.

“SCATTER!”

“AAAAAAHHHH!” 

The sound of frantic steam engines vanished into the distance, and BoCo sighed in relief. 

For a moment, all was still. 

For a moment -

“What in the world was that?!” 

BoCo cracked open an eye to see Henry, sitting at the signals with a load of hoppers. He had seen everything, and wasn’t sure if he was seeing things or not. 

“Indigestion.” Was all BoCo said before going back to sleep. 

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

Wendell, Dragons, and Bears, Oh My!

Despite what many engines may claim, Pip, Emma, Bear, and BoCo were not the only diesels on the North Western Railway. There is also Wendell. 

Wendell is the works diesel for Crovan’s Gate works. He is a Blue and Yellow Class 47, and spends most of his days rescuing broken down engines and returning empty stock from the works to the yards where they’re needed. Because he normally meets engines while they are broken down, he is regarded well by all the engines on the Island - even James, who normally views Diesel traction with suspicion. 

Just like the other diesels on the Island, Wendell dislikes cold starts, but has much less experience with them than the others do, as he has a nice warm shed at the works that he lives in year-round! 

Bear and BoCo aren’t jealous, but Pip and Emma are! No matter how much they enjoy cold-starting, they still don’t enjoy being left outside in the frigid air. 

One morning in April 2001, Wendell was dispatched to Tidmouth - Henry had failed, and an engine was needed to take his morning trains. 

Wendell had agreed - in no small part because he didn’t know that Henry’s ‘morning’ included the Flying Kipper, which left Tidmouth at 3:15 in the ‘morning’!

To make things worse, there was an unseasonable cold snap, with temperatures dropping below freezing overnight. 

Wendell missed his shed as he shivered in the yard at Tidmouth. His engine was cold, and the fuel that his driver had pumped in wasn’t any warmer. 

His starter motor tried and tried to make him start, and when it eventually happened, he was enveloped in a cloud of soot and clag as his engine fired on maybe three of its twelve cylinders. 

“Yuck!” He moaned as the cloud thickened. “I can’t see anything! And my motor mounts hurt!”

 “Breathe through your exhaust!” Came a cry through the haze. 

“What?” 

“Breathe in through your exhaust manifold! It should help!” The mystery voice said again. 

“Okay!” It wasn’t like he would lose anything by trying, so Wendell tried, and eventually managed to take a deep breath in through his exhaust stacks. 

Unfortunately, this meant that he inhaled a lot a clag and fuel vapor, which caused him to start coughing and hacking until - 

“Yipe!” A jet of fire shot out of his mouth!

A cheer broke out from beyond the haze as his engine started to fire on more cylinders. In a few minutes, Wendell was much warmer, and his engine was firing on all cylinders as the haze began to clear, revealing Bear and Pip. 

“Isn’t that better?” The HST called to him. 

“Yes, but - what?” Wendell tripped over his words. “How does that happen?”

“We’re not sure,” Said Bear, as flames danced around the inside of his mouth. “but it works wonders on cold nights like this.” 

“Ooookaaay.” Said the Works Diesel slowly. “So, I can just do that now?” 

“Pretty much!” Pip said cheerfully. 

Wendell, feeling like he had just been initiated into a cult, said his goodbyes as his crew stumbled up to him, coffee thermoses firmly in their grasp. 

This island is insane. He thought to himself. But I live here. So I must be insane too. 

As he was driven towards the docks, he breathed in through his vents again, and felt a pleasant warmth fill his mouth. 

He smiled to himself. Maybe being a bit crazy isn't so bad.

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

Fire Breathing Dragons

While Pip and Emma live on the Island of Sodor, their duties require them to travel from Tidmouth to London and back on a daily basis. Ordinarily there is no issue with this, but every now and again, they will be forced to stay the night in London. 

One night in the summer of 2002, planned track work meant that their return service couldn’t be run, and the sisters found themselves in a very shabby looking depot outside of Euston station. 

God, this place has gone downhill since BR. Pip thought to her sister. 

Too right. I think the shunter said that this was going to be torn down after they replace us with Pendolinos. Emma replied, referring to their class as a whole. It was an open secret that the Intercity 125 sets were going to be replaced with new tilting trains on the West Coast Main Line - soon the Dragon Sisters would be the only HST on the line. 

“Eurrgh,” Oiled a voice from a few lines away. “Must we stay here tonight?”

Pip was blocked by a rake of coaches, but Emma could see that there was another HST set a few roads away. The power car looked disgusted to have to be in this shed. 

“Yes Chauncey,” Came the voice of the other power car on the set. “We have to stay here tonight. I’m not any more pleased about it than you.”

“I know, 092, I know,” Chauncey said resignedly. “At least it could be worse.”

“How can it be worse?”

“Well, that other HST set could be awake - then we’d have to talk to them!”

“Oh heavens! I hadn’t even thought of that!”

Well they seem nice. Pip sarcastically thought to Emma - clearly Chauncey and 092 didn’t share the same mental link that they did, and assumed that the sisters were asleep. 

Yeah - like Gordon when he gets boiler sludge. Emma replied. She vaguely remembered working with 092 back in the BR days, and didn’t have fond memories. 

-

Several hours passed. Pip and Emma were idly discussing the newest gossip that they’d heard, a few trains rumbled past on the WCML, and Chauncey and 092 made inane conversion around which railroad in the country was worse than the others. 

Emma was on the edge of drifting off to sleep when 092 spoke up.

“Oh! That’s right! What about the No-Where Railway? That place must be a pit!”

He didn’t. Emma thought.

“You mean that one off of Furness? The retirement home for antiquated heaps?”

He did. Her sister replied.

“Excuse me!” Pip spoke out loud for the first time that night. “But are you, by chance, talking about the North Western Railway?”

“Oh goodness!” Chauncey said in fright. “I’m sorry! Did we wake you?”

“No,” Said Emma. “What were you saying about the NWR?”

“The No-Where Railway? There isn’t much to say about it really,” 092 said blithely. “It’s a hole in the countryside that you shovel old metal into - I’d be ruder, but I don’t think that they ever got the notice that BR dissolved, so I can’t blame them.”

“92?” Said Chauncey, who had suddenly noticed the lettering on Emma’s side - and the expression on her face. “Perhaps you should stop talking now.”

“Why? It isn’t like they’re from that island - they don’t look like they came out of a black and white film.” 092 said, unaware of who he was speaking to. 

“Actually,” ground out Emma. “We are from that Island.”

“Oh. well how unfortunate for you,” 092 sniffed. “Tell me, do they still believe that Beeching is alive there?”

--

The late night trains at Euston Station practically jumped off of their rails at the barrage of sounds that echoed throughout the station yard. It sounded like the Tyrannosaurus from Jurassic Park was yelling at someone, and punctuating their conversation with massive fireballs.