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mean-scarlet-deceiver · 3 years

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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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