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thequeenofsodor · 2 years

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My friend Mari (aka That TV Series Bitch on Book Club) sent me three requests for the character bingo things on Discord, so I’m including them as honorary part of this ask game!

BoCo has always been awesome to me. He’s this huge Diesel that’s capable of running on the main line, and has such an awesome screen presence. I feel like we were robbed of him not returning in the CGI Series, especially since there are only four big diesels in that show (one of whom is Daisy and doesn’t really count due to being a railcar and not filling the same ecological niche, another of whom is Diesel 10 who barely appears, and the other two are international engines, who aren’t part of the North Western to begin with!) among the endless sea of diesel shunters.

I also very much resent that old “BoCo is Diesel Edward” sentiment I used to see spun around in Thomas Fandom, mostly because it’s so reductive. Like, if you boil any character in any story down to their most base archetypes and ignore all the distinctions they have, however minor they may be... of course they’ll all look the same! But I think what sets Edward apart from BoCo is that BoCo is much more stoic and tends to be more stern, but they are similar in that they are both genuinely helpful and warm characters at their core. I think their similarities and differences make them an excellent duo, since they can both confide in the other and support each other with what the other has respective difficulty with.

BoCo design-wise, aside from being cool due to being a Big Diesel, is also really cool because of his prototype. Metrovick Type 2s/Class 28s have such a cool look to them, with their swooping front windows and odd number of wheels. Honestly it’s no wonder that Awdry picked him for the first big diesel on the North Western, because even if you’re a diehard Steam Guy like Awdry, you can’t help but think “that design has a lot of personality” when you see it. I have to wonder if he knew about the class’s troubled history when he picked it though, because it’s just straight up never mentioned in the storybooks. If he didn’t, then its very serendipitous because the real life history and infamy of the class makes him a perfect fit for the Island of Misfit Engines!

Also you are all legally obligated to read @mean-scarlet-deceiver‘s BoCo headcanon posts, as well as Ex-Condor Through the Time Machine. Extremely Good BoCo food, and covers a lot of ground far more elegantly than I can in this post lol

I remember everyone’s immediate reaction to Philip was disgust at him being an annoying kid character, and I immediately sided with the minority that “he’s fine, actually” and nowadays... I still think he’s okay, but I just don’t feel that strongly about him anymore.

I think he works great as proof of the passage of time, since it’s made pretty obvious in his debut episode that he is very much like Thomas was when he arrived on Sodor in The Adventure Begins. Honestly I think the only times where he’s ever come across as actually annoying are when he immediately tells Thomas to not trust Ashima (very forced subplot in TGR, imo) and when they start being weird about his number in S21/22. I’m pretty sure the last time he appears is in Apology Impossible, which I don’t remember him being particularly annoying in? But that episode has... other problems...

My only real gripe with him is the creative team’s choice of prototype. Philip belongs in a club alongside Connor, Caitlin, Porter, Timothy, and one or two other pre-BWBA Brenner newbies that I like to call “The Why Am I American Club.” Because, for some weird reason, the Brenner Era team really liked to introduce American locomotives into the show while pretending they’re from the mainland, for some reason! I have no idea what kind of British diesel would work for Philip while keeping the same kind of boxcab design, though, so... I suppose the issue here is more “why is he not Canonically American” or “why does he have a British accent”...

But yeah, he’s fine. I think people get far too riled up by his existence, but I don’t find him all that compelling either. I hope Bachmann makes him in Large Scale just to mess with people.

honest to god, I have things to say about Gustavo, a character I’m not convinced anyone in the fandom has ever discussed deeply at all

I’m grateful for Gustavo’s existence to an extent, because he’s the only American electric engine in the entire series, which is something I’d always been dying to see. And much like BoCo, he has a great screen presence on account of being ABSOLUTELY HUGE! I really hope he gets some sort of toy that’s more detailed than that god-awful Trackmaster pack, because he deserved a representation that captures his sheer size.

Anyway, for those who don’t know why I’m referring to this Brazilian character as American, it’s because he’s a General Electric "Little Joe”. 20 of them were initially built to work on Soviet Railways, before the Cold War began and the order got cancelled. Most of the engines went to American railroads, but five were sold to the Paulista Railway in Brazil. The “Little Joe” nickname was short for “Little Joe Stalin’s Locomotives”, and got they a reputation for being hugely awesome and powerful machines from the locos on the Milwaukee Road, which makes sense because their power output was basically equal to that of a Big Boy. I’d never heard of them before Gustavo was introduced, and frankly I’m appalled by that, because these things should absolutely be on the same level of iconicity as the GG1s! Having that kind of weird off-screen history behind him automatically makes Gustavo a bit more interesting than some of the other international engines.

But there’s more to him than just that, and to me that’s the fact that he’s designed to directly parallel/contrast with Gordon. One of the things that I really wish was explored more in BWBA is the international railway’s social ecosystem when Thomas isn’t in the mix, and for most of them it’s pretty bland. But with Gustavo, having a parallel drawn directly between him and Gordon already gives us an idea of what normal life must be like with him around. Granted, the episode makes a point of showing that he’s not exactly like Gordon (and it was not fair of Thomas to judge him like he was to begin with), but he seems to share a lot of Gordon’s more noble traits? He honestly kind of feels like what Gordon would be like if he hadn’t had his prestige and superiority complexes drilled into his mind as a young engine at Doncaster, which is interesting. As implausible as it might be, I’d love to see how Gordon and Gustavo interact with this in mind.

Granted; all of this interesting stuff is only on paper. He’s frankly kind of bland in the episode, because every character in the BWBA International stories is bland. ‘Tis the fate of essentially being an obligation to writers who are far more interested in writing Sodor’s side characters...

#asks #(technically lol)#ttte #ttte boco #ttte philip #ttte gustavo #ttte opinions

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thesewomenrulemyworld · 3 years

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I was in awe as I read the book: The Option Traders Hedge Fund. The central premise from the author is how an options trader is a one-person insurance company, operating a solo business. The insurance business is summed up in a few bullet points:Calculating the risk for insurance policies soldReceiving adequate premiums for those insurance policiesPurchasing �re-insurance� to protect against tail-end risks like natural disasters, e. g. , flooding. Investing the cash pile accumulated from selling the insuranceAnd this is precisely what an options trader does.

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Unfortunately, when you work at a bank, the compliance department attempts to prevent you from doing anything meaningful with your life, including trading options. Yes, I may sound cynical, but I�m calling it how it is. Although I was dying to put some trades on, I had to wait until I quit my job. Which leads me to�The Joy of Pushing Buttons For MyselfTwo years after my catch-up with Suzy, I was officially unemployed. YESSSSSSSSSSSS!For the first time since I started in finance, I was free to log in to my brokerage account and trade whatever the hell I wanted. �Damn it feels good to be a gangsta�Geto BoysIt was now time to grow a pair and start trading options. I had signed up for a newsletter that Suzy suggested, which provides regular trade ideas. That was perfect as it provided a framework to follow. Man, was it was exciting. Despite my career in trading stocks, options trading was completely new. Everything about it looked different. If stocks are two dimensional with just a simple bid and offer, trading options was like entering the fourth dimension. There were bids and offers for each specific price point, each at varying expiration dates. Like most things in life, it�s daunting at first, but then you get the hang of it. And it even becomes fun. What surprised me was how much I loved hitting the freakin buttons again! And making money from home was surreal after being shackled to an office for the last decade. Grasping Options TradingOptions trading makes me think of the magnetic toy blocks my kids play with. You can arrange them in any which way, depending on what you�re trying to achieve. What I mean is, there are endless combinations of strategies you can set up depending on your view of the market. If you think the market is trending higher, you�ll use one set of strategies. If you�re unsure of which way the stock will move, but think there�ll be a decent move in either direction, there are strategies for that. And if you think the market is in a downtrend, just use those strategies! And these strategies have some pretty cool names: iron condor, bull call spread, calendar straddle, and iron butterfly. Okay, so that all sounds fancy pancy, but what is an actual stock option?�Simply put, a stock option contract gives the holder the right to buy or sell a set number of shares for a pre-determined price over a defined time frame. �Investopedia. comIt�s pretty straight forward. You can think of it as an insurance policy.

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whitelippedviper · 7 years

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Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin. Fuck war, love comics.

So I’m making my way through Yoshikazu Yasuhiko’s Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin and like I’ve seen Yaz’s work before. I have the first volume of Venus Wars--but it just didn’t click for me. MSG: The Origin tho is goddamn sorcery on the page. You need to know this first off, you don’t need to know anything about Gundam to read this. The whole thing is this is the book retelling the story that started it all but like Yaz’s from the heart version. And two volumes in, which is like...1000 pages of comics, and this is a masterpiece.

I’m mostly going to talk about the art, but story wise, military stuff is generally not my bag. Unfortunately, it’s a genre that is grossly popular in American comics, not just in straightforward military stories, but superhero comics as well. Too often these heroes have design updates that are all too happily to enlist heroes whose past models leaned more heavily into daredevil circus performers or wrestlers. You know the look. When your favorite hero goes from tights and a cape look to body armor looking shit everywhere. War on crime right? And then these companies on their film side have all kinds of connections to the military industrial complex--hell these companies often employ ex-military, or in some notable cases ex-CIA to write the damn books. And when you couple that with how interested the military has always been with warping people’s brains to keep the war machine humming(they once put acid in a whole town’s water supply just to see what would happen!) it’s quite unnerving! So besides being extremely anti-war in practice, I’m also pretty tin foil hat when it comes to seeing the edges of the military in pop culture, particularly when the message is like “look how cool this is!”

Which as a sidebar is one of the things that makes the Aubrey Sitterson GI Joe thing complicated to me, because like...I don’t think GI Joe is a good thing, and I don’t believe leftists should be getting their pay pushing paper for something that could not BE more military industrial. Like let's make kids think how cool being a soldier and going to war is--and then those kids grow up, and what a surprise we are in like ten wars that we know about, and will be for forever--and you get this kind of brainwashing that turns Kapernick trying to say “hey, maybe cops should stop shooting black men” into a debate about “respecting the flag” because the NFL is in bed with the military….agh. I hate it. I hate it all. From Operation Condor, the firebombings of dresden, hiroshima and nagasaki, the genocide of the american indian, fallujah, Abu Ghraib, our complicity in Saudi atrocities in Yemen and Qatar...we are not the good guys of history! We kill for empire, but our empire isn’t colonies, it’s more war. Our chief export is war. And I would love to expatriate to a country that doesn’t have these values, but I don’t know if even then I could shake that shit from my stomach. And even more insidious than our war is our financial arm, our banks and investors who have killed as many people with pens as any soldiers with guns. We are an empire of atrocity!

So when I see military comics, or cop comics, it just reminds me that I live in the most warlike country of the last 100 years, and all of those innocent people that are caught up in our bombs, and the way we turn whole regions into chaos to serve our ends and make more money--my relative prosperity as an American is built on the bodies and bloodshed of innocents the world over. I mean why is America what America is? It’s because WW2 basically moved europe's wealth to the US, and then we spent it on more bombs and we stepped in not because of any real moral thing--we stepped in because england owed us too much for us to let them go down. We as a country became a world superpower, the world superpower, through war profiteering and slavery. That’s a huge aside, but I’m saying, I fucking hate war. And maybe find ways to not contribute to more of those sort of comics? But more than that in an aesthetic sense, the codes for military in American comics are so bland and it seems half the time to justify not having to do interesting character designs. So surely there is a better fit for someone like Sitterson who has the politics I do, I think, than writing war comics to a patriotic pro-military audience, so I wish him the best, but fuck GI Joe. (And as an aside aside, if it were Frank Miller and not Aubrey Sitterson with the controversial opinion that book isn’t getting dropped--these companies only do these things as financial calculations, and if you are a big enough cash cow you can say or do whatever you want in comics for the most part but if you aren’t--you better protect your neck because these companies don’t have your interests in mind. And we live in stupid times) So I can fuck with Gundam because 1) it hates war as much as I do. And 2) they’re not trying to make everything look like utilitarian military shit. They’re about looking goood while they are hating war. The story is really rich, background characters positively radiate and each have their own character which comes to the fore at different parts. In some respects, Amuro Ray haunts this comic like death, because he’s the end of so many terrific characters that you really grow to love, and the Federation cause is somewhat murky at best, as is their exploitation of kids like Amuro. I kind of think Yaz does my favorite faces in all of comics, unseating Jose Munoz:

This kind of caricaturing is really lovely for a story this rich and dense, because you get so much just from how a character looks and the faces they make, and it’s quite appealing to look at I think. There are characters you fall in love with just because you want to see Yaz draw their face again. The range of expressions he has in the toolkit is amazing to me. Yaz’s style in general to me is like magic. Lines don’t connect, and it’s like he can just shift around these minimal set of lines and accomplish anything on the page. It’s like he has a set number of lines that he’s working with on every page, and he just dips his brush into the page and waves it around and those lines bend and contort into perfection. He’s one like Kirby where he kind of just sits down at a page and the images come out of his brain.

