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Chapter Text

Dear Friends,

The North Western Railway is over eighty miles long. That means over eighty miles of track upon which to run trains, shunt trains, perform maintenance, and so, so much more. As you can deduce, this calls for engines, lots of them. This of course is the Island of Sodor, so they’ve got engines like Britain’s got rainfall!

You are already familiar with the most famous ones. Thomas has instructed me to say “Hi!” 

He also says he doesn’t utilize the more formal “hello” nearly as much as the books and show would have you believe; very adamant that I mention it, he was. (It was frankly pretty funny. Like, it’s clearly been a thorn in his side for years, this misconception. He must have reminded me three times in the same sit-together. Classic Thomas. Fussy, cute Thomas...)

There I go losing myself again.

Anywho, this book is dedicated to all the “unseen” standard gauge engines who have avoided the limelight over the years, be it deliberately or by chance. They come in all sorts of colors, shapes and sizes, like… birds or… r-rocks, I dunno. I just woke up. But one thing they all have in common is their resentment of the “unseen” label. They are seen. Often! And they do their jobs just as well as the engines that managed to get on the telly… well, most of them. Every assortment of locos has at least one shirker or clutz, and the bigger the assortment, the more shirkers and clutzes.

And that’s the best word to describe the North Western Railway fleet, isn’t it? ‘Assortment.’

Enjoy meeting them!

Houseboat.

(“Rocks,” indeed. Like the birds analogy wasn’t good enough. Ugh.)

Chapter Text

2025

“They are saying the steam tests on Engine 100 are complete,” Gordon trilled quite proudly, “They shall be painting them soon, no doubt.”

“I hope they don’t get named just ‘Engine 100,’” rumbled Bear with his usual compassion, “That’s nothing to hang over an engine’s head, ‘specially in this day and age…”

“They’d never,” consoled Henry, and the Hymek relaxed upon his bogies, “That was never the Sudrian way even when it was the Mainlander way. They’ll be named properly. We’ll all see.”

“D’you think it’ll be a boy, or a girl, or a what-have-you?” quizzed James.

“Has it ever mattered?” Gordon rolled his eyes.

“No,” James took offense at once, as ever, “But it doesn’t hurt for making conversation, doezzit? Perhaps instead we should all debate whether they’ll have a dome or lack thereof, eh?”

“All I can say,” boomed Henry at once, to keep the peace, “is that I hope that they are healthy and useful and not naughty. What more can anyone want than that?”

There was a good hearty thrum of murmured agreement at this throughout the shed. Henry basked in it not unmodestly. He had grown very fond of the lectern over the years.

“They are being built in our Works,” Gordon seemed to grow ten times taller at the word, “so they surely will.”

James had recovered nicely from his little snit and had now whipsawed from peeved to jubilant.

“‘S always proper exciting when we get a new engine,” he bubbled, “This must be how people feel about new babies coming, and that.”

“Me first Driver once left me right in the station when his baby was coming,” Bear noted, starry-eyed, “He was so happy. And the Relief when he came was happy after hearing, too. It’s like a catching happy.”

“When was the first engine built at Crovan’s Gate, anyhow?” Oliver now jumped in, “Was I here yet?”

An uncharacteristically amicable trip down Memory Lane for locos 3, 4 and 5 followed, one free of squabbling over this or that detail. All assembled gossiped elatedly until it was impossible to fight off the yawns and the heaviness of their eyelids. There was a tangible sweetness in the sheds’ atmosphere, as if the promise of a new engine was warming over the very air.

A week or so passed, and the big day dawned. The North Western Railway’s one-hundredth steam engine was to be revealed to the public and do some pacing around the yard for a minor, controlled media event. Machines, steam locomotives in particular, startle at an excess of attention in their youngest days. Give them some time though, and a great many of them will have evolved to eat it up.

