#Mind Reading Soul Stealing Red Eyed Diesel Electric Monsters! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

joezworld · 3 years

Text

Mind Reading, Soul Stealing, Red Eyed, Diesel Electric Monsters!

June, 2000

A new millennium dawned on the Island of Sodor, and with it came many changes that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

British Rail was no more, and the North Western Region was now the North Western Railway, free to operate as it pleased.

One of the first things that The Fat Controller did was purchase a new express train.

Gordon was apoplectic at this news, but the Fat Controller explained that this new service was to be a through train to London - steam engines hadn’t been allowed on the mainland rails for decades, and under British Rail, a new locomotive would take the coaches to and from London. Now that BR was no more, it was more economical to purchase a dedicated trainset and avoid the locomotive change at Barrow.

Furthermore, Gordon would still be rostered on the midday express and the Limited, both of which only went as far as Barrow.

Pip and Emma had visited Sodor once before, and had been well received by the other engines. However, once it was revealed that Gordon would be displaced from some of his trains, some engines became suspicious...

The engines had speculated that the Fat Controller would purchase a new diesel locomotive to haul the train, and were very surprised to discover that he had instead bought a high speed train!

"Ah canno' put ma buffer on it," Douglas admitted. "But they're doing something! Just look at how they act - the lasses must be scheming or something!"

"Ah'm tellin' ye - they are up ta something!" Douglas said to the other engines in the shed.

"And wha' might that be Douggie?" Asked Donald. Unlike his brother, he had no issue with the diesels, and was confused as to why his brother was so vehemently against them.

"Those two have been nothing but polite and cordial this entire time, and- oh bollocks." Duck began, before his eyes widened in realization. "Do not tell me that you have been listening to Oliver again!"

The other engines groaned - Oliver's escape from the mainland had put him in contact with some of the worst diesels that BR had ever fielded, and he still didn’t trust them as a result. Furthermore, his relatively isolated duties on the Little Western meant that his only real contact with diesels was limited to BoCo, Bear, and Delta - three engines who had all 'escaped' from the mainland in one form or another. He held a pessimistic view towards other diesels, and most of the engines had learned to tune him out as a result.

Apparently Douglas had not. "Ah have - and he's right! That's how it starts - they come in all peaceful and nice, and then Boom! All diesels all the time! Ah saw it happen once and ah'm not about to let it happen again!"

"Oh my god" said Donald and Duck in unison. They were going to have words with Oliver the next time they saw him.

Across the yard at the newly-built diesel shed, the diesels were listening to Douglas' ranting.

"Well, I'm glad that we haven't actually done anything to upset him." Pip said after a moment.

"I was worried that we'd said something." Emma chimed in from the back.

Bear rolled his eyes. "Yes, well, let me be the first to say that I am glad that you aren't actually evil monsters out to destroy steam traction."

Everyone laughed at that, and evidently did so just a little bit too loud, because...

"AH KNEW IT! They're conspiring against uz!" Douglas shouted from inside the shed.

The diesels stopped laughing and stared at the shed, while the steam engines began berating Douglas.

That brought a fresh wave of shouting from within the shed, while the diesels looked at each other incredulously.

The other engines weren't audible, but Douglas certainly was. "Well maybe no' on purpose! But ye don' know what these new things ken do! They might 'ave mind control powers or something!"

"Mind control powers?" Bear said with a raised eyebrow. "Where does he even get that from?"

"Is that normal?" Said Pip, suddenly concerned about having to work with these engines on a regular basis.

"Not especially." Said Delta. "But when it does happen, they're like this until they suffer a karmically appropriate pratfall, at which point they realize that they've been stupid and apologize."

The others stared at her.

"What?" She protested. "Why do you think I never get too big for my wheels if I can help it? I've read the books! I know what happens to the rest of you!"

Bear and BoCo exchanged a significant look, while Pip looked thoughtful.

"So, that pratfall," she said slowly, a sly look spreading across her face. "Do you lot feel like speeding up when it happens?"

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

And so they did.

Henry and James were soon involved in this scheme by virtue of being 'involved' with Bear and Delta, and spent the next several days figuring out exactly what Oliver and Douglas were saying about Pip and Emma. They eventually compiled a long list of imagined abilities, including mind control, telepathy, soul-stealing, invisibility, and the ability to lie with a straight face.

(The steam engines disputed that last point, but all the diesels agreed that it was the only thing on the list that was true.)

A week later, they first sprang their plan. Douglas was idling at the big station as Pip and Emma loaded their passengers. He made a conscious effort to ignore the HST set, which was helped somewhat by Bear backing into the track in between him and them.