It’s not overly rendered, but it still is textural and inky. I think this also has my favorite lettering in comics. I don’t know who was responsible for it in english, but I love the obvious care that went into varying the lettering, and just how gentle and elegant it is. It probably was just a font in a computer--but it doesn’t FEEL like that, which is cool. Oh also Yaz watercolors various pages in the book, and they are almost all stunning. I’m planning to read his Joan of Arc book which is all watercolored, so that should be interesting. But I think what comes across more than anything reading these books, because of not only the comic, but the production value of the books themselves--the hard cover, the essays at the back, the slick pages, the thoughtful lettering--what comes across from stem to stern is that these books are a labor of love and passion in a way that you would not expect from the retelling of a decades old giant anime franchise!

Hideaki Anno said in his essay in the first book: “And I sense a certain good grace. He decides to draw Gundam--well known to the masses as a premier franchise of the plastic model and anime industries--not from weariness, not as expiation, nor to return to his roots, but in earnest as a work of his own” and I think he’s absolutely correct. There’s a love and attention to every inch of these books that is really inspiring to behold whether as an artist or in whatever you do to fill out your days--seeing something, anything, done by a master, with care and concern is a special thing to behold. I mean I don’t know for sure that Yaz actually gives a shit about this book--but that’s what comes across on the page. It comes across that he cares about these lines, about these stories, vividly, and even more surprising, the people whose charge is getting the work out to others, they seem to care just as much, so what you get is a very very special book.

In some ways, these dueling masters, Char and Amuro Ray, also express this concern and care. At one point Char loudly criticizes Amuro Ray for his lack of style. And while Char’s vanity, his secrecy, his romantic rogue ideal is extremely alluring, and any scene he’s in, I’m pretty glued to the page--he’s like Harlock or Queen Emeraldas. We don’t have these kind of artist villains in American comics for some reason. The closest I’ve seen was Ron Wimberly’s Prince of Cats which has characters who besides their bloody monstrous ideas, consider style to be important.

But even with all of that going on with Char, I’m surprisingly drawn to Amuro Ray--who is a character even without watching the original Gundam series(something I’m planning to rectify this winter--trying to finally knock out all the Gundam I’ve put off for years) that you just kind of know even without ever knowing why. He’s a legend. Like Luke Skywalker. Even his name when you say it, you feel like you are speaking the name of a god. But he’s a punk kid who has been dragged into this war against his will, and is desperately trying to balance doing the right thing, and keeping his identity. I love that sometime he just refuses to go out in the Gundam which puts Ltg Bright in these particular binds(Bright might lo key be my favorite character in the series weirdly, for how he kind of morphs through being a snotty prick, to being in over his head, to being someone capable of real genius creativity. I’ve been watching Iron Blooded Orphans which is a Gundam series about child soldiers and is really brutal and depressing, and Orga is kind of like Bright mixed with Char.) His mercurial nature speaks to the nature of his art versus Char. Amuro Ray belongs to the fickleness of inspiration, so because of that he’s not really reliable, but when he shows up he’s capable of things Char isn’t, moments of improvisation and grouchy genius that are the linchpins of the romantic appeal of the series.

Versions of this character archetype I feel usually are supposed to be incompetent or dumb to those around them, but their conviction carries them, they have the most will--but in Amuro Ray’s case, he’s just an asshole. The despair of it all, which is never lost on Amuro is that whether he does something, or doesn’t do something, people are going to die and it’s going to hurt. And knowing that, that in the end horror is inescapable, and that death is undefeated--like what do you do? How do you function? What do you choose when there are no good choices? Char is a little different, because his aim is revenge. Which that side of Char that he hides behind his rogue’s grin, and devilish acts is really stunning when it first comes out in these early books. He’s so careful to let that out, and when it does, you’re like “oh man, Char isn’t playing the same game the rest of you are”. Agh. It’s soo good. Comics like these keep the fires going. There’s an infinity of them out there to be sure, but nothing makes me happier than a truly great comic. Those comics that years after you remember the experience of reading them, where you were, what music was playing. A great comic is a great lover. It won’t last forever, though there’s a LOT of this book still for me to read--and I get in this mode where I both want to just inhale the whole comic as fast possible, and I don’t want this experience to end. This is that sort of thing. Which should be evident, since I bothered to write about it, haha. I could never just review comics. I’m like Amuro Ray with comics criticism, I need the right situation to be compelled to climb in and do it. I don’t fundamentally love writing comics criticism--but when I experience something great, I have to talk about it and write about it. Comics like these affirm everything about being involved with comics for me. Check it out, see if you feel the same way.

If you liked this essay, and want to see more like it, subscribe to Sarah Horrocks’s Patreon. For as little as a dollar a month you can help a comic topic in need get the coverage it deserves.

#My Writing #Sarah Horrocks #Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin

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everythingbychoice · 5 years

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(German Federal Archives)

Who was the most brutal SS officer?

Oskar Dirlewanger, no questions. He was hated by the friends and foes alike. He was so cruel – and so hated – that there was an unofficial reward in Wehrmacht for killing him.

Oskar Dirlewanger was a convicted paedophile and criminal. Dirlewanger is invariably described as an extremely cruel person by historians and researchers, including as “a psychopathic killer and child molester” by Steven Zaloga, “violently sadistic” by Richard Rhodes, “an expert in extermination and a devotee of sadism and necrophilia” by J. Bowyer Bell, and “a sadist and necrophiliac” by Bryan Mark Rigg. According to Timothy Snyder, “in all the theatres of the Second World War, few could compete in cruelty with Dirlewanger”.

He was born in Imperial Germany in 1895, and served initially as a machine gunner in WWI. He was described as “insanely brave” and “possessing leadership qualities”, and he finished the war as Lieutenant, having been wounded five times.

Between his militant forays, he studied at the Goethe University Frankfurt and in 1922 obtained a doctorate in political science. He joined the Nazi party (NSDAP) in 1928, but he soon became known as an irresponsible and unruly sadist. In 1934, he was convicted and sentenced to two years imprisonment for the rape of a 14-year-old girl, as well as the illegal use of a government vehicle and damaging said vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. Dirlewanger also lost his job, his doctor title and all military honours, and was expelled from the NSDAP.

[Un]fortunately, he had friends in high places, and after being paroled, his wartime companion and local NSDAP cadre comrade Gottlob Berger, who was also a long-time personal friend of the SS chief Heinrich Himmler and had become the head of the SS Head Office (SS-Hauptamt, SS-HA), and arranged him in the military – the only place where he could be of any use.

Dirlewanger next went to Spain. Through Berger he transferred to the German Legion Condor, where he served from 1936 to 1939 and was wounded three times. Following further intervention on his behalf by his patron Berger, he successfully petitioned to have his case reconsidered in light of his service in Spain. Dirlewanger was reinstated into the NSDAP, albeit with a higher party number (#1,098,716). His doctorate was also restored by the University of Frankfurt.

But Dirlewanger was not only a pedophile and alcoholic, he was also a sadist and psychopath. He was so unruly that he was assigned to form a special unit – to be composed of convicted criminals and poachers, as well as soldiers expelled from the military for disciplinary reasons – to act as an anti-partisan unit.

Later, Dirlewanger’s soldiers were mostly recruited among the ever-increasing groups of German convicted criminals (civilian and military) and concentration camp inmates, eventually including mental asylum patients, homosexuals, interned gypsies, and (at the end of the war) even political prisoners sentenced for their anti-Nazi beliefs and activities.

This unit was initially a battalion, but it soon grew into a regiment. It was known for its sadism, ruthlessness, cruelty and viciousness against both enemy partisans and civilians. One Wehrmacht officer described it as a lunatic asylum run by its patients. Dirlewanger was known as both an insanely brave leader and upkeeping brutal discipline. He had anyone sent to the firing squad from the slightest dissidence or failing to follow orders.

In the end, the unit was expanded into a brigade and later division. The 36th Waffen Grenadier Division “Dirlewanger” was known for its brutality and atrocities. It consisted mainly of convicted criminals, soldiers expelled from the Wehrmacht due to punitiary or disciplinary measures, sexual criminals, and mental patients. Its insignia was collar plates with two hand grenades crossed.

The Dirlewanger division was so hated that many Wehrmacht commanders simply refused to co-operate with it, and even other SS formations shunned it. But for Dirlewanger himself, the war was heaven. He was able to fulfill all his sadism, his perversions, and his psychopathy to the fullest.

Buoyed by the approaching Soviets, resistance fighters in Warsaw saw their chance to rise up and fight the Nazis themselves. The uprising would prove to be the Dirlewanger unit’s most bloody battlefield yet.

Assigned to clear out the Wola district of the city, and supported by many Ukrainian and Cossack volunteers eager to spill Polish blood, Dirlewanger’s men swept through house after house on 5 August, breaking each one open before wreaking carnage within.

One of the accounts of Dirlewanger’s actions during the massacre come from Mathias Schenk, an 18-year-old Belgian assault engineer re-assigned to the SS brigade during the uprising. Using his knowledge of explosives, he was tasked with breaking, or blowing, open each building, to allow the SS men to race in. On one occasion they came across a makeshift hospital:

“The doors opened and a nurse appeared with a tiny white flag. We went inside with fixed bayonets… Wounded were everywhere. Besides Poles there were also wounded Germans. They begged the SS-men not to kill the Poles. A Polish officer, a doctor and 15 Polish Red Cross nurses surrendered the military hospital to us… The SS-men killed all the wounded. They were breaking their heads with rifle butts…”

Later, Schenk witnessed the fate of the hospital staff:

“Dirlewanger stood with his men and laughed. The nurses from the hospital were rushed through the square, naked with hands on their heads. Blood ran down their legs… When they were hanging one of the nurses, Dirlewanger kicked the bricks she was standing on. I couldn’t watch that anymore.

Not only was the ‘bandit’ rebellion of Warsaw crushed entirely, but the women, children, sick and elderly of the city were also slaughtered in their thousands. Each Thursday, Dirlewanger made a habit of hanging people, either resistance fighters or even just a member of his own unit that he despised. For his work during the suppression, Dirlewanger was awarded the Ritterkreuz, the Knight’s Cross. Oskar Dirlewanger was wounded in action in WWII four times, making his total 12.

36th Waffen Grenadier Division was sent to battle in Byelorussia, where it fared badly. The atrocities committed by Dirlewanger’s men were so well known that Wehrmacht commanders simply stated quietly “Okay, b*stard, you are on your own” and abandoned him to his own fortunes. The division was almost wiped out, but Dirlewanger survived.

Shortly after rejoining the fight, now in the defence of Berlin, many of the 36th were captured by the Soviets, but Dirlewanger himself escaped west to be picked up by the Allies. Reports are hazy, but indicate he was eventually beaten to death in his cell one night, likely by his own Polish, ex Armia Krajowa, guards who recognized him by sight. He had escaped karma 12 times, but 13th proved fatal.

It is likely, should he have survived, that he would have been guillotined in post-war Germany for civilian crimes, had he not been either shot or hanged for military crimes first.

It is perhaps not an exaggeration that the evil reputation SS has today is greatly due to Dirlewanger. He was a monster, and an exception even in the degree of depravity Nazis possessed.

How much annual salary would you have to make to be considered well-off in Silicon Valley?

Don’t confuse annual salary with total compensation. The companies I worked for kept the “base pay” relatively low. In the lean years (and there are always lean years), living on the base pay was a challenge. In the good years, bonus, stock options, RSUs, etc., easily doubled, tripled or more the base pay. Once in a great while is the outstanding year (wildly appreciating stock and or stock options) that would change your life forever.

How much is needed really depends on you. If you want to live in a single family home near Stanford in Palo Alto $$$$ or Los Altos $$$$, or in one of the upscale bedroom neighborhoods of Silicon Valley such as Saratoga or Los Gatos (both $$$$), housing is ridiculous. Then again, the schools in those towns are all superb. Suppose you could find a liveable house in one of those four places for $2 million (a laughably low amount for those towns), California property tax is fixed as a percentage of purchase price, roughly 1.2%—figure $24,000 a year on a $2M purchase. The good news is the tax bill cannot increase more than 2 or 3 percent per year after you purchase the property. (The history of California’s property tax is fascinating, and driven by a speculative run-up in home prices in the 70s that drove retirees out of their homes because they could not pay the ever increasing property tax. It lead to a taxpayer revolt.)

Assuming you have $400K to put down on your $2M home, that means your annual payments on a 30 year fixed would be (7,700 x 12) $92,400. Throw in insurance and the tax bill and you are looking at $130K per year for housing without maintenance—and there is always maintenance. The old rule of thumb is the housing cost (mortgage, insurance, tax) should not exceed 40% of your annual income.

That puts your annual income at $325K for a home you probably don’t want to buy. And, although we all pay the same Federal tax, California’s tax rate at the top end is around 10% so figure as much as 30% (perhaps more) for your net tax bill.

If you have followed this so far, you realize 40% went to housing, 30% to income taxes leaving you with 30% of your $325K to live on. So, you say, I can live on $97,500 a year, no problem…hold on…you asked, “Well off”

My wife and I were at a very nice wine bar but certainly not Michelin rated. We had three glasses of wine between us and two “tasting” sized appetizers. Total bill before tip? $99.00. Why? Because the shops and restaurants have to cover their rent. And the rents in Silicon Valley for prime commercial real estate are out of this world. Rumor has it the three star Michelin restaurants in the Bay area (French Laundry, Manresa) are now running over $1,000 for a dinner for two on their prix fix menu with the wine pairing. You did say, “Well off”.