As had become a sort of tradition, Thomas, Edward, Henry and BoCo would be in the yard as a sort of greeting committee. They would be some of the first engines the newborn had ever laid eyes on, for the Erecting Shop was opaque and closed off from the Works’ other bays. Locomotive childcare orthodoxy had flip-flopped from the committee’s own youths. They had been built and come to life parallel with other engines in all sorts of conditions, however dismantled or damaged. That sort of thing was frowned upon… in places of manufacture where such feelings were accounted for, anyway.

Thomas was buzzing with barely concealed excitement. Edward smiled softly, wet in his eyes. Henry was expectant and a touch nervous. BoCo was pensive, composed and ready to absorb.

The Fat Controller appeared from the small crowd of humans, dabbing a handkerchief at his cheek. Lady Hatt patted his shoulder and followed him with linked arms.

“…This always happens, excuse me,” he mumbled.

“It’s a lot, dearest,” Lady Hatt soothed knowingly, “It’s always a lot.”

Hatt allowed himself a final cough and then appeared quite normal again, save his reddened cheeks. His wife patted him once more, and took a few steps to the side of his podium. Silence fell throughout the audience, unasked. It was a quiet day free of wind. Despite all the regular noise of the nearby Main Line and the committee’s own hissing steam and idling motor, you could still hear the birds overhead and in the trees as if they were on your very shoulder.

“L-Ladies and, hah, gentlemen,” The Fat Controller croaked the last wariness from his voice, “This is a very, very special day. A day upon which we reflect upon how far we have come, how much we have to go, and what is to be appreciated, and instilled. It goes without saying that, even when built exactly alike hundreds to a batch, no two engines are exactly alike. They are each a person, a soul, a universe, a series of experiences all of their own, impossible to perfectly mimic.” 

BoCo nodded slowly at this. The Fat Controller flipped over his piece of paper. The microphone repeated it.

“Today, the North Western Railway records on its rolls its one-hundredth steam locomotive. A century ago on this very date, in this very yard, when our facilities were capable of only the most minor repairs and of course painting, the North Western had considered itself lucky to possess five engines which were truly ours. In 1925, we weren’t entirely sure of our railway’s continued independence. And just look at us now.”

There was some scattered clapping and human whistling, for they knew he wasn’t finished.

“Our newest addition is not a galloping express or an almighty goods. We took time and pains debating just what our Engine 100 should be, as our locomotive complement is very satisfied at present, and said engine isn’t desperately needed on any particular portion of the network. We resolved therefore to go back to our roots…”

(The Fat Controller paused and gave Thomas a look that telegraphed the phrase “Don’t get uppity for this,” clearly enough for an astronaut to have deduced. Thomas grinned faux-innocence as the crowd confusedly chuckled.)

“…and concluded that our Engine 100 ought to be small, blue, and useful.”

“Ha-haa!” The crowd chortled understanding in one voice and clapped harder than previously.

“I shall now ask the Chief Mechanical Engineer to slide open the doors. Please, I beg the audience, no loud noises or displays. Engines can be very delicate at this stage, just as ourselves.”

The doors from the Erecting Shop were opened slowly and carefully. Steam, hissed from new and unfamiliar draincocks, fluffed cautiously from the darkness. “Tweep!” went the hidden engine’s whistle, stifled with shyness.

A few couldn’t resist gasping as the tank engine revealed himself, Thomas included.

He was a short, stumpy 0-6-0, clearly North Eastern, with a pillbox sort of cab and square windows. He was paradoxically painted in Great Eastern Blue, with “N.W.R.” taking the place of “G.E.R.” on his tanks. In the uniform yellow with red borders, on his bunker, was the number “100.”

His face was boyish and still faintly shiny, and might have been sculpted out of mochi. He seemed not to notice everyone, instead laser-focused on the rails as they crawled beneath his buffers. Newborn engines tend to be mesmerized by the sight. These are, after all, their first ‘steps.’