Then things began to go strangely.

"Oh, not much. How about you?" Bear said in response to nothing.

Douglas looked around to see who he could be talking to, and found nobody else.

"Very interesting." Continued Bear. "I'd never considered that before. Is that new?"

After a moment of silence: "I see."

A pause.

"I wonder how that would work on this Island?"

Silence.

"Really?"

More silence.

"Well I would have never guessed!"

Douglas began to wonder if he was losing his mind when Pip's guard blew his whistle and the HST rolled away towards Barrow.

After a long moment, Douglas spoke up. "Bear, who were ye talking to?"

"Pip?" Bear said, confused.

"No ye weren’t!" Exclaimed Douglas. "Ye were talkin' to thin air!"

"I was not! We were having a most interesting conversation. I'm surprised you didn't hear it, considering we were right next to you."

"Ye said nuthin!" Douglas protested.

"I think you need to get your hearing checked." Bear said as he pulled away with his goods train. He broke into a wide smile as soon as he was out of sight.

Next it was Oliver. He made a rare trip beyond the Little Western to collect a train of China Clay from Wellsworth. BoCo was asleep in the station's bay platform when he arrived, so Oliver quietly collected the clay wagons.

As he waited at the signal to leave, Oliver noticed that BoCo was mumbling in his sleep.

"No... mustn't... listen... to... evil... no one... controls... me..."

"BoCo?!" Oliver yelped, suddenly concerned by the diesel's mumbling.

"Huh?!" BoCo sprang to wakefulness suddenly, and Oliver would have sworn that for a split second, there was a red glint in BoCo's eyes. "Oh, hullo Oliver. Fancy seeing you out on the main line."

"You were talking in your sleep!" Oliver said, forgoing any pleasantries.

"I suppose I might have been." BoCo confessed. "I haven't been sleeping very well recently - none of us diesels have."

As Oliver began even more concerned than he had been mere seconds ago, the home signal on the main line dropped to 'clear', and Pip and Emma roared through the station bound for Tidmouth.

As they passed, Oliver jumped slightly - Pip, who was facing him, glared at him as he passed. It was especially unsettling because modern diesels had their end-of-train lamps built into their eyes, so Pip's pupils were bright red as she glared back at Oliver and BoCo.

"She's up to something..." Oliver said to BoCo.

BoCo said nothing in return, and when Oliver looked over, he almost jumped off the rails - BoCo's eyes were the same red colour as Pip's and he was staring into the middle distance.

"She isn't up to anything Oliver..." BoCo said hollowly. "Why would you say that...?"

Oliver squealed in terror, and fled onto the main line as soon as his signal dropped.

BoCo waited until Oliver's train had vanished from sight before turning his lights off and laughing hysterically.

----------

This continued for some time - Oliver and Douglas would see one of the diesels, and the diesels would act strangely at the mention of Pip and Emma.

By the end of the week, Oliver was jumping at shadows, and Douglas was telling his conspiracy theories to any engine that would listen.

"So then Delta gets this faraway look in ‘er eye an' she clams up!" Douglas crowed one morning at Knapford station. “An’ there was no other engine there! She musta’ been talking to them while they wuz invisible!”

Thomas was spellbound. "And then what happened?"

Henry was not. "And then Douglas discovered that there was a reasonable explanation to whatever just happened and learned not to tell tales to impressionable tank engines."

"Ah am not! They. Are. Up. Ta. Somethin'!" Douglas railed at the green engine. "Look, there's Bear now! Let's just see - he's gonna do somethin' if we watch him close enough."

Bear tooted his horn in greeting as he rolled by with a slow goods train. Seeing Oliver and Henry, he quickly flashed his red lights and dropped his engine down a gear as he rolled between Henry and Douglas.

"Play along!" He whispered to Henry as he went by, the noise of his engine masking the words.

Henry blinked. That was an unexpected move... He watched the goods train roll by - it didn't feel right, pranking Douglas like that.

The goods train hadn’t even gone past yet, and he could already hear Douglas ranting about how Bear was a "red-eyed scheming devil!"

Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be. He thought as he listened to Douglas make blameless accusations about his fiancé. To hell with it then.

"What did he say?!" Douglas bellowed after the train passed. "Ah heard 'im say something to ye Henry! What did the devil say to ye?!"

Henry, trying his best to keep his face neutral, looked at Douglas in shock. "Oh hello Douglas! When did you get here?"

Bear's train cleared the signal block, and Henry steamed out of the station, leaving Douglas raving about "memory alterin' beasties!"