Add to cost of commuting (there is no effective public transportation) with a car, insurance, maintenance and gas (the country’s most expensive, by the way). Of course, “well off” as you posed in your question would mean you are driving BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, Tesla…you get the idea.

And, of course, “well off” would do at least two vacations a year—Hawaii and Europe. I had one board member tell me that the pressures of my job were such I should plan on a 4 or 5 day weekend each quarter plus take two vacations for at least a week each year. He suggested Hawaii for the 4 day weekends and the long vacations should be in Europe, Australia, Bora Bora, or take cruise trips—on Silversea or Seaborn. I hope you are getting the idea. Your discretionary $97,500 out of $325K disappeared a long time ago.

Can you live for less? Of course! There are apartments, condos, townhouses and even homes in communities that have solid (but not superb) schools that go for a lot less than $2M. But your question was qualified by the term “Well off”.

– Pat Lamey

How do I know if a Chinese restaurant is good or not?

A Chinese dude’s guide to eating Chinese food in North America

If I walk through the door and 75% of the patrons are Chinese, I’m in good hands. The second thing is if the waiter addresses me in Chinese first and English second, the food is going to be good. If the host speaks better English than I do and there is no Chinese on the menu I usually get concerned.

Some other tips:

Check out the menu on the wall– these are usually written in Chinese on cheap construction paper that look like they’re removed and replaced often. The trick is, pretty much every chef will know how to cook the paper menu items– they list the “common” foods, the equivalent to spaghetti and meatballs. But sometimes they hire cooks who specialize in certain dishes, and they’ll list them on these menus on the wall. Specialization means you’ll probably get to try things that the cooks are very used to from their homeland, and are usually very good.

Figure out what kind of Chinese food you like. Chinese food vary DRAMATICALLY from region to region. Beijing cuisine is often more starch based. Sizhuan cuisine is spicy. Try them all– dim sum at a HK restaurant, Shanghai pastries, Xi’an dumplings, Hunan noodles, Taiwan (not technically Chinese) street food. It’s all good, but you’ll find your favorites. Chances are if you like a particular Chinese restaurant it’s because you like that type of cuisine, and in the future you would be able to find similar.

If you enjoy something, ask your friend to write it down for you, and write down how it’s pronounced. Ordering off-menu in most Chinese restaurants is fine, as long as they can make it, they will probably do it. They are very pragmatic and usually are happy as long as you are paying.

If you’re feeling really clueless, don’t be afraid to walk around and see what other people are eating. It’s not really rude for you to point at other people’s dishes and ask “what is that”. If it looks like something you want, order it. Asking the waiter’s recommendation is a toss up, because the good ones might be too adventurous and the bad ones might just recommend really expensive dishes.

On the other hand, you can ask what the restaurant is “known for”. If the restaurant is self-respecting, they’ll have a few specialized dishes that people always like to come back for. Those ones are probably good.

Beware of the “set meals” on the western menu– it might be good, but some places just put the more average stuff on there because they’re easy to prep.

Look for places with more foot traffic rather than places with better overall decor. I would personally much rather eat at a place that looks like a run-down hole in the wall packed to the door with people waiting for seats than a quiet candlelit joint with one occupied table. Most Chinese folks I know care about food taste first, ambiance second.

An example of how unrelated the decor is to the food quality: The best Chinese restaurant I’ve ever been to was like going to a secret underground meeting. The restaurant had no sign to speak of, looked like a residential home, and had 3 tables. You had to book 3 months in advance (I believe that they turned away Bill Clinton because he didn’t have a reservation). The food was absolutely amazing.

More expensive is rarely better. Fresh is always better.

The post A Few Answers To Questions You Always Wondered About appeared first on Caveman Circus.

#EverythingByChoice

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mean-scarlet-deceiver · 7 months

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Is “Ex Condor through the Time Machine” complete? If not, do you plan on finishing it?

I answered immediately the last time this was asked. No, and yes.

#chatter

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mean-scarlet-deceiver · 2 years

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Hey! Sorry I know you're really busy, so you don't have to respond it's fine. I hope your day's going alright! :3

I was just wondering if you had any fanfics that feature Charlie and Sidney? Or could recommend any?

I believe I've read one from you before? I have no idea what it was called though, oops. But I remember it being really good! I think it featured bo-co?

Man, was I that shirty to that one anon? Sorry. You guys aren't bothering me. It was one specific person spamming my box. I love my asks!

I can't think of anyone but me who has written extensively about Charlie and Sidney. (Except... coincidentally... ToonGuy. He started coming up with a whole lil' background thing for them in 'Abridged', interspersed throughout S4-S5-TATMR. It is very different from my interpretation, ofc.) Unfortunately I'm not aware of anything else I could recommend.

Most likely you're thinking of my WIP Ex-Condor Through the Time Machine.

I have also posted a couple vignettes involving one or both of them on this blog. Here's one, two, three. There are also some things in that directory that include a young Sand as fireman, as he is due to appear in QLIR.

Speaking of 'things I am writing at the speed of molasses in winter'... I am willing to give up another little crew #2 vignette.

It's meant to be most of a chapter for a fic very similar to Ex-Condor (a 'not-quite-so-normal-day-in-the-life' multichapter thing, but from Edward's PoV and on the eve of nationalisation). Howeeeeeverrrrrr, given that my plan was to start posting and finishing it after finishing Ex-Condor... well, this otherwise isn't going to see the light of day any time soon so, if you're interested:

(Note: It uses material from the end of the Charlie Sand post, specifically about how Sid didn't know Charlie was married for like their first year or two working together. Also be warned it includes some Edward-angst. If that's a problem. Which I know damn well for most of you it isn't.)

November 1947

“Here.” There was a crinkly sound, as Sand produced some sort of folded paper from his breast pocket. “For Stationmaster. And see how our orders have changed. Write it all down and have him double-check—I don’t want any confusion.”

“I won’t, then. That’s your job. I’ll get the engine watered.”

“Uh, Sid…” The driver’s voice was deceptively mild. “I’ll give the orders, thanks, on my own footplate. Hop.”

“Yeh great coward! You can’t face Dream Girl, can you?”

“Who?”

“Pitiful.” The fireman would be pulling a face. He had some of the very funniest. “The fair Anita!”

“Anita?—Oh, she’s the one who handles tickets. That right?”

“Don’t play coy! Nothing ventured, nothing gained. C’mon, driver—” A bit of a tussle ensued, as Heaver began to fuss over straightening Sand’s collar, and brushing off some coal dust. “A year of this is enough! Run a hand through yer hair, set yer cap, and go over at a proper strut. She won’t wait forever!”

“Nor will I, for that matter! Get on with you.”

“I warn you,” said Heaver. Both men were starting to laugh, but he was the one further gone. He usually was. “If you send me, I may just snag her up, myself!”

“If you think I won’t shove you out this cab backwards, yeh whelp, you’d better have another think—”

After a moment’s more tussling, the fireman indeed scrambled, rather unsure of foot, off the running board. “You’d try the patience of a saint, Charles,” he griped… before then setting off at an unhurried but lively skip.

Nothing ever really shook Sid Heaver’s easy temper.

“Pot, kettle,” muttered the driver.

Edward was amused. “When are you going to tell him?”

Sand laughed. “Didn’t I leave that to you? I’m still waiting!”

“No, I can’t. I’ve told you. It’s too ridiculous.”

“How could this comedy of errors get any more ridiculous? But I hope so. I want to see the look on his face, when he learns.”

“Then you’d better tell him!”

“You’re far too nice to that idiot.”

Sand was good-natured about it, and only chuckled when Edward retorted: “Oh, you like him too, really! Anyway, it’s not that. It will be fun—but it oughtn’t be me. I don’t know, just seems a bit improper.”

The driver laughed harder than ever. “What! What’s improper? I’ve made an honest woman of her now, before God and everyone!”

“Oh, but all that sort of thing. Engines aren’t really supposed to comment on that—humans’ personal lives.”

“Ah yes, we wouldn’t want engines to mention the scandal of holy wedlock!” Sand pounded the outer cab with his fist as he dismounted. “You can’t really think so. Leave that Victorian rubbish in the last century, where it belongs!”

“Well, then.” Edward reddened, but conceded the point. It was a rule that didn’t really make much sense anymore to him, either. If it ever had. “In that case, I suppose I’m free to ask. Don’t people normally wear rings when they are married? I suppose the whole point is to avoid this sort of misunderstanding.”

“I think the point is mostly that women like shiny things, and jewellers like to make money. But Anita wants to work, until we have children, and they won’t keep her on if they know she’s married.”

“Wait. Whyever not?”

“Honestly, there’s no good answer to that. Women have to deal with all sorts of extra rubbish. Like this world isn’t hard enough!” The driver descended into muttered cursing, as he wrestled with the water pipe.

But soon it was connected, and Edward hissed comfortably as he drank, while he reflected vaguely of how little he knew, about women’s lives. They had been brought in to do all sorts of different railway work during both wars, and they hadn’t seemed all that different than the men—only inexperienced. It was rather strange, the way humans did these things…

Sand re-oiled all axles, disconnected the water hose, and then came round, leaning on the engine’s front buffers, and looking up at him significantly, much more serious than before.

“Will you answer me something honestly, Edward?”

The engine was a little surprised, especially upon realizing that Sand had sent the fireman in on purpose, so that they could talk.

But the answer came readily. Mr. Sand may have only been his driver a year now, but they had known each other for ages. “Of course, sir. What’s the matter?”

“That’s what I want to know. You get awfully nervous, even now, when you think Hacker’s about.”

“Oh.” Edward hissed steam again, this time in embarrassment. “I know you think it’s silly.”

“No,” said Sand, calmly and steadily. “I don’t, that. But it is unlike you. Makes me wonder just how badly he treated you.”

Edward wanted very much to not have to look at him. But Charlie, even as a teenager, had always been pretty canny, and it was probably no coincidence, that he had now positioned himself right where Edward should have normally looked to avoid anyone’s eye. And it was too rude, to look over a driver’s head while speaking to him.

At least, it had been considered rude was Edward had been young.

And, if that was another rule that had changed, he hadn’t noticed.

“I asked you to be honest,” Sand reminded him. “I wouldn’t do that, and then turn around and raise a big fuss. Not without your say-so. But I do believe I ought to know.”

“You never seemed to like him very much,” Edward began, slowly. This was a good deal more improper than talking about the crews’ matrimonial states.

“Imagine that.”

“Oh, you think he’s worse than he was. To be sure, I like you much better, but…” Edward sighed. Mr. Sand was right: he didn’t like to think about these things—and generally he succeeded in avoiding it. “I don’t think he treated me badly. I reckon he’s a pretty normal, ordinary sort of driver, and I’ve gotten rather used to being a bit coddled here, you know.”

“Coddled!” Sand spluttered in amazement. “Is that what he said?”

“I'm not sure that he ever used that exact word. But he certainly thought I required far too much fuss in order to do my work, and, well—well, I don’t think he’s altogether wrong.”

Sand kept a handle on his self-control, and stopped himself from a rant, only with visible effort. “And why do you think so?”

It was difficult to force himself to say, and, rude or not, he couldn’t look at Sand while he did so. “He often complained to the others that Mr. MacNeil had spoiled me. And it’s not only him that thought so, was it? Everyone used to say that. He and I were great friends, and had worked together for so long. I reckon it would have been hard for me to adjust to anyone else. I can’t blame Hacker for that…”

“Good Lord. I can!”

“Well, you’re a little like Mr. MacNeil was. You’re pretty partial to me.”

“If I remind you of MacNeil, I’ll take that as a compliment. He was one of the finest railwaymen I ever knew. He had twice my brains—and about fifty times Hacker’s. If he spent a good deal of extra time with you, it was for no other reason than he enjoyed it. He was married to the job, and would have been much lonelier without you—but he did not spoil you. I was there, Edward. I remember. You never needed much correcting, but he wasn’t one to hesitate, when you did. He had high standards.” Sand snorted. “Whereas Hacker has none. He’s simply lazy. Thinks he’d have an easy life of it, on a ‘proper’ railway, with new engines. I’d like to have met him on the the mainland! Those southern engines would have chewed him up and spat him out. And then, if there was anything left of him to sack, the S.R. would have done it, long ago!—But I’m not convincing you, am I.”

“No, driver, I suppose not.” But Edward smiled faintly. He liked what Sand had said about MacNeil… who had died only a few years ago. MacNeil, who had chosen him as his own engine, when no one else had wanted him. “You’re very kind, and I’m grateful. But… well, it doesn’t bother me often—there’s no use in thinking of it—but whenever I see Mr. Hacker I am reminded of what he used to say, and I still think he was dead on about some of it. Even when I was quite new… I wasn’t much use in my early years, you know.” He saw Sand gazing, listening hard. Sand hadn’t known this. Hardly anyone did, these days. “I was a poor steamer. Too sensitive. My first railway gave me plenty of chances, but it was no good. I always thought it was Sodor that made the difference. The Fat Controller was in charge of the workshop during the first war, and he made a good many changes to me. But after all that trouble taken over me, I gave more poor performances not long after—once again, after I lost my regular crew, who had been so encouraging, and better to me than I deserved. I just don’t seem to have much to give, when I’m unrostered. Then I met Mr. MacNeil, and did all right for ages, and I am again, now that you’re with me. No surprise there—you’re both terribly clever about your business. I reckon Hacker’s right. I do seem to need rather a lot of fuss. It’s not really his place to question any more than it is mine—Controller can do as he sees fit—but it is embarrassing, when I see him, and remember that I’m still not really any more useful than I ever was, back on the mainland. And never will be, now I’m so old and worn. I’ve only been very lucky, in having more than my fair share of excellent drivers. Are—are you all right?”