“I am proud to introduce…” The Fat Controller choked up again, “…Wilson.”

The crowd couldn’t help themselves, and applauded.

Wilson took his eyes off his rails and looked up, marveling as if there was indeed more to the world than said rails and the backs of his buffers.

And he smiled.

And he discovered he liked smiling.

Chapter Text

1970

BoCo negotiated the last curve, his empty trucks click-clacking orderly behind. Any minute now he would reach the headshunt where Edward’s Branchline ended and the china clay pits’ private railway began. It was a routine he had now gone through thousands of times, but Bill and Ben by nature prevented it from becoming dull. 

Just yesterday they had opted to communicate solely in riddles. The twins had been taken aback by how quickly he deciphered their little codes. But, to BoCo’s credit, how could “Knight’s Fortress” be interpreted to mean anything but “Guard’s Van,” I ask you?

Today apparently would be no less peculiar, for the engine waiting to take the train off of his buffers was neither Bill nor Ben.

“Zounds!” the tiny stranger exclaimed, “A very foin brood’a piglets ye’ve brought, Beezil!”

BoCo looked indifferently down his nose.

The saddletank engine might have been made from a plaster cast of the China Clay Twins. He was however painted a flat maroon, with a matted brown and gray beard that surely housed a minimum of two bats. He was also the first engine BoCo had ever seen who looked red with sunburn. This engine was also immaculately clean, in the white glove test way only an ex-works loco can be.

It was a costume. That’s all there was to it. The Metro-Vick sighed. He supposed the two would have had to resort to dressup eventually to prevent their “routine” going stale. He just hadn’t expected it for another decade or two.

“Which of you is it,” he deadpanned.

The saddletank’s strained Popeye mug scrunched tighter with puzzlement.

“Z’only one’er me, yer big Lozzer Trap!” he barked, “Is there no’ a keeper in yer light’ouse?”

BoCo, mentally assuming a ‘lozzer’ was in fact a lobster, looked unperturbed. He was uncoupled from the train and handed it over as visibly dismissive as an engine could. The tank engine was plainly insulted.

“Take these,” BoCo mumbled, in the robotic tone he fell back into in times of acute frustration, “I need a drink at the pump. And perhaps a coolant change. My head gasket is festering.”

He beat a hasty retreat back up the line. He made several more handoffs with the engine that day of course, but he never so much as acknowledged him. It would be easier that way.

“Oh-ho,” chortled Edward in the shed that night, “Why, that’s only Scuttles! He’s harmless. Eccentric, but harmless.”

BoCo just blinked. Edward’s face fell.

“…Eccentric as in, ‘a character,’” the blue tender engine clarified, “Not ‘a danger to passengers.’”

The diesel made a long, wafer-thin line out of his mouth.

“You think you’re funny, don’tchu.”

“…At times,” Edward would have shrugged, “But… not presently? Have I said something wrong again and not known it? Last I remember, you said you would wink your left eye twice when I do that, and correct me if I’m wrong, but your left eye has been decidedly open.”

“No,” BoCo drawled quickly, “I have not. Because I know you’re having me on.”

“Eh?”

It was a rare utterance for longwinded, camp old Edward the Blue Engine to respond with. His confusion was therefore very real. BoCo almost doubted himself but pressed on just the same.

“There is no engine called Scuttles. It’s just one of the Bees’ little jokes, and you’re keeping it fueled up.”

“…I don’t understand,” Edward was mostly blank but increasingly worried, and BoCo couldn’t deny weakening at the sound of it in his voice, “You did see him, didn’t you?”

BoCo’s gaze drooped to study the ribs of the brakepipe near his chin.

“…I don’t know what I saw.”

Edward now grinned faintly.

“I wouldn’t exactly say Bill and Ben are above such halting displays, but believe you me, the China Clay Company doesn’t budget for them to have disguises. Scuttles isn’t some gag they’ve made up: he’s a very real fellow who belonged to the dockyard before the pits were opened. Helped build them too, he did! Then he got kept on as a backup after the twins came.”