The engines looked up as Donald steamed up to the diesel shed.

“Ah knoo ye lot are doin’ this - knock it off before ma brother completely loses his marbles.” He said firmly.

“Is he going to stop saying that we’re mind controlling demons?” Bear retorted.

The steam engine sighed deeply. “Ah want ye to know that he wasnae sayin that before ye started, but ah’ll talk to ‘im. Mebbe we can work something out.”

He steamed back to the sheds. Within a few minutes the sound of Scottish-accented shouting burst from the sheds.

This continued for some time, to the point where Henry had his driver pull him out of the shed to escape the noise.

Eventually, both twins emerged from the shed, Donald looking aggrieved and Douglas much more subdued.

“Ah’m sorry.” The twin eventually said. “Ah think that ah might have let this whole ‘new diesel’ thing get to me a bit more than ah should’ve.”

There was some muttering from Bear and Pip before BoCo shushed them. “We accept your apology Douglas. Sometimes we can all go a little overboard -”

“I don’t.” Interrupted Delta.

“You hid from the Thin Clergyman.” BoCo glared at her before continuing. “We all can go a little overboard at times, so I’m glad that we can now put this behind us. Friends?”

“Friends.” Douglas said after a moment.

“Good!” Cried a voice from inside Donald’s cab as Siobhan poked her head out. “Now that we’re done torturin’ me Da’ for being thick, I wan’ to know somethin - how did all of you manage to make yer eyes turn red like that?”

“Oh, this?” BoCo said as he turned on his red lamps, making his eyes glow red. “It really is just something we were built with.”

The other diesels blinked theirs as well to show that it was not an unusual thing to be equipped with.

“Oh that is so creepy.” Siobhan shivered. "I love it!"

“Oh no.” Oliver gasped as he watched the diesels flash their mind-control rays at Donald and Douglas. “They got to them.”

“What do we do?” Whispered Thomas from the next platform over.

“I don’t know!”

-------

After the truce between Douglas and the Diesels, life became much more peaceful on Sodor.

Unless you were on Thomas’ branch line.

Because only Thomas and Daisy regularly travelled down to the big station at Tidmouth, the rest of the engines on the line learned most of their news from the main line engines when they met at Knapford station. This meant that information was slow and sometimes unreliable on the best of days.

Now that Thomas actively believed that Pip and Emma had mind-controlled the rest of the engines, that information stream became warped and distorted very quickly.

Matters were made worse when Daisy was sent to the works for several weeks to have her engine rebuilt. To keep up with traffic, The Fat Controller sent an engine to assist, and Oliver was the first to volunteer.

The branch line quickly descended into hysteria.

Looking back on this series of events, it is mind-boggling that none of the big engines noticed, however, they had assumed that Douglas had told Oliver that it was all a prank, and that Oliver was an engine that could be reasoned with.

Furthermore, Gordon, now displaced from the morning and evening express, was insistent on trying out other passenger runs to see if he enjoyed them. This meant that the engines who normally pulled those trains were also displaced from their duties, meaning that the engines who usually met Percy, Thomas, and Daisy’s trains on a regular basis were instead arriving at Knapford on random days and times. The sudden paranoia of the branch line engines was therefore overlooked or dismissed as ‘tank engines being tank engines’.

Matters were made worse when Daisy returned from the works, allowing Oliver to return to the Little Western.

Daisy was due to return around lunchtime, and so Oliver took his train to Tidmouth, and then immediately continued on with a train to Arlesburgh, while Daisy took the return service to Ffarquhar.

The other engines on the branch were busy with trains at the north end of the line, and didn’t know that Daisy was returning that day. From their perspective, Oliver was ‘vanished’ by ‘them’, and replaced with a diesel interloper.

The fact that Daisy had been on the branch line for almost fifty years at that point was immaterial.

“How do we know that you’re really Daisy?” Percy asked late that night. “What if you’ve been mind-controlled by them to make us into your thralls?”

“Because if I was,” Daisy hissed, acid practically dripping off of her tongue. “I would have done it already. Go. To. Sleep!”

No more was said that night, but the other engines continued to view Daisy with suspicion.

Daisy, now thoroughly unamused, began asking the big engines if mind control was something that she could actually do - just so that she could get some peace and quiet!

This did not ease the branch line engine’s concerns at all.

Daisy found that sleep was much harder to come by as a result.

Things eventually came to a head when an extremely sleep deprived Daisy backed down onto the milk van a little bit too hard. The shunter had failed to set the van’s brakes, and it rolled away down the hill towards the next station.