This last question was tacked on with real anxiety, for Sand had removed his cap, and was holding his head in his hands.

“I’ll be fine,” said Sand, after a moment. His voice was uncharacteristically quiet. “It’s just that it’s a surprising lot of effort, stopping yourself from going off and committing murder…”

“Oh, Mr. Sand…”

“Shh. Let me get rid of his headache, would you?”

Leaning on his elbows, Sand rubbed his temples hard for a few minutes. It was only when they heard Heaver whistling as he returned that he pushed himself back up, and glanced up at the engine.

“I went on too long,” observed Edward, apologetic.

“You told me what I wanted to know. And I’m sure it wasn’t easy.”

“Do you still have that headache?”

“No.” Sand smiled faintly. “We’re both more than ready to get to work, I’m sure. But I do wish you’d get it through your smokebox, my boy… if you are attracting loyal and clever crewmen again and again, it’s likely there’s something more than luck at play.”

Heaver overheard the last bit, and proved a helpful translator. “That’s right! Some of us know a good thing when we see it.”

“Like you?” retorted Sand. He had only begun to forgive Heaver’s work with Hacker.

“And some of us simple sort of blokes need it pointed out to us,” Heaver admitted easily. “Say, Charlie. Turns out that ticket girl is a bit of an ice queen. I’m sure if you checked, you’d see I have frostbite on my arse! Still no excuse for your cowardice all these months, but…”

Sand’s expression was indescribable.

Edward had to laugh, seeing it, and felt spurred to finally put an end to things. “Fireman—”

But the driver held up a hand. It seemed he’d been seized by a new resolve, as well. “Oh, no. Whatever happened to engines being seen and not heard? Don’t you dare—he’s mine now.”

Heaver blinked in confusion as driver and engine exchanged winks.

“You’re both cracked,” he concluded, amiably.

#chatter #ttte #ttte fic #the railway series #charlie sand #sidney heaver #their vibes in EtBE are just so immaculate 😭#oh yeah sorry #i keep trying to find a new name for That Asshole In Question #'kilchap' was meant as a placeholder but 'hacker' is probably not much better #jobeywrites

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mean-scarlet-deceiver · 3 years

Text

Ex-Condor Through the Time Machine (Chapter 7: The Main Line)

This is also available on AO3 :)

A/N: I managed to creatively bend my way around all my geography errors! The outline has been changed slightly to reflect this. (Toby will still appear, even though he’s lost his chapter title lead billing.)

Also, I wish I had already been referring to BoCo as “Oh-Two,” which is what he is known as familiarly.

But better late than never. We’ll be starting… now.

Please pretend that I have been doing that all along.

Big thanks to CutCat for the beta read—the help with proofing—and their gracious absence of an “omg, weirdo, bugger off” when I showed up with a draft of 4000+ words. You are a godsend, and the best partner-in-crime—er, collaboration!

1964

Fireman Heaver had fouled something up. He had briefly splashed 5702 with the hose before the driver had interrupted him, and it turned out that the Sudric instructions were “Apply with force, then keep dry.”

Of course, merely translating that much required a impromptu congregation of guard, gangers, shunter, and two porters on their lunch break, not to mention Edward, who was the one who recognized the final word. This was much to the amusement and chagrin of the men, who agreed that their grandparents would be disgusted at the halting show they were making of the mother tongue.

After several minutes it became obvious that something was indeed funny about the area that Heaver had sprinkled with the hose. The wettened area, they said, was peculiarly white and shiny. When they tried to rub it off, it only became more so.

It didn’t hurt, physically. But the mystery seemed to draw only more intense interest from his growing little crowd—and Oh-Two did dislike fuss. The best days of his life so far had always been ones where he’d been left pretty well alone, with his brothers and his work.

Right now, what he had was a growing crowd of railwaymen squinting and rubbing the immovable white stain on his side.

The groundskeeper thought the shape resembled the number 8.

A porter disagreed, saying it was a snake, eating its own tail.

Someone else opined it was the cycling lion of British Railways.

(From the sounds of it, crumpled brown papers from various lunches were tossed at the lattermost traitor.)

Overall, Oh-Two was very grateful when Edward, whose eyes had been fixed above, interrupted with a shout. “There’s our signal!”

The diesel smiled as the crew resumed their posts, and the others backed off. He was pleased, too, when Mr Heaver waved on his way to Edward’s cab. “Never mind. They can paint over it easily enough, at our Works!”

“Other side looks fine, anyway,” agreed the driver, giving it a last once-over. (The fireman pretended to clutch his heart in surprise at this rare word of approval.)

That was the side that would actually be visible to other engines, so 5702 was satisfied. It was good to be off. Edward had been steaming freely for some time, and started as soon as the guard whistled readiness and driver pulled the lever. He chuckled a bit, too, finding that he had braced for much more resistance than 5702 and the several trucks still behind him offered. Many a steam engine over the years had made this same discovery, as the big new diesels were in fact lighter than they looked.

“Now for the tour!” Edward whistled.

5702 had to laugh. “Lead the way.” He liked this steam engine, who had been as anxious as he to put an end to the workmen’s scrutiny, and who proved to be very gentle with his train. Of course, the unbraked trucks trailing him clattered into Oh-Two, making his already sore system ache dully, but there was no help for that. He’d had worse, and in worse company.

The tour did not feature much commentary, perhaps because upon departing they almost immediately encountered the hill. Edward proved as sure-footed as 5702 would have expected a banking engine to be (though he was a strange choice, for a banker—you couldn’t escape that!), but it was hard going, and he needed all his puff for the climb. Oh-Two, for his part, tried to ignore the discomfort of going upwards with no power. It wasn’t the first time he’d needed a ride, but being pulled up a gradient always made him feel sick and swoopy in the axles, and had perforce instilled in him with a deep if secret empathy with trucks.

Even amid his discomfort, he noted that, while the hill certainly was a hill, it also was not the sort of dramatic peak for which the mainland was now accustomed to use bankers. If they were using two engines to move slow freights over this stretch, then this region certainly did need some help, whether from diesels or from larger, Standard steam engines. Even the much-ridiculed Metrovicks had passed harder climbing tests than this, from a standing start, and unassisted.

Though, going down, he was impressed by Edward’s solid control of the train. He reflected ruefully that he himself would probably require a brake tender, should he take any unfitted loads this way.

Donald, he reckoned, would have a field day, when he saw that!

After the hill, they began to pass, and be passed, by other engines. Lots of them. And in an array of shapes and colors that made 5702 dizzy.

None of them were the same design. Oh-Two couldn’t imagine how the single workshop that served Sodor could keep such a great variety of engines in good order.

Of course, some of the engines he saw, especially on sidings situated far from the main line, were likely under private ownership. But other engines going by with their trains were unmistakably North Western, with its distinctive red lining.

They simply came in a rainbow of colors.

5702 was familiar with a world in which diesels sported a variety of bright two-toned liveries and bold hazard stripes—but the ever-dwindling population of steam engines were in black or, perhaps, Brunswick green. Furthermore, the latter’s appearances ranged from scruffy to truly dire. Hardly anyone took much fuss over them these days, and so to Oh-Two steam engines had always looked the part of some grubby piece of black-and-white history that had overstayed its welcome.

Sodor continued to be a revelation. More engines than not were in the region's standard blue, itself a very pretty color, but all the rest seemed to follow no rule besides the whims of their painters. In addition to umber, chocolate, Indian red, and, for some reason, canary yellow, Oh-Two was pretty sure he soon spotted every shade of green that humans had ever put upon an engine.

The only thing the steam engines here had in common was how well-kempt they were. Oh, not in the artificially spotless state of an engine before some grand tour or special—but they were cared-for, and obviously washed down as regularly as the coaches.

Of course, there was one other commonality.

On this busy but modest main line, every engine looked askance at Oh-Two as they passed.

But all in all things were going as well as could possibly be expected. The other engines simply exchanged whistles with Edward, frowned in puzzlement at the diesel, and rattled along. Nothing was said…

… until they met Gordon.

Oh-Two knew it was Gordon, the second he came into view. It couldn’t have been anyone else.

Every engine on British Railways knew Thomas the Tank Engine and Gordon the Big Engine. You couldn’t escape the knowledge... much less their posters.

This, of course, was the latter of the two steam mascots. A grand old Gresley engine, built in the days before there was any interest in a steamlined, much less a light, Pacific. Seeing it in person, the design struck Oh-Two as rather impractical—good grief, how could such an engine ever cope with the Peak Forest bank?—but it was still undeniably impressive, even more so in motion than in stills, with a flair and magnificence that Oh-Two knew very well none of his diesel-burning kind could yet boast.

Yet he bore an expression of shocked horror when he laid eyes on 5702. It was not really all that dissimilar from the terror that Oh-Two had last seen on mousy little Myron… but now, somehow, the expression was almost funny, plastered across such grandeur in almost cartoonish fashion.

“WHAT—is— THAT?!” roared the great engine, as he thundered and snorted by.

Diplomacy be damned. 5702 had to chortle a little to himself. The rattle of the two trains hid it perfectly… but he’d probably have been unable to help it, even without the cover.

He’d been the one replaced, as well as the one doing the replacing, so many times already in his short life. He knew the associated fears were a simply awful feeling, and he had never enjoyed being the one to inflict them. But somehow he didn’t feel a bit guilty this time. It wasn’t like he could ever compete, with that! And the Pacific would learn as much, soon enough.

In the meantime, Oh-Two was strangely grateful for Gordon’s overreaction. For once an engine had managed to render this fraught, sticky situation… ridiculous.

The train chugged along, gaining speed. After the big Gresley’s buoying spot of horror, Oh-Two relaxed and enjoyed himself. Weather fair, tracks firm, and neither catcalls nor jeers—it really doesn’t take much, to keep an engine happy. Edward occasionally called back the name of a village or other landmark, whether something natural like the Standing Stones or industrial sites like the milling operation off River Russagh, and seemed to understand that Oh-Two felt too poorly and unpowered to shout back. The few trucks at the tail of the train started to laugh and sing. They were fairly good-natured fellows, as trucks went, and everyone proceeded content for some while.

After passing a big station called Cronk, however, the path grew steadily more rural, and soon the Up line was reduced to one track. Eventually they were signaled to a siding to wait on a train behind them.

Nor did they wait long. It was a passenger service, racing itself from the middle station through the furthest stretch of countryside on the line.

“I say!” called the steam engine at the head of the train, even as he whooshed by. 5702 was nearly blinded by the dazzling brightness of the passerby’s immaculate—and extremely red—paintwork. “Edward, what are you doing with that disgusting diesel?”

Edward blasted a scolding whistle, but it was no good.

"Phew! At least usually they’re clean! ”

He had gotten a much better chance to examine 5702 than the reverse, and Oh-Two knew at once that the red engine had, despite his rushing pace, noticed the faint outline of his leaked oil and coolant.

“Sorry, mate,” the fireman called back, his human’s voice tinny compared to the rattling train. “S’pose I didn’t clear it up well enough.”

5702 tried to formulate the words to express that he was more than grateful that Mr Heaver had bothered to try at all. Before he’d figured it out, Edward let off steam.

“You did all you could, fireman. Ugh, but he would notice!”

“No escaping that one's eye,” agreed the driver, and threw back an explanation to their guest, sounding resigned and philosophical all at once. “Our number five, James. Was meant to be a fashion mogul, that one, but they got confused, and stuck the poor fellow with a smokebox and boiler instead!”

The red engine and his passenger train rocketed on down the line, and the tracks soon settled back to stillness and silence beneath their wheels.

The shunted locomotives were left at the signal, and both were profoundly quiet. There wasn’t much to say. Oh-Two knew that they both knew very well that Edward’s kind lie about why the new diesel was bound for the Works had just been hopelessly exposed.

At this point, Oh-Two could hardly find it in him to care.

Anyway, he rather thought that, if someone had subjected him to bearing such garish cherry-hued paintwork, he’d not be so free with his criticism about anyone else’s appearance.

“Oh, well,” Edward muttered to himself at last. “At least he can be trusted to not run his mouth about it over the whole island…”

5702 caught the sarcasm. But he was still surprised when the fireman, who was up in the tender leveling out his supply of coal, snorted loudly.

Sensing the diesel trying to reckon out what he had missed, the fireman grinned and clambered to the edge, so that he could peer down at him. “You see, my dear Bo-Co, you’re actually being—”

“Co-Bo,” the driver put in.

“What?”

“He’s a Co-Bo. Not a Bo-Co.”

The fireman was comically slack and blank about it. “’S’ the same thing, innit?”

“No,” said the driver and the steam engine, as one.

“‘Course it is. He’s double-ended . Who cares which way you start counting the bogies?”