His smile left him.

“…That didn’t last, though. You know as well as I know that Bill and Ben never take ill. It’s how we know they’re lying about it! So he laid low for a while in the sidings. Bill and Ben were the only engines he saw for a few years, matter of fact. Now though, he’s NWR to his axles. The Fat Controller’s had him restored for the Open Days, and he’s thinking of loaning him out to Arlesburgh as that gets busier.”

BoCo mulled this over. His radiator fans came on with a soft whir despite his engine being very cool. Edward liked when that happened. It was comforting, somehow.

“If it makes you feel any better,” he chirped, “You’ll be able to see all three of them in the same place this coming Saturday. Then you’ll know he’s real. How’s that?”

The Metro-Vick’s fuel filters seemed to sigh.

“…Yes,” he replied, simply and laden with guilt.

Saturday arrived, and the three saddletanks were indeed there being swarmed by tourists packing into brakevans and snapping cameras.

The Author will spare you details, but the ordeal was so mentally draining that BoCo needed not only a second coolant change in a week but also a valve lash before he felt himself again.

Chapter Text

1976

Something or another had broken. It should have been easy for James to deduce what part of his it had been, and his crew were in fact below him explaining it, but the red engine was too consumed with helpless fury to hear them. Now he was facing east, on a remote part of the Main Line, with trucks singing and jeering behind him at his predicament. There was no need for the fireman to run to the nearest signalbox to confirm their breakdown; Henry and a semi-fast had already passed on one of the west-bound tracks (and laughed) and would no doubt relay the message.

And so they waited. James slowly came to his senses, realizing that some steam was wisping from places it shouldn’t, and that his boiler pressure had utterly collapsed. His rage gave way to queasiness and a burgeoning onslaught of guilt.

“I’ve done it again,” he creaked, accidentally interrupting the Driver who had been reading his newspaper aloud to him to pass the time.

“Eh?” The Driver was unoffended, “This is an article about a dogshow.”

“Fouled up again,” James cringed.

“I don’t think he was listening, Ernie,” the Fireman observed.

“…Part of me didn’t think so either,” the Driver stared into the ballast and sounded distant, “I doubt cocker spaniels jumping through hoops means anything to him… not the way it does to me—“

The honk of a horn on their line startled him enough to rip his paper clean in two.

Approaching them was a stubby diesel, with four spoked wheels at each pugnosed end. She was painted a burnt orange with full yellow warning panels, a thin yellow stripe across her lower half, and hazard stripe bufferbeams. She had a subtle little nose, and large round spectacles that could have done with a wipedown. Her expression was unreadable. It tended to be.

James had crossed paths with Clarice before. She was… nice, as far as rescue engines went. Never joked or rubbed your mess ups in your face. But to him she was so plain and gormless…

“Hello,” she greeted in her standard faraway, polite monotone, “I see you’ve broken down.”

The red Mogul was so fed up with himself just then that he couldn’t quip at what a redundant statement this was.

“Yes,” he replied through gritted teeth. Clarice seemed not to notice. Perhaps her lenses were just that smudged.

“No problem,” she puttered closer, “We’ll get you to The Works and someone will finish pulling the train for you.”

She was coupled on and the train was soon underway. 

“W’ope!” James groaned as they set off a bit sharply. His smokebox was swimming.

“Sorry,” Clarice might have cracked a grin, “I’m still getting used to these traction motors. I used to be a diesel-hydraulic, you see, but they’ve completely rebuilt me from the inside. It’s pretty simple, really, what they did was—“

A technical institute-level sermon followed, posing the pros and cons of diesel-electric and diesel-hydraulic propulsion. It would have gone on forever had Crovan’s Gate not been the next station. It’s often said that engines know their make better than their human designers, but if you had heard Clarice’s speech, you’d have concluded she had somehow built herself.