Percy and Thomas had, as the result of a lost bet, switched jobs that day, which meant that Percy, Annie, and Clarabel were halfway up the hill behind Daisy when the milk van rattled into view.

“Horrors!” Percy cried as his crew applied the brakes and jumped clear.

The damage to Percy’s front wasn’t catastrophic, but it was bad enough for the breakdown train crew to put him on a flatbed so he could be taken to the works to be looked over. Clarabel, who was behind Percy and took a nasty bump in the collision, accompanied him.

Wendell was sympathetic as he collected them, but Percy was still wary, especially because his flatbed had been coupled up to Wendell facing backwards, meaning that neither he nor Clarabel could see if the diesel had been mind-controlled.

Wendell’s shocked laughter when Percy told him this was not encouraging.

The trip went normally until they arrived at Kildane. There, another engine was waiting, and attached itself to the back of the train. Percy and Clarabel eyed it suspiciously. It looked like a diesel, but one they had never met before, and had a strange metal contraption on its roof, which it lowered before they set off again.

“Hi!” The engine chirped as the train set off. “I’m Abbey! Who are you?”

“Percy...” He said cautiously. Clarabel stayed silent.

As it turned out, Abbey was an electric locomotive. She wasn’t new to the island by any means, but she had arrived after Percy had begun working on Thomas’ branch full-time, so they’d never met. She was very chatty, very curious, and had no idea what Percy and Clarabel were talking about.

“Mind-Control Rays?” She laughed as they rolled towards Kellsthorpe Road station. “How would that even work?”

“I don’t know, but what I do know is that if their eyes turn red and then they look at you, you’re done for!”

“Red eyes?” Abbey looked thoughtful. “Do you mean reversing lights? We have them built into our eyes so we don’t need lamps!”

“What?” Percy was baffled.

“Yeah! It’s something that all engines have nowadays.” Abbey’s brows scrunched together in thought. “I think that mine has an emergency backup battery... let me try...”

After a moment of squinting, the pupil of Abbey’s left eye flickered into a very familiar red gaze.

Wendell was not paying attention to the conversation behind him at all, and was startled to attention when Percy and Clarabel began screaming.

“What in the world is going on?!” He shouted, trying to look behind himself and see what was happening.

“I don’t know!” Cried Abbey. “They just started screaming!”

The commotion drew the attention of Wendell’s driver and second man as well, which meant that nobody on the train noticed as the Kellsthorpe Road home signal suddenly dropped to ‘Danger’ as they drew nearer to it.

The train rumbled past the signal without stopping, and approached the station at speed. Wendell finally looked forward, and saw members of the station staff waving their arms at him as they tried to right a massively overloaded porter’s trolley that had fallen over on the foot crossing.

“Diesel and Oil! Stop the train! Stop the Train!” He shouted, drawing his driver’s attention, who applied the brakes as they entered the station.

“I want you to tell me what happened one more time.” The Fat Controller said as seriously as one could while standing ankle deep in tin foil. The station was covered in the stuff, as was Wendell, Percy, Clarabel, and Abbey.

“The porter’s trolley was a consignment of tinfoil going to a restaurant supply store in town.” The stationmaster started. “It came in on the last train, and then it fell. We tried to make them stop-”

“I threw the signal! I did!” The signalman interjected. “They just didn’t see it!”

“No, we didn’t.” Wendell’s driver admitted, shamefaced. “We were trying to see why -”

“Percy was screaming.” Finished the Fat Controller.

“Yes sir.”

“Why was Percy screaming?”

“We don’t know sir.”

“Abbey might!” Wendell chipped in while trying to blow flecks of tin foil out of his nose. “She was talking to them when they started screaming.”

As it turned out, Abbey knew exactly why Percy (and Clarabel) had been screaming, and was willing to talk about it at length.

The Fat Controller's eyebrows rose into his hairline and stayed there as Abbey kept talking. Percy and Clarabel remained silent, although it was impossible to determine whether it was out of fear, stubbornness, or embarrassment.

“Mind Control powers? Really?” The Fat Controller wanted to be upset, but just could not manage it. “Where on earth did that come from?”

“Oliver sir!” Percy finally spoke up. “He said that the diesels were taking over the island with their evil powers!”

A surprised sounding "oh no!” rose from the next platform - Henry was waiting with The Limited, and had heard most of Abbey’s explanation.

“Do you have something to add to this?” The Fat Controller asked Henry, unsure how this story could get any more ridiculous.

Henry did have something to add.