“Everyone,” chorused Edward and Mr Sand—who were obviously much practiced in this sort of routine.

Mr Heaver stared some more, annoyed to be ganged up on. 5702 had to smile a bit.

“Are they having me on?” the fireman demanded, turning back to him.

“No, sir. They’re right.”

“Co -Bo.”

“There, now you’ve done and got it!”

Edward’s encouragement was deliberately patronizing, and the fireman struck back at once.

“Ahem! As I was saying . You see, my dear diesel—”

The others sniggered quietly, but 5702 kept a straight face, and was rewarded with the energetic fireman leaning forward and patting him on the roof.

“—fact is, you’re already being pulled by the most gossipy hen on the whole North Western. Don’t let that innocent face of his fool you.”

“No,” said 5702 thoughtfully. “I can believe that.”

“I always heard your kind was pretty intelligent,” said Mr Heaver, all approval. “Without, it seems, having to be know-it-alls about it.”

Edward only whistled.

“Uh, fireman,” said Mr Sand. “We should be getting our signal any moment. And we’re not waiting on you.”

“Shouldn’t dream of it,” Heaver grumbled. He patted Oh-Two’s roof once more before traipsing back down onto the footplate, and, despite the most recent blows to his pride, Oh-Two found himself smiling fully.

He liked the feeling of being allies, even if he supposed it were all in jest.

They did get their signal, though the happy sense of being lost in the journey had dissipated, and indeed Edward had not yet gotten fully back up to speed before they were diverted yet again, at the very next station.

A large tender engine was at the platform with three coaches, yawning and idly hissing weak steam. His driver was fussing at him, but he may as well have been speaking to a nonliving machine, for all the notice his engine took.

That there was some bother about the bucolic little station was obvious. Railway staff seemed to be scrambling to entertain and pacify bored, wealthy tourists who were milling about, looking hungry, and starting to hopelessly wander from the platform for walks into the village.

“Edward, dear chap,” the engine murmured, hazily. He bore by far the most austere livery Oh-Two had seen all that day: black with white lining, with silver accents centered heavily on his valve gear, side rods, and tyres. Altogether, the effect was to draw attention to his unusual 2-6-2 wheel arrangement. “Fancy seeing you down this way. Brilliant timing, you clever old thing. I’m just about out of puff.”

“I’m bound the other direction, Bartholomew.”

There was a warning in Edward’s voice. The engine called Bartholomew did not take the slightest notice.

“What’s the problem? You’ll be lucky if they do hand off my train to you. Pleasant job, this.” He yawned again. “If, I concede, a bit dull.”

“Plenty of work to be done, over my way.”

Bartholomew gave a weak, gentle snort. “If it’s work you’re looking for, there should be as much as you want of it here. Why go rushing about? Grow where you are planted, dear Edward… grow where you are planted.”

“Some of us are engines,” said Edward, with an excessive and sarcastic patience, “and not trees.”

“Why, so you are!” Bartholomew sighed, with a happy simmer, as his already uninterested steam died down further still. “But you run about too much, my friend. You’ll do yourself a mischief one of these days. A fine sight it would be, if you took it easy for a spell.”

“The rest of us would all take it a bit easier,” said Edward, warily eying the stationmaster and the crews, who were in deep and animated conference, “if we didn’t have to pick up the slack for you.”

Bartholomew gave a smile slightly less vague than his other efforts. “If it meant you took a nice afternoon nap for a change, I might even be induced to make a delivery or two.”

“Charmed. But I’m having a very nice little run right now, so be on your way and let us be.”

Bartholomew showed not the slightest curiosity about who “us” referred to.

Unfortunately, stationmaster seemed to have the same idea as Bartholomew. As the engines fell into an awkward silence (huffy on Edward’s part, and sublimely untroubled on Bartholomew’s), they could all overhear the debate being shouted across the tracks.

It seemed Bartholomew would need a long delay before they could raise his steam, and the stationmaster needed their one and only platform cleared out for the Local. Surely, it made perfect sense for Edward to turn ‘round and take the train, which was bound for Wellsworth anyway. And Control had already agreed.

Driver Sand, however, was none too resigned to his fate. “We have to get this diesel—”

“He’s a Co-Bo!” Heaver put in cheerfully. Then, “Ow.”

“—to Crovan’s Gate.”

“Is it urgent?”

“Is it urgent? His entire system’s down.”

The stationmaster gave 5702 the barest, briefest glance, then continued: “We can’t stick this lot on the Local—”

He had clearly determined that Oh-Two was irrelevant to the day’s work. And the worst part was, the diesel couldn’t disagree with him.

It wasn’t the first time he’d felt inconsequential to the bustle and busyness of the rails. But here, surrounded wholly by steam engines, it was perhaps the most acute such moment in his life.

“This is the special,” the stationmaster continued. “It must get priority.”

“The special?”

“Right! VIPs, all of them. It’s a charter. You know…” The stationmaster glanced all around before explaining, at a lower pitch: “The Boxford party.”

The driver groaned.

“We checked with Control!" the stationmaster went on. “You’re not timetabled until 7:05.”

“That hardly means we’re idle,” objected Sand. “Quite apart from this rescue, we’ve got goods to sort—”

“You know very well that main line passengers are going to trump branch line goods, every time.”

“—and we are assigned a train to bank at four—”

“Yeah. But you already pawned that job off for today, though, didn’t you?”

The driver sighed. It was clear he was used to getting his own way. “Look, what if we just push behind long enough to stir Bartholomew’s fire back to life?”

“If an engine is that determined to not go,” muttered Edward darkly, “there won’t be any making him. Trust me…”

Scowling, Sand gave up. They deposited 5702 and the tail of trucks onto a siding, where the diesel found himself parallel to the stranded steam engine, who was smiling vaguely, eyes heavily lidded.

“Well, well, well,” he murmured, opening one eye to lazily survey the diesel. “What a sight!”

Then he closed the eye again, and went back to dozing.

Oh-Two normally didn’t mind avoiding the pitfalls of conversation. But it occurred to him that Bartholomew was on his right-hand side. His eye might well have fallen Oh-Two’s white mystery stain. The diesel wouldn't have minded finding out what another engine thought it resembled. Sometimes humans could be so baffling. He was curious to know whether there had been cause for all that fuss.

The passengers were herded back to the platform and invited to board. After navigating more switches than any engine ever cares to, Edward took Bartholomew’s place at the head of the train, and put on a brave face that lasted long enough to exchange words with anyone who approached him, gracious with greetings and complaints alike. But, as soon as the passengers had all queued to file back into the coaches, he frowned at the track ahead, hissing unhappily at the sight of the line opposite his original destination.

“Once they raise his pressure,” said the stationmaster, conciliatory, “you want Bartholomew should finish your delivery?”

Edward eyed the other steam engine with blatant dismissal. “No, thank you, sir. I prefer it done properly.”

“And a fine afternoon to you too, old chap,” smiled Bartholomew. He still appeared to have his eyes closed, basking in the sun.

“We’ll be back,” Edward called over to Oh-Two. A promise.

“I shouldn’t mind,” yawned the black engine. “Made mostly of aluminum, these buzzboxes, aren’t they? It’s not a hard lift. There’s no point in your rushing back here.”

“It’s not the engine—who has a name,” began Edward, all severity. But the effect was rather lost when Bartholomew deigned to open one eye again, blearily focusing on the diesel’s number.

“Please tell me that you aren’t referring to ‘D5702’.”

“That’s right.” Edward affected to sound mildly surprised that Bartholomew could read it.

But Bartholomew only scoffed, untroubled. “That’s not a name. That’s too many digits. You should get yourself something better,” he told Oh-Two. “Alison, perhaps, or Samantha. You are female, yes?”

Oh-Two glared. Although to humans there is no difference discernible to the eye, rolling stock can always invariably tell at a mere glance. They can’t explain how, but misgendering among their own kind is nonexistent. Well, except for trucks who might care to irritate an engine. “Are you blind?”

“Many have asked, my dear whatever—many have asked. Still, you look more’n a bit like that railcar over Elsbridge way.”

“Bartholomew, if you’re going to nap,” said Edward, who had to let off steam despite the passengers boarding his train, “then perhaps you’d better get on with it, so as to stop insulting our guest.”

“What insult? She’s the most beautiful creature ever placed upon bogies! Sight for sore eyes, that one. He’s a fine fellow, too. Despite that little hammer and sickle painted on his side.” He went on, ignoring Oh-Two’s splutter completely. “Sure and you don’t want me to take him to the Works, once I wake up? Save you a trip?”

“No,” said Edward shortly. “Nice change of pace though it is, to hear you volunteering for anything. Anyway, it’s the mineral wagons behind him that I expect would give you trouble.”

“Oh, dear me, no. I didn’t sign on for them. Owner doesn’t care for me to mess about with freight, you know.”

“We do know.” Edward sounded fatalistic. “I’ll see you in about two hours, 5702.”

“Marcus!” suggested Bartholomew, shouting over the sound of the guard’s whistle.

“No,” said the other two engines, together.

The Boxford party’s charter pulled away. As Edward and the coaches chuffed out of sight, Oh-Two found he had somehow forgotten that this was only his first day here.

Now, he remembered.

Broken down and useless in the middle of nowhere, alone save for the indifferent sleepy engine beside him, he realized his position all over again.

#wake up babe new oc just dropped #i did not get into him in my OC post #i couldn't #you don't EXPLAIN bartholomew you just have to meet him #he's a whole Experience #ex-condor through the time machine #ttte fic #ttte #the railway series #ttte boco #ttte edward #ttte oc: bartholomew #ttte other characters whom i will not be spoiling i guess you'll just have to live riskily #there will be both RWS- and TVS-only characters showing up by the end #charlie sand #sidney heaver #(we can spoil them they have stolen the show in this chapter)#long post #like #ridiculously long #sorry #not sorry to have given edward his own personal nemesis #that was unintended but fun #i did not mean to insult james's paint #i mean #i value my life #but it's fun to see everything through BoCo's very b.r. pov #'no virginia there is not a santa claus'#'we are even suspicious of. like. joy.'#jobeywrites

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mean-scarlet-deceiver · 3 years

Text

Ex-Condor Through the Time Machine (Chapter 6: Wellsworth)

also available on AO3 and ff.net

—

When he backed into the yard, Edward was again coupled up to 5702 and the rest of the train, and wanted to set off at once—5702 got the impression that he had friends at the Works, among whom he was hoping to take his break. But he was tired and overheated, with the banking job the capstone to a busy morning's work, and his driver wouldn’t allow it.

“You’ll catch your breath here, first. I’ll tell Signal that we can wait. We’ll be badgering them all afternoon, and it won’t hurt to gain a little goodwill now.”

Edward’s crew brought 5702’s, to show them the stationhouse and the workers’ mess.

The two engines were silent for a while. Edward had indeed been panting when he’d returned. And 5702, sticky and sore and mind even busier than usual, did not trust himself to speak.

A through passenger train at last broke the quiet.

“I’m sorry about Donald,” said Edward, after it had thundered by. “And sorrier still, to say that it probably won’t be the last cold welcome you get. We do tend to be suspicious of newcomers, and with you being a diesel it will probably be worse.”

5702 was beginning to think that it was more likely that Edward’s niceness was sincere than not.

He hadn’t trusted it in the least, before. Any engine with sense behaved well in front of the crews and workers.

To be sure, steam engines were generally rather deficient in sense. On the other rail this steam engine clearly knew a thing or two about survival. And a great many insults and threats could be made, even with an innocent smile and a willing manner.

But they were quite alone now. And Edward needn't have covered for 5702’s breakdown at all.

“You lied to him for me,” 5702 observed, voice flat and cold.

“Yes. It wasn’t any of his business.”

“I’ll probably fail again,” he said, brutally truthful, though it hurt. “My motor is faulty.”

“We’ve been told that.”

“Oh. Have you.”

“My crews and me. Just as a heads-up, that we should expect to be sent for you sometimes. I don’t plan to gossip about it.”

“Well, we can’t keep lying about it, either. It happens too often.”

“Good,” said Edward easily, “because I don’t want to. I’m a bit surprised at myself, actually. But it did seem too bad, for them to all have a go at you for failing on your very first day.”

“Your crew hadn’t expected that… had they?” 5702 was still bitterly brutal.

Edward, for his part, remained matter-of-fact. “No. That did rather catch us by surprise. Cheer up! The engineers at our Works were quite eager to meet you, anyway. They’re novices when it comes to diesels, of course, but I’m told they've been studying up. It’s possible that they’ve actually learned newer methods than are in use right now on the mainland, and will be a great help to you.”

5702 grew very silent, rather abashed… and not liking the feeling.

It wasn’t a safe feeling, in enemy territory.

And he concluded that it was best to try and discharge it. “I meant no offense, before,” he said, the words stiff. “And I… I regret my indiscretion.”

It was probably for the best that 5702 couldn’t see Edward’s face just then.

“I’ll get over it,” the latter assured him, gravely.

5702 felt suspicious—and much more comfortable. “You are mocking me. Aren’t you?”

Edward laughed. “Maybe a little bit.”

“Right, then.”

“Is it?”

“Well,” and 5702 found himself tempted to smile, “it’s not as though I have a wheel to run on.”