“…Mostly a matter of sentiment,” she went on as they drew to a stop in the platform, “Was it a better prime mover system? I don’t think so. But it was my first prime mover system, and I hope whoever they sold it to is getting good use out of it. A power station, The Fat Controller said—“

“God,” James rolled his eyes skyward, “Let me off. I’ve learned my lesson.”

“It wasn’t a lesson,” Clarice chuckled, a noise her charge had never heard from her, “It was a conversation.”

James was separated from his trucks, (who were just as weary as he was,) and guided into the Waiting Bay. The rescue diesel then hummed away to collect some flatbeds of rolled steel. James watched her disappear behind a pile of fresh rails for the Permanent Way Department.

“No wonder she never has any of those,” he scoffed, “…Conversations.”

He went back to pitying himself until he fell asleep.

Chapter Text

1993

The Port at Brendam is small and enclosed. Only a few bargeloads of china clay and spoil sail from it per week. It’s more cost-effective per ton to dispatch the stuff by rail up Edward’s Branch and onto the Main Line, and that’s the route the majority of the production takes. But this waterbound traffic is still worth running, even accounting for the Brendam Breakwater and its maintenance.

The breakwater is a mile and a half long and shaped like a fishing hook. Its foundation is composed of gargantuan limestone blocks that haven’t moved for over a century: the perfect testament to their solidness. Its surface is of course flat and smooth. At its end is a blocky, stubby lighthouse, painted white with two fat blue stripes. At the lighthouse’s foot is the bufferstop where the Brendam Breakwater Railway ends.

Yes, Sudrian problems require Sudrian solutions. Hence the railway. The BBR is really a branch of a branch of a branch, deriving from the SCC’s line which stems off Edward’s, which itself is rooted in the Main. You can call it a sprout to the China Clay Company’s twig, I suppose. It’s barely any longer than the breakwater itself. If you disregard the BBR’s little yard and shed, there simply is no other length to it.

The BBR has one engine: dutiful, sedentary little Megan. She’s a diesel shunter, one of the Other Railway’s earliest, and used to work on a breakwater for them too, in fact. She’s painted black with hazard stripes like Mavis, and spends much of her time sleeping. Her best friend is Joel, the line’s only other piece of rolling stock. He’s a dinky diesel crane kept around for lifting blocks and equipment. He also sleeps often. He’s a good lot. They both are.

Megan and Joel hardly leave the Breakwater Railway. They usually only abscond for overhauls at Crovan’s Gate before coming right back. The engines they see the most are Bill and Ben. They are responsible for deliveries of diesel fuel, cement and stone blocks to the BBR. Bill and Ben find the two breakwater residents boring. It’s for this reason they never try tricks on them; there’s simply no payoff. Megan and Joel will just stare blankly and make the twins feel asinine.

One blustery morning in January, when the sea was churning and the wind was blasting cloud after cloud of misty spray, Megan and Joel were asleep in their shed. The tin walls of the shed warbled, and their engines’ battery tenders hummed softly upon the tool bench. Megan and Joel needed these additional chargers because of just how infrequently they moved.

Today they would move, however. The door being slapped open was proof. The small gaggle of men belonging to the Breakwater Department came huddling inside like a battalion of sopping wet penguins.

“Ah, good, you’re awake. Good morning you both,” Driver Pitney observed and greeted. He was the shortest of the bunch, and was further distinguished from the men by his silly polka dot Chelsea boots. He called them ‘lucky.’ His wife called them other, less printable words.

“…Yeah,” Megan blinked coolant from her eyes.

Joel, always coupled behind her, yawned long and loud. He would have stretched his arm if he had the self-control and no roof to worry about overhead.

“What day’s it today?” the crane smacked his lips.

“Tuesday,” replied one of the men, disconnecting the jumper clips and spooling the cables up.

Joel screwed his face up thoughtfully.