“Oh, your wheels at least seem to run just fine,” Edward teased. “I thought it was your motor that could use a little work? As for your indiscretion, I’m not shocked to discover what I must look like, to a mainland diesel. Anyway, we’re virtually all main line certified! There’s quite a lot of work here, with rather few of us to handle it. So they make sure to ready each of us as much as possible for anything… just in case.”

“Oh.” 5702 found himself on rather more hopeful ground. “Might I be picking up some main line work, too? I mean,” he added, at once embarrassed again, “you know. Once I’m doing rather better.”

“It’s very likely. The main line engines mostly take our goods up line, towards the mainland. You’ll see a good deal of that route, when we go to the Works. But our branch is generally responsible for moving things to and from the western end.”

That made his immediate future a little brighter. 5702 knew it was a lot of gall, to immediately try to jump on such a chance, when he had broken down after an hour’s work. But there were plenty of times he didn’t break down, and the prospect of being confined to a single short branch had been rather claustrophobic for a locomotive who had once gloried in runs from London to Glasgow.

Yet, for this, and for all the reasons that he had rather dreaded this trial, he was still engine enough to want to give his hosts satisfaction. Better be stuck here forever, than to fail.

Looking for more silver linings in the assignment, he eyed the yard and station, which was all rather quiet just then, with no trains coming in, and but a few passing through. Midday tends to be the quietest hour of day even on more bustling junctions, and this one was still rather rural, albeit 5702 could see a good deal of town and roads beyond the station. Trucks four and five sidings thick obscured his view in most other directions, though after a while he discerned some sort of shed. Perhaps a rather small engine shed.

5702 was embarrassingly bad with his letters, but he could piece other things together.

“This is Wellsworth?”

“That’s right.”

“Good, then,” said 5702, politely showing more enthusiasm than he yet felt. “I understand I’m stabled here.”

“Yes, indeed. You’ll find that it’s generally just the two of us here at night.”

“Oh, that makes sense. I think I can see the engine shed, then, behind those vans.”

“You can? How?—Oh! Can you see from both ends?”

“Not at the same time,” chuckled 5702. “And if we’re being driven we lose control of it, somehow, and can only look in the direction of the occupied cab. But right now, with my system down, I can look all around, just as I like.”

“That’s awfully handy!” Edward laughed in frank admiration.

“It’s not really so useful as you might think,” admitted 5702. “But it is nice, and we can't imagine how anyone lives without it. I mean my own class,” he clarified. He wondered if he sounded a bit dotty, saying ‘we’, when after all no one here would know about his family.

“It is a right pain, sometimes, being stuck looking in the wrong direction from whatever’s happening.”

“I reckon so. But not all diesels with two cabs are like us. Something about the motor arrangement. A few double-cabbed locos are actually two personalities, one at each end.”

“Oh, of course. Like the double Farlies.”

“That… that might have been before my time.”

Edward chuckled. “It was before my time, too, I think—at least, I never met any. But one of the old engines on this line had known quite a few. Sounded like the steam version of what you’re describing. What else can you see, then?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way. But mostly just trucks.”

“Ah. Right.”

Edward sighed resignation, and for a moment 5702 was inclined to offer some reassurance that he really would be some use to them with their backlog, once he was repaired.

But long habit made him stop before saying something that could be so misinterpreted.

After thinking it over, though, he reminded himself that this engine didn’t seem to be easily offended.

Though his voice was uncharacteristically timid when he asked: “Erm… Edward? Would you mind very much, if I asked, who they sent for me to—replace?” If you could find a safe way to hear the story, it was always better to know than to blunder about blindly, just guessing, and often saying all the wrong things to engines who were still grieving their own.

But then a wild thought struck him, as various hints and pieces fell into place. “... If I am?”

“Why, no one.” Edward sounded surprised at first, but then he spoke warmly. “You needn’t worry about that. There’s been no one based here but me since the last war, except for other trial engines.”

“Oh.” It was 5702’s turn to sigh, a bit dazed. It was such an abrupt load off his buffers. “I mean, that's good. I thought… especially when Donald…”

“You must understand, Donald hasn’t been here so very long, himself. He lost a lot when his old region was dieselized. I’m sure a couple of the others will be nervous about you too, at first, but just you remember—you’re not taking anyone’s place. Our controller’s bringing in more engines because we need more. We've never been busier ‘round here, and there’s plenty of work for us all.”

5702 needed some time to process and savor the feeling. Expanding. 5702 had come to assume that expansion was simply a myth. He and his had only ever known rail traffic to be lost—never gained. The Midland region was littered with closed-down lines, and still their numbers just got worse and worse, year after year. Yet here, right over the strait, was this fairy-tale world where a transfer didn’t mean someone else had been sent or was en route to the scrapyards.

Almost all he’d ever heard was that this very region was backwards, and even something of a loonybin. But, though he still wished another engine had been chosen to be sent instead, he was coming to find the prospect of his time here to be quite a bit more bearable than they had all assumed.

The Sudrians returned without the mainland crew.

“Don’t you worry, old Co-Bo,” said the fireman easily. “We’ll get you up to the Works safe and sound, and they’ll come to pick you up tomorrow.”

5702 supposed that one o’clock was approaching.

“Are we ready to go, then?” asked Edward, a bit pettishly. 5702 smiled to himself, hidden behind the billows that had grown thicker and thicker during their wait. However long ago his shedmate had been made, he sounded as impatient as any of his kind, when they were idle but in steam.

“We won’t have a path for at least twenty-five minutes, Signal says,” said the driver. (This stirred up another resigned cloud of steam.) “But that’s all to the good. Fireman says he and I have something to take care of.”

5702 was bemused when the fireman uncoupled him. “Nothing to worry about,” the man said. “Name’s Heaver, by the way. And this is Driver Sand.”

“You’re right, Sid,” said the driver, from 5702’s other side. “Wish you’d said something earlier. Hardly have time to deal with it properly, now.”

“Would it have killed you to leave off with just ‘you’re right, Sid’,” muttered the fireman, coming around to join the driver.

5702 felt his face freezing in embarrassment and annoyance as he realized what they were looking at. It was such a familiar sensation that he hadn’t even paid attention—but of course, to those who didn’t know the Metrovicks, their tendency to leak water and oil from their side seams was all too conspicuous.

He’d been afforded a good wash-down the day before, in preparation for his departure… but whenever any of his motors failed the inevitable drip accelerated to a deluge. Much less when multiple failed. He had spent much of his long wait on the branch line siding gushing hopelessly and, although now he had lost most of the fluid from his system, the stains of course would remain.

No wonder the fireman had stared, before.

Briskly waving off 5702’s muttered there’s no need, the men formulated a plan. Twenty-five minutes wasn’t much for such a job, but it was clear they intended to give it a go, and 5702 saw it would do no good to object further.

He himself was too used to going ‘round in this state to care very much... but there was a small part of him that was something besides cross about all the fuss.

Besides, Donald hadn’t seen the leak stains, but if they were indeed heading east then they were about to give anyone they passed or who passed them an eyeful. Problematic, given Edward’s cover story that the new diesel was off for a mere routine inspection. Edward, once moved off their siding, clearly realized this too, wincing when he saw the giveaway stains for the first time.

So 5702 submitted to the blast of water, but the fuel and coolant had by now been given hours to dry, and water alone proved to do nothing fast.

“No good,” Sand called over to Heaver, from where he was supervising atop Edward’s tender. “Needs decent cleaning solution, and even then some elbow grease and a good hour’s work.”

Heaver sighed. “Sorry,” he said to 5702, with real regret, “but, truth is, we just haven’t the t—”

“Maybe it’s time to try the potion?” Edward suggested. He looked a little abashed, especially when Sand burst into laughter.

“Oh, that old yarn! Never mind, Sid. Long story.”

“I’ve heard it!” objected Heaver. “Hell, I know where they keep the stuff.”

He was off like a shot before the driver, or indeed 5702, could make any objection.

“Erm,” said 5702. “What is a… potion?”

It transpired that a potion was a liquid concoction with magical properties, typically brewed by witches. As 5702 wrestled with the several new concepts embedded in this definition, he largely missed Sand’s assurance that this potion was just an unmarked bottle of cleaner that had been sitting ‘round in the sheds so long that the lads had spun fanciful tales, to explain its origin, and to justify why it was simply too good to be lightly used.

It seemed these tales involved an old underground currency based on divination stones, domestic strife in a former stationmaster’s marriage, and a fatal curse leveled by a certain shadowy “witch of Wellsworth,” indignant with how her product had been stored—

“But that part’s not true,” Edward interrupted, earnest.

His driver snorted. “That part?”

“The part about the curse, yes. That’s an unfortunate bit of slander. Mrs. Stationmaster died because of the Great ‘Flu. The timing was unlucky—but there’s no ’supposedly’ about where she got the bottle of potion. It was made by Miss Cats-Eye, all right.”

“You’re so sure, then,” scoffed the driver.

“And why not? I was here!”

The driver laughed. “Right. You do like to play that card. But there are no such things as witches, Metrovick, so you needn’t look like you’re trying to turn your own motor and bolt out of here.”

“Oh!” Edward clearly hadn’t realized that 5702 was getting more, rather than less, apprehensive as he listened, and as the fireman hurried back across the yard, hopping rail ties with impressive vigor and grace. “Well, there may be and there may not be. But even if she was, there’s no harm in this. Old Cats-Eye was awfully nice. Peculiar, but her potions never caused any harm. It’ll work just fine!”

“Oy,” said Heaver cheerfully, seeing 5702’s expression, “you two quite done making the diesel’s eyes bug out? Never you mind them, mate. Let’s give it a go.”

Using a cleaner’s pole, Heaver applied the solution and left it as the driver ran Edward back to the train. For all his skepticism, the driver proved not above examining the pink remnants in the glass bottle. Meanwhile the fireman coupled the engines together again, and dutifully checked the rest of the train. Then he checked his watch. They intended to let the ‘potion’ sit for as long as possible before finishing the job and advancing to their signal.

5702 was just as pleased to watch the fireman’s proceedings, and to tune out the spirited and extremely confusing debate, which Heaver himself had joined, as to the accuracies and inaccuracies of five decades’ worth of local folklore.

So maybe all this was why they said Sodor was a loonybin.

But 5702 didn’t contemplate this very long. His mind was on something more prosaic. Edward’s earnest insistence on the virtue of Cats-Eye and the efficacy of the old bottle of cleaner, plus the evidence of how very long he’d served here, had given the diesel pause.

He couldn’t deny the charm of his new colleague’s optimism—but just now it had sparked a sudden, sinking suspicion, too.

In 5702’s experience, those sudden yet sinking suspicions tended to come to pass with terrible regularity.

There’s been no one based here but me since the last war. Such a fact could have a very different interpretation than the one Edward had so confidently put on it. 5702 knew that all too well, and oughtn’t have let himself forget…

“Sid, wait,” hollered the driver, just as the fireman was about to hose off the solution.

“We have much time to wait, driver?”

“No. But didn’t you see there are instructions written on here?”

5702 raised his eyebrows. Edward gave a simmer of amusement.

“In Sudrian!” Heaver sounded most defensive and aggrieved. “Besides, it was only a few words.”

“And you supposed they weren’t important?”

The fireman sighed, and pulled a face of apology at the bemused diesel.

“Right, then,” he said, all resignation. “What did I foul up this time.”

—

Chapter 1: The Docks * Chapter 2: The Branch Line * Chapter 3: Myron * Chapter 4: Edward * Chapter 5: Donald * Chapter 6: Wellsworth * Chapter 7: The Main Line * Chapter 8: Toby and Teddy * Chapter 9: Small Engines * Chapter 10: Bright Ideas * Chapter 11: The Smallest Engine

#comments appreciated #i legit have only the foggiest idea why anyone is even reading this fic #ttte fic #ttte #this is ttte #thomas the tank engine #the railway series #ex-condor through the time machine #ttte boco #ttte edward #charlie sand #sidney heaver #shoutout to Pile coz i lowkey wanna turn #'sid goes to stoopid jail'#into a tag now #boco's doing better bit by bit #we'll have him mouthing off to someone by the end of the day you just watch #jobeywrites

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mean-scarlet-deceiver · 3 years

Text

Ex-Condor Through the Time Machine (Chapter 5: Donald)

also available on AO3 and ff.net

———

April 1964

5702 had cause to re-think a great deal of his conclusions so far, though, when they arrived at the junction. Like the harbor, this was a set-up on a much greater scale than the rural branch line that ran between them. Unlike the harbor, it was quite busy with people and engines, the latter exchanging whistles as they saw each other. A main line passenger train was pulling out just as they arrived, hauled by none other than a Black Five, who, for all its unusually bright green paintwork, nevertheless at once gave 5702 much more a sense of being in the right era. Black Fives were still common on the mainland, and indeed he and his brothers had been bailed out by that class of engine perhaps more often than any other. (And they had been bailed out by many.)

Of course, close-mouthed Myron was up here too, with a push-pull train, which the main line passengers were beginning to board. His side of the platform also led to a goods yard, though this one was much more cramped than the one at the docks. They wouldn’t have much luck, if they wanted to put 5702 to shunting there. Some of the sidings were no bigger than he was, and just then it was crowded and in some disorder. 5702, his own hearing more than acute, caught his rescuer hiss impatience as he pulled into it. “Honestly, boy, you’ve left this place a right mess,” 5702 heard the fireman tease, after they came to a stop. This made the engine hiss some more, and the driver laughed even as he reproved the fireman. “That’s enough out of you for one morning! Never mind, Edward. You'll have a chance to get it to your liking again sometime this decade, I’m sure.” A deep-toned whistle demanded their attention. Now that the Black Five had left, another engine, with its lengthy train of coal trucks, was visible on the track beyond. 5702 stared at the angry-looking steam engine. He was blue and old as well. Of course, this was a six-coupled goods engine. Stronger and hardier than Edward’s speedy kind, there had still been more than a few on the mainland when the diesel had first been made. 5702 and his brothers had felt real respect for their sort, for—within certain weight limits, of course, and over shorter distances—they had proven, despite their age, capable of hard work even with rather little fuss taken over them (as compared to other steam engines!), and it had not altogether seemed fair to the Metrovicks that literally every single one they had once known had been scrapped in so brief a time. In fact, more than unfair, the sheer haste had been indecent, and not a little frightening. Anyway, it seemed that the Black Five might be an exception, with the Victorian engine not actually so unusual, around here. And 5702 might have been rather heartened to see one of the plain old six-coupled type still around and at work—if it hadn’t been scowling deeply at them both. “And where have ye been?” he demanded of Edward. “We’re not yet due,” retorted Edward. “You’re early!” “Aye, and double-quick it was I sorted this lot, to try and gain some time!” The deep-whistled engine was eying 5702 with great suspicion. More than suspicion: hatred. The diesel was familiar with that sort of reaction, although in his experience steam engines—while never the most tactful sort of vehicle—generally did not display quite such open animosity. (While still on-shift, at least. All bets were off, when left alone in the yards or sheds.) “And what might ye have there?” “This is D5702. He’s come to help with goods on my line. And this is Donald.” Donald looked as though he wanted to laugh, but was too bitter and furious to manage it. “Looks as if he’s been a muckle lot of help so far! Failed already, have ye, square wheels?” “Not that it’s any of your business,” said Edward coolly, “but he’s to be cleared at the Works before they’ll let him take trains.” “Ach.” Donald was still mocking. “But I thought yon diesels needed no such fash taken with them!” “We’re all engines, Donald. None of us move on our own!” Donald had been all along glaring at 5702, but only now insisted on speaking directly

to him. “We’ll outlast ye yet, boxy. Ye’ll see.” Edward hissed sharply. But 5702 responded with boredom. The truth was, Donald’s aggression was familiar. Tiresome, yet much to be preferred, really, to the pitiful tank engine who had cowered at the sight of him. “Reckon we will see.” “That’s enough of that,” snapped Edward. “I hope ye’re not speaking to me.” “And I’d have hoped you could be more civil, to a guest—” “A guest! A guest, says he. Aye, a sweet summer colt, it is... ” 5702 had to work hard to maintain his stoniness as he gazed at the bickering locomotives. Uncoupled from 5702, Edward left to join the rear of Donald’s heavy train. Although both engines went about their business with cool competence, their whistles, when starting, made their mutual annoyance abundantly clear. Steam engines aren’t able to keep much secret of their emotions. 5702 had always either pitied or looked down upon them for that. But somehow, already so immersed in their turf, he found himself a little wistful. 5702 and his kind had always understood steam engines, on the whole, to be rather crude and ill-behaved. They caused the workers and crews a great deal of trouble, and therefore could expect nothing better than to be replaced. Both scorning and fearing such a fate, the diesels prided themselves on their own self-control. But now, seeing them here quite free about their feelings, yet perfectly useful, and obviously in no danger of being disciplined or scrapped for a mere show of emotion, 5702 found his world quite backwards. Now it was he who felt deficient… and a little envious. Even once the coal train had vanished from sight, a series of distant whistling could be heard. Such communication was needed during uncoupled banking operations, so that everyone knew when it was time to push, drift, or brake. The tones of both whistles grew less angry as the job went on, and, by the end, when Donald whistled thanks, and Edward whistled good-bye, it was clear that the engines had somehow wordlessly made up the quarrel. 5702 felt his first near-overpowering wave of homesickness. (It was not to be the last.) In that moment he wanted at least one of his own brothers, very much.

———

#ex-condor through the time machine #ttte fic #ttte boco #ttte donald #ttte edward #ttte #thomas the tank engine #this is ttte #this is NOT new material—i'm just getting the last chapter onto my tumblr at long last #but this IS in preparation for a drop #chapter six coming soon!#less rumination more Let's Actually Get Another External Conflict Here and One That Will Actually Get Resolved #(One Way Or Another)#also less lonely psychodrama more Let's Be Friends #... also less sodor is Quaint and more sodor is Weirdly Obsessed with the Supernatural lol #(but is it a 'weird obsession' if you REALLY DO have as many ghosts lucky talismans lost towns and buried treasures as this island does?)#(i ask you)#jobeywrites

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mean-scarlet-deceiver · 3 years

Text

Ex-Condor Through the Time Machine: Chapter 4

April 1964

Chapter 4: Edward

Finally, hours after they'd been left, they heard a bright, high whistle, and not from an engine that was pounding by. This one slowed to a halt behind 5702, shunting a fresh brakevan to the rear of the train.

“Hullo!” the unseen engine called. “You must be tired of waiting.”

5702 only sounded his horn in acknowledgment. Anything less would have been rudeness… though he was quite alert for the potential double meaning in his rescuer’s words.

“Oh, Myron took most of it,” the new guard said in satisfaction. “Good lad.”

“Yes indeed,” said another voice, presumably the steam engine’s driver. “Now we have options. C’mon, Stan, let’s hop on up and meet the new lot.”

Once the new arrival had pulled up level to 5702’s buffers, the crews exchanged greetings, while the engines eyed each other frankly. Neither had ever seen one quite like the other.

5702 was briefly astounded. He’d known, of course, that Sodor was Steam, and he had known plenty of steam engines on the mainland—many more several years ago than now, for they were being withdrawn rapidly. But not even when he’d been new had he seen an engine like this on the rails—only in vintage posters. He looked to the diesel like no one quite so much as City of Truro. This small-boilered blue tender engine had some modifications, most notably his Eastern-style cab and his cleaner, less fussy lines, that made him look a bit less quaint, and a bit readier to work a modern railway.

But he still looked to 5702 like an engine that must be kept around strictly for holidays and excursions.

“Thank you for coming,” the diesel muttered, briefly embarrassed. He had put in the long hours steadily fuming, hardening his heart against what seemed a deliberate slight. He still, in fact, supposed it to be so. Steam engines and steam men always considered it a fine joke when one of theirs had to help a revolutionary diesel. 5702 reckoned the joke got even better if the engine they dispatched was the oldest and weakest they had.

Still, he had as yet no evidence that the old engine had asked for the assignment, or was in on the joke. And if the delay had been that he needed to be steamed up from cold, on an ordinary sort of weekday, then 5702 supposed that it couldn’t be helped.

“That's all right. We’re thankful you’ve come, for we’re rather short-wheeled ‘round here, as you’ve seen.”

5702 was spared having to answer, for his second driver spoke up, with livelier interest in his voice than his engine had ever heard before. 5702 couldn’t help but be jealous, albeit the steam engine crew was also saying hullo to him. (Well, the driver was. The fireman whistled, then rather stared.) But 5702’s own drivers were never so friendly as this. “You must be Edward!”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m under orders from my kids to say hello. They love the books.”

“Oh, please tell them hello from me.” The engine from the books sounded quite used to this. “And that they must come themselves and visit us soon.”

The guard had a radio, with which he was checking in with Signal. “Right,” he said, covering it, as he conferred with the others. “Do we need to request help, then?”

“Have the perishables been sent off?”

“Yes, Myron was able to pass them to James in time.”

“Oh, then we’ve got this,” said Edward’s driver. “But hang on, Stan; let’s get the rest of our plan straight, before looping in Signal. Can S.C.C. spare us an engine today?”

“Yes, but only Bill.”

“Good,” laughed the fireman. “We don’t want both!”

“Well, that’s all right, then,” said the driver briskly. “We’ll get our new colleagues to the main line—you’ll have to wait a bit in the yard, I’m afraid; we have a banking job at twelve til, but after that we’ll take you the rest of the way, to the Works. Then”—turning back to his own crowd—“we’ll get on back to Wellsworth. If Bill brings the deliveries up for us, then we can just run the goods main line, all the rest of the afternoon. Not too bad.”

“What about Douglas and Gordon’s trains?” asked Edward.

“I suppose we’ll have to be back for the Nor’wester.” The driver sounded resigned. “We should have time for one more delivery between that and our fast train. But Douglas will be our ask—otherwise we’ll scarcely move a thing from that yard all day. Tell Signal to tell them they’ll have to either find another banker, or break their lot in two.”

“Phew.” The fireman mopped his brow, a little over-theatrically. “You’re sure, Charlie?”

“Sure am. I don’t see them lining up to help us with our backlog!”

The fireman pulled a hang-dog expression. “I meant that you’ve just planned quite the busy day.”

“Aren’t they all, though,” said Edward happily, while the driver gave an unapologetic shrug.

5702 was taken aback by all this, and he wasn’t sure that this entire conversation wasn’t an elaborate ploy to pull his own wheel. He certainly had some doubts as to whether the slight, ancient engine could even move him and his train.

“He isn’t really main line certified?” he murmured to his driver, under the commotion of the other engine pulling ahead to the next switch.

Edward’s slightly wicked whistle took him by surprise. “My hearing’s fine, too!”

5702 scrunched his eyes shut. That was precisely the sort of clueless, fresh-from-the-factory slip-up that could easily stir up world war three, on the mainland rails.

Of course, there it was pretty safe, to disrespect a steam engine, who these days were even lower in the pecking order than the Metrovicks—though he still shouldn't have liked to do it.

But here?

5702 winced at his own idiocy.

The old engine did indeed strain for a bit at their start, but they were soon off. The first leg of their journey took mere minutes, after that. It seemed that 5702 had at least almost cleared the branch line. But that was such a low bar, for a locomotive who had been designed for stopless ten-hour runs, that there was not the slightest bit of comfort in this… except, perhaps, that his failure would have been witnessed firsthand by far more people and engines, had it occurred out on the main line.

Though then there might have been an engine available to fetch him sooner.

Might have been more interesting scenery to while away the time, too.

---

#ttte fic #ttte boco #ttte edward #ex-condor through the time machine #full chapter #if tumblr-only readers are interested Chapter 5 is also on ao3 and ff.net already #however with some minor tweaks it is all a chapter i already posted to tumblr a while back so for many of you it won't be new material #ttte fanfic #the railway series #jobeywrites

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mean-scarlet-deceiver · 2 years

Note

Hey, sorry I couldn't figure out how to leave a comment on the fic itself. I am not savvy when it comes to fanfic.net.

But I just read your fanfic, Ex-Condor through the Time Machine. And wanted to say how AWESOME IT WAS?!

I loved how you wrote everyone, I love how Edward and Bo-co play off eachother, Edward is so NICE AA! And all the reactions from the others to a new diesel arriving on sodor. The pure shock horror, I love it. I especially loved Gordon and Myron's reactions.

And i absolutely adored how you wrote bocos drivers, and how Charlie and Sidney play off of eachother, I love their charecters so much. I also had no idea sodor had their own language! That's so cool!

(sorry for rambling. I just absolutely love your writing aha)

Haha, thank you! This is such an amazing comment; I'm really thrilled you took the trouble to track down a way to get in touch!!

Protip: Give AO3 a whirl, if you're old enough? Easier to read, easier for me to edit so there are fewer mistakes on this version, easier to leave anonymous comments. Plus I have fics on there not housed on ff.net.

#*swelling amid hearts emoji*#chatter #fanfic #thanks again nonny #<3 #ex condor through the time machine #sudric is basically just manx tbh but it IS very cool!!#sodor's lore is incredible

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mean-scarlet-deceiver · 3 years

Text

Ex-Condor Through the Time Machine: Chapter 3

I apologize to my tumblr pals that this chapter includes little that I haven’t already posted here! But I have made some progress this weekend with Ex-Condor, enough to go ahead and push through an official update.

Also, real talk: If there is a TV character I’m unaware of who could fulfill my OC’s role here, I am all ears. That role being “incredibly shy tank engine who could operate a Brendam push-pull service from approximately the 40s to the 60s (and who can then be transferred elsewhere and even get a bit of a moderate confidence boost if necessary to comply with canon).”

April 1964

5702 only closed his eyes again, accepting the driver's sarcasm as his due... but not apologizing.

He would have been loath in any case to apologize for something that he knew he could not help. But then, too, he had learned that nothing he could say would make any difference.

So he didn’t. He withdrew into stillness and silence, and waited for the too-sharp absence of electricity to lose its sting.

They weren’t moving, of course.

There were lucky times, when a Metrovick Co-Bo's motor went off, but they could struggle on, though with a sickly noise and such fantastic and opaque billows of smoke that they were all inevitably mocked as indistinguishable from steam engines.

This was one of the unlucky times. When it died all at once, there was nothing to be done but to secure the tail of their train, and to send off the second driver to call for help. The driver retreated to the brakevan, leaving 5702 alone with thoughts that he had tried again and again to drive clear from his mind.