“…Wa’Tuesday when we fell asleep, wun’it?”

“Yes,” Driver Pitney closed the battery compartment door on Joel’s running board, “But that was two weeks ago now.”

“What I’d do to sleep for two weeks uninterrupted,” remarked one of the men, gazing forlornly at a mercury thermometer mounted on the wall. He didn’t like what it said.

“What’s it like outside?” Megan asked drowsily.

As if on cue, the wind set up a nice long howl.

Megan smiled. Joel did too.

“You can keep it,” Pitney frowned and left it at that.

“Storms are fun,” Megan chuckled.

“Ooh, rather,” agreed Joel emphatically, “I hope a good wave comes over the side and hits us like last year. Happy days.”

Chapter Text

1997

It had taken time since Wilbert’s trial, an atypical amount of time by the Fat Controller’s standards, but he had finally pulled it off. The railway had taken delivery of an Austerity saddletank to help out on the various branchlines. The notorious speed of Sudrian gossip meant that every loco and their metaphorical grandmother knew of his arrival weeks in advance.

“Get this, Mavis,” Percy bubbled, “He was built in 1964. You and him make me look like an old codger with slippers on.”

“We do, don’t we?” Mavis purred.

“As if. Oh oh, and what’s more: he was with the NCB until 1981.”

“Get out!”

“I shan’t! …Not until my train’s cleared, that is,” Percy bounced his eyebrows mischievously.

“Guh. You’re awful,” the diesel shunter winked.

“Are you almost finished with the water tower?” Thomas cut in, “You’ve had the hose out of your tank for five minutes.”

Mavis tutted and rolled her eyes at their being interrupted. Percy was unabashed.

“Ohh, simmer down, it’s just us girls!”

Percy shuffled aloofly out of the Number One engine’s way, in the way a peacock would strut. It made Mavis chuckle.

“You two can be ever so silly,” Thomas sniffed in a wannabe mature voice, which coming out of his smokebox sounded horribly unnatural.

“So uptight,” tittered Mavis, as she shifted into gear, “Go have elevenses with the Stationmaster and calm down. Bye Purse!”

“Bye, Maeve! …And Thomas, I s’pose.”

“Just GO.”

(Ah, that’s the Ffharquhar lot for you.)

~~~

The new engine had been overnighted on a low-loader to Thomas’ Junction. He (and her, the piece of rolling stock,) had been shunted off into one of the sidings. The low-loader had slept all the way there, and still was in the morning. The Austerity meanwhile had been too excited to sleep. On his short perch, he was treated to a cinema-worthy sunrise which warmed him and made his frames creak cozily.

It was a splendid note to start off of.

The engine was painted a glossy black with red and white lining, much like the Other Railway had once done to its mixed-traffic engines, sans the company crest. He had a chiseled, grizzly face that seemed cheerful by default. It had plainly been roughened by years of caked on coal dust, now washed off. He had no nameplates. Instead, his name was printed along his saddletank in fat white letters legible from a mile away: “BICKSBY.” A bizarre bumper sticker in the bottom left corner of his bunker, (a bunker sticker, if you would,) read “Powered by Union Coal” in similar white font against a red backdrop.

As the station started coming to life, the staff and lingering early-bird passengers came to look at him or just offered him a glance as they puttered around. He was new, and Sudrian people like being able to say “I was the first to see So-and-so on the line,” so of course this happened. Bicksby was quite alright with it, and was even so bold as to talk first.

“Mornin’!” he chirped, “Fine mornin’s you lot ‘ave ‘round ‘ere, proper fine an’ all.”

“When it’s not raining,” said a porter dryly through smiling lips. It wouldn’t have been a Sodor welcome without a jab at British weather patterns.

“Where’ve you come from?” quizzed an old man, fetching a newspaper from the stand.

“Wigan, Lancashire!” Bicksby swelled with pride, “Never saw no piers though, I didn’t.”

The old man chuckled, and so did the porter.

“Me usual gag, y’know,” the Austerity would have shrugged.

“You strike me as what they call a ‘people person,’” the Stationmaster pointed and grinned as he approached the low-loader’s siding, “Welcome aboard.”

“Ta’ very much,” Bicksby winked and tacked on with faux discomfort, “…I’d er, uh, shake yer ‘and, were it not for’a… circumstances…”

A good laugh erupted due to this. Even the sullen wagon beneath him snickered once she had awoken.