It had been a little easier to do, once he had left Barrow, and specifically his brothers. They were all thinking it, and therefore it had been quite unavoidable for him.

They were, indeed, more individualized these days, than once they had been. Back in their bright and new days—when they had been in charge of their beloved Condor Express—the twenty members of his class, designed for multiple unit operation, had been interchangeable, not only mechanically but in nature. They themselves saw no distinctions among them and were collectively offended if anyone claimed to discern small differences in their demeanors or abilities.

That had changed. A lot had happened in those few short years—to the Metrovicks, and to the national railway as a whole. But the class was still extraordinarily close-knit, and 5702 had been able to cut himself off from the general cloud of worry and wondering only once he had been several miles out to sea.

Much though he felt shorn and driftless, there had been comfort in that, too—being at last able to secure his own thoughts, and to lock out the question… the question that had hung over them all, from the moment the orders for his transfer had been come in.

The new sights and sounds had helped, too, while finally getting to work had been the full cure.

But now.

Here he was. Alone with The Question.

Why the North Western region?

The Sudrian rail system was steam. Everyone knew that.

If London had gotten serious about modernizing this island, they wouldn’t have sent in one unreliable diesel-electric. No, Sodor had requested the trial themselves.

5702 had been trying to keep the question out of his mind—there was no use in fretting or seething over it. But now that there was nothing at all to do but to try to ride out the dulling ache where his motor lay still, and the question loomed larger than ever.

Why had they asked him here, really?

There were literally thousands of useful steam engines recently or soon-to-be withdrawn—more steam engines than the cutters could handle. They could be bought cheaply, and God knew that 5702 would not have begrudged one of them his spot.

Instead, they had gone for a diesel with a service record that could most charitably be described as middling.

If they had wanted to invest in an impressive piece of modern technology, they must be very, very obtuse indeed, to imagine they had gotten it with a Metrovick Co-Bo.

5702 could only assume that he was there as a goat, to make the rather famous North Western steam engines look all the better. Nothing else really made sense.

On the bright side, it would be the first time in his life that he had really succeeded in the role he was wanted for.

Some might have called such thinking paranoid. But if they had lived the five years that the Metrovicks had, they should not have been so quick to regard the idea as melodramatic. Yard politics on the mainland were fierce, dire, and subtle. 5702 saw no reason to expect better here, where he was bereft of any allies—even, it seemed, of any more than just the single crew.

Who were heading up to his front cab now. “Not our ride,” explained second driver, at the sound of a round-toned whistle. “He’s here to collect the produce.”

Coming towards them was a maroon-colored tank engine with gold accents, running light. Despite bearing letters indicating that it was North Western, 5702’s first impression was Eastern region: stocky build, round-topped firebox, three cylinders. He supposed that, like himself, Sodor imported all their engines from elsewhere.

It was certainly on the robust side for a tank engine, yet gave off the impression of being quite small and insubstantial indeed.

And that was even before it laid eyes on 5702.

With something that sounded, for a steam engine, remarkably like ‘bleep!’, the tank gave one strangled last little cough of smoke from its funnel, and then its fire appeared to all but die out.

5702 could have sworn he heard a curse within the other engine’s cab, from which the driver leaned out at a jaunty and even alarming angle that almost defied gravity.

“Hullo,” he called. “Excuse Myron, here. He’s not much of a talker—and he's never seen a diesel before.”

“I see,” said 5702. Mildly. He would never dare cheek off a driver… tempted though he might have been.

“I imagine most of your lot here haven’t?” his first driver called back, his irony far less veiled.

The driver, unseen by his engine, made a gesture indicating that before them was a rather special case, and that Myron’s nervous nature was as atypical on the North Western as it would be on any railway. “Give us some credit. Sodor does have a junction with the mainland, you know! But we’re strictly branch line, us and Myron. C’mon, lad!” he could be heard to say, even as he hauled himself back within the cab. “Look lively, now, or we’ll be late for our train!”

With another few coughs, and visibly wobbly wheels, the tank engine managed to get moving. Finding a switch, engine and crew retrieved not only the perishables but a very respectable portion of 5702’s whole train, shunted 5702 and the rest of the trucks to an emergency siding, and, after a tiresome number of track-switching maneuvers (it was a two-track line), were finally on their way, looking rather harried and anxious about their time.

“Sit tight!” advised the guard, giving them a wave in which the cheer might well have been sarcastic.

Sit tight they did.

They sat tight for hours.

The drivers grumbled indistinctly. Bored, not wishing to hear it, and tired after his sleepless night, 5702 wound up dozing. He thought it was only lightly, but without his motor idling he could sleep rather more deeply than usual, and at least one train rushed by and took him so by surprise that he didn’t properly wake up until it was halfway passed. He was aware that silent Myron came by backwards with a rake of two coaches as well, whistling weakly, and still not daring to look at the great engine.

He was pretty sure that, after three or four hours of this, most of the commuters on the entire line had seen the failed new diesel.

Ah well. It wasn’t like he was unused to embarrassment.

Besides, the one silver lining in this rather piston-wracking assignment was that he had been informed that he wanted here as a goods engine—so it didn’t really matter much what the passengers thought of him. He didn’t care for them at the best of times. When he and his brothers had been brand-new (not so very long ago) they had often heard unchecked complaints and criticisms at every platform about the awkward, unsightly new diesels.

That talk had died down a bit, since. But 5702 would have fully expected to hear it all over again, if subjected to passenger duties in this backwards region, where steam remained so loved.

#ttte fic #ttte #the railway series #ttte boco #ttte oc: myron #ex condor through the time machine #jobeywrites

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mean-scarlet-deceiver · 4 years

Text

Sidney Heaver gets invited into one of BoCo’s cabs

January 1965

“Oh,” groaned Mr. Heaver, settling into the seat, “oh!”

“All right there, fireman?” asked Edward. Whether his concern was feigned or not, Mr. Sand snorted.

“All right? Never better! Come get a look at this interior, Charlie.”

“Already have.”

“How’d you ever leave? This is luxury.”

“It’s nice.”

“‘Nice’! The seats are padded. The view is fantastic. God, there’s so much room! Sorry, lads, this might be the end, for our merry trio.”

“Quit fooling, Sid.”

“Who’s fooling? I’m out! How long does it take, to qualify for a diesel-electric type two?”

“You’d miss us!” laughed Edward.

“Pro’lly, my boy. Pro’lly… But it’d take a while!”

#ttte fic #ttte edward #charlie sand #sidney heaver #ttte boco #(the latter of whom is just doing his usual thing of ' ... how is this amount of affection even possible. and where do i get some.' :/ )#fic snippet #anyway #apologies for lagging on the asks #but powering ahead on 'ex-condor through the time machine'#is taking up all my free time and creativity #though as you can see i did spare a few minutes when i was inspired with this irresistible idea!#i will finish the headcanon asks though... maybe before i finish the Day 1 fic but maybe not ;)

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mean-scarlet-deceiver · 3 years

Text

Ex-Condor Through the Time Machine (Chapter 1: The Docks)

April 1964

From the locomotive’s point of view, it was not a notably lively harbor. A ship’s cargo was being unloaded briskly enough onto one of the docks, but the cranes were not living, and there were no engines at all—the morning’s deliveries seemed to simply be piled into growing stacks on the quay. The trucks seemed mostly to be dozing, although there was a mild ripple of interest among them, as well as the men, who were on hand to see the diesel engine lifted down onto the tracks.

It took the crane operator several times to get it right. The locomotive set his face like flint. The process wasn’t comfortable.

He was afforded the privacy that rolling stock generally are, which meant that they talked about him, rather than to him, as they watched.

“Damn,” said a docker. There was respect in his tone. “He’s a monster.”

“Thought that thing was meant for our line?”

“Nah. There’s no way…”

“There is a way,” said another voice, this one crisp and interested. “He’ll run just fine on our tracks down here.”

“Since when are you an engine-man, Dex?”

“I was talking to Sid all about it.” Dex was gazing up at the locomotive in the air with real love. He wasn’t an engine-man and had no prospect of being one—but he was far from the only layperson on the island of Sodor to cherish such machines. “This beaut’s got five axles, you know, to divide all that weight. His class aren't hard on the rails at all.”

“Bit hard on the eyes, maybe.” To his credit, this commenter only mumbled his remark, but others elbowed him and called him a few names, for his rudeness.

There was some lazy, ironic applause, for the hapless crane-operator, when on the fifth attempt the diesel locomotive’s crew gave him the thumbs up, and D5702 was left on the tracks, next to the new refuelling equipment.

“All right, then,” hollered the foreman. “Get on with it!”

The workers dispersed, though Dex needed to be specially chivvied. He was very interested to see the locomotive crew’s doings. This was the first diesel to ever be seen at Brendam.

The preparations were quick and uninteresting. D5702 was fueled up—and felt much the better, for that, and for being on solid rails. It’s the rare engine who likes traveling by ship, and he wasn’t it. Then it was just little wiping, a little polish, a quick look and a single sign of the cross over the motor, and they got him started.

The drivers weren’t actually expecting the motor to turn over on the first try. They laughed a bit, at a loss, for they hadn’t yet found facilities, found the freight described in their orders, or even found their bearings. They’d reckoned they would have plenty of time, while cursing at their recalcitrant engine, to tag-team in and out and do so.

“Let’s get to it, though,” grunted the first driver. “Don’t know how long this will last, do we?”

“Foreman’s coming now,” said the second driver, looking over expectantly.

“Ace. Maybe he’ll point us in the direction of a guard.”

The foreman waved on his approach. “You lot are quick! You set to get moving already, old boy? Because if so, you’re my new best mate. I need some fresh trucks.”

D5702 froze, taken aback. He was used to requests or orders being addressed to his first driver, and was grateful when the latter stepped in. “Excuse me?” he said brusquely, coming to the right end of the cab.

It was an awkward little moment, that came full circle as the foreman blinked, then seemed to understand what was going on. “We could use him a tick before you’re off.”

The driver radiated skepticism and disapproval. It was so unsubtle that even his engine, who of course couldn’t see him, felt it.

5702 hesitated, but kept still quiet. On the one rail, he of course wanted to make a good impression.

On the other rail, he did not wish to be taken advantage of, either.

“You realize he’s not a shunter,” the driver called back, voice dry.

“Oh, he’s a big fellow, all right,” agreed the foreman, grinning at 5702 with appreciation. “But we’re in a bit of a bind here. Lend us a wheel for a turn or two, won’t you?”

“It’s ‘lend us a bogie,’” said another man, nudging him, “I think.”

5702 decided to speak up. He supposed the Sudrians might be making fun of the mainland men and their diesel novelty… but he did not suppose the situation would improve with more banter, and no action.

Besides, the steady thrum of his motor gave him a little heart. He had been so afraid that it might not turn over at all. “What can I do for you, foreman?”

“See that set of empties there? Bring ‘em over to dock one, please.”

5702 didn’t regret it, once he heard the frank relief in the foreman’s voice. This was no set-up, but a real job, fulfilling a real need.

His crew were inclined to grumble, within his cab, and as the second driver hopped out to spot them and to ensure they had clearance.

But Brendam Docks had been laid out quite ambitiously—perhaps too ambitiously, to 5702’s eye—but at least everything was laid out in nice long stretches, and it was not so very awkward to slink in and out of the sidings, after all.

Then, too, the dockers proved friendly, and buzzed indistinct appreciation for the new engine who had set straight to work after being put on the tracks.

“God knows I love our lads,” laughed a burly laborer, “but they’d still need another two hours to get checked and oiled and up to steam, and here’s our newcomer already making himself useful, minutes from the crane!”

“The future is diesel,” someone else joked.

“Knock it off!” Apparently seeing no humor in it, another docker elbowed one of the offenders roughly. “They’ll take away our steamies over any proper Sodor man's dead body!”

“Of course, Roddy,” someone else soothed. “But we do need some more locos, and no mistake.”

“‘Specially down our way!”

“Me, I vote we keep this one,” said another, giving 5702 a wave as he backed away.

“They haven’t seen him fail on the tracks yet,” first driver muttered to second. Of course, no one heard—except 5702.

Who might, otherwise, have started to feel a bit comfortable.

They drove 5702 away before any farewells, nor even further direction, could be given, peering out the cab on the lookout for their train. “That’s the one,” said second driver.

He hopped down to set the points, but the engine had his doubts.

“Are those ours?” 5702 asked his driver.

“We’re to take mixed freight, that’s the only mixed train prepared, it’s ours!” Driver spoke in mathematical tones. “Come on, Oh-Two, let’s not dawdle.”

“Yes, sir.” 5702 thought they had really better ask. But then, he had also never felt greater reluctance to risk annoying his drivers. He was surprised they had agreed to transfer with him—they had never shown any partiality to him, nor to his class—but, for all he had never much cared for them, he was that morning almost painfully grateful for their presence. Otherwise he’d be quite alone among strangers.

Decent, friendly strangers, so far.

Of course, he expected worse, when he encountered another engine.

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#ttte #ttte fanfic #ttte fic #ttte boco #ex condor through the time machine #the railway series #full chapter #[getting the blog caught up]#jobeywrites

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