~~~

“He’s a regular riot is what he is,” Percy was saying in the sheds later, “I helped him onto the rails. Never in all my life have I seen a truck say ‘Ohh, don’t go!’ after an engine was lifted off of them!”

Toby made a noise of amusement as he pictured this.

“He sounds like the sort of engine who brings a bit of color everywhere he goes,” the tram noted, and Percy bounced his pupils in agreement at once.

“Speaking of ‘sound,’” Percy gave Thomas a cheeky sidelong glance and earned a scowl, “You haven’t made a single one since we started talking about him.”

“Green with envy as usual,” Toby teased, “And here I thought blue was the only proper color for an engine…”

“Hawww… Who on Earth would say such a stupid, stupid thing?” yawned Daisy from the Carriage Shed.

“Thomas,” Percy answered quickly.

“…I might’ve known,” The railcar then settled back into her pre-afternoon nap.

“If I could actually talk,” Thomas snapped, “I’d have you know I try not to judge people until I’ve met them.”

At this retort, Toby’s face somehow became squarer. Percy blinked rapidly as if he had quarry dust in his eyes.

“…That your idea of a joke, is it?”

~~~

As it turned out, Bicksby was also a singer. A loud and proud one, too.

“Workin’ in th’coal mine,

Going down, down, down,

Workin’ in th’coal mine,

Whoop! I wanna sit down…

“Five o’clock in th’mornin’,

I’m already up’n gone,

Lord, I’m so tired,

How long can this go on?!”

Thomas put on a soft, approving smile as the Austerity made to pass him in a loop, the trucks chorusing behind. Bicksby tooted his whistle, and the blue Number One returned it… curtly. The millisecond the trucks and brake van had finished going by, Thomas’ phony expression collapsed.

“Oh stop,” Annie chided at once, despite being behind his bunker, “You’re not the only engine allowed to sing on this railway, you know.”

“Yes,” Clarabel chimed in, “And you have to admit it has more soul than ‘Oh come along, we’re rather late,’ refrained for three minutes…”

Thomas gasped, wounded. His Driver had to tap his cabside to remind him the signal had changed!

~~~

“Thomas the Tank Engine doesn’t like me?” Bicksby looked crestfallen, “…And he’s basically the President of Engines Worldwide an’ all!”

“Hush,” Mavis furrowed her brow, “That last part couldn’t be further from the truth. And I’d rather eat my water pump than let him hear it.”

The Austerity sighed. Mavis trilled her engine to a slightly higher RPM and looked encouraging.

“Cheer up. I’ve seen this song and dance a million times. I can tell you how it ends. Thomas keeps being stroppy, then he throws a rod or takes a crate of oranges to the forehead or whatever, and you happen to be the one to rescue him, and all’s hunky-dorey and peaches ‘n cream until he has to learn the same lesson again next year.”

“Oranges?…”

“It was a whole thing,” Mavis replied dismissively, “My Second Man says it’s the whole reason those books stopped being written. But I’m forgetting myself. YOU, Bicksby, are fine. Don’t let ‘Grandpa Tommypops’ bring you down. He’ll like you eventually. ‘Kay?”

“…How d’ya know?” Bicksby ventured carefully, and sounded surprisingly delicate.

Mavis shot her eyes about secretively, then upon knowing the coast was clear hissed out of the side of her grill.

“…He’s… preDICTABLE…”

“Oh!”

“Yeah.”