“Sir, are you all right?” His assistant asked as they returned to the car.

“I’m fine.” The Fat Controller managed. “I just need a moment.”

He shut the door to the car behind him, and as soon as he was alone, he laughed until he cried.

70 notes · View notes

joezworld · 3 years

Note

I loved your fic "Mind Reading, Soul Stealing, Red Eyed, Diesel Electric Monsters!".

It got me wondering, how would Oliver react to meeting Rusty, Mavis and Salty. This would preferably take place either before or quite after your fic.

It would certainly be interesting interactions, especially with sweet little Rusty.

Mavis/Daisy

“Did you hear?” Daisy asked Mavis one morning as she brought the workers to the mine. “The Fat Controller’s found another engine - and a steamer at that!”

“Really?” Mavis said as she lined up trucks to take down to Ffarquhar. “I didn’t think there were many left?”

“Mmhmm. This one’s been ‘on the run’ from BR. Made it all the way up from the West Country - apparently it took him all year, hiding in sidings and whatnot.”

Mavis looked ill. “And I don’t suppose he met any nice diesels during his trip?”

Daisy side-eyed her. “He called me a 'coach possessed by Satan' and hid behind Donald until I left.”

“I see.” Mavis didn’t look any less uncomfortable. “Maybe I’ll let him get settled in before I make myself known.”

“Too late for that.” Daisy chuckled fatalistically. “The Fat Controller wants him to do some general traffic work while they reopen a branch for him and Duck. He’s coming here tomorrow. For a week.”

Mavis’ eyes widened. “Oh no.”

Three days later, Mavis trundled down the tramway to Ffarquhar, a long line of trucks behind her. She was feeling poorly - the quarry company had received a batch of diesel that was sub-standard, and her motor was blowing thick clouds of sooty exhaust everywhere she went. The heavy train wasn’t helping matters, and she looked like a steam engine as she left a thick black cloud in her wake.

As she approached the station, the sound of arguing could be heard.

“- and I will not!” Bellowed an unfamiliar voice belonging to an unfamiliar green tank engine. “She is going to replace us! Just you wait and see!”

Various unprintable statements followed this - it seemed like Percy had either woken up on the wrong side of the shed this morning, or he’d fully accepted Daisy as his friend and was defending her as such.

Speaking of Daisy... “She has already been here for seven years, darling.” The railcar said in a voice so smooth it was practically dripping oil. “And if she has done nothing yet, then why would she do something at all?”

“I don’t know! But I’m not going to sit here and do nothing while you enact your evil scheme!”

“What evil scheme?” Thomas shouted above the din. He’d arrived with a train of empties for Mavis to take back to the quarry, and was not happy about how Daisy was being slandered.

“Evidently I have one.” Daisy muttered dryly while the tank engine sputtered about her “admitting it!”

It took a few more minutes for Thomas to bring the situation mostly under control. Mavis, having stayed mostly out of sight in the goods yard, was quietly shoving her train into a siding when Thomas mentioned her name.

“- and look at Mavis over there. She’s been here for just as long as Daisy has and she’s not evil!”

Trying to be helpful, Mavis gave a toot of her horn as he pushed the brake van out of the way.

This was evidently the wrong thing to do. The tank engine’s eyes almost popped out of his smoke box as he stared at Mavis and the cloud of black smoke pouring from her stack.

“IT’S POSSESSED A STEAM ENGINE! I TOLD YOU THEY WERE EVIL!!!” He shrieked, and fled the yard so quickly it seemed like magic.

The yard was silent for a moment. Everyone stared at each other as they tried to process what had just happened. The tank engine had definitely just run through a red signal and left all his wagons in the yard as well, so they were going to have to deal with that in due time.

“Well,” Daisy said as calmly as one could in this situation, her eyes never leaving the trail of black smoke that trailed in the runaway tank engine’s wake. “At least he didn’t explode.”

Rusty

Peter Sam watched the big railway with some degree of wariness. They’d just acquired a new steam locomotive from the mainland, and he didn’t seem to be a fan of diesels, no matter their size. Sir Handel had spoken at length about how this engine had spoken ill of Rusty even when the little diesel wasn’t there to stand up for himself.

Skarloey had looked especially aggrieved, and had swapped trains with Rheneas that morning to see if he could give the big engine a piece of his mind.

Of course, that was easier said than done, and midday heat had lulled both engines into a mild doze.

The clatter of an engine approaching caused Peter Sam to lazily open his eyes. The new standard gauge engine was sitting nearby, looking at them quizzically.

“You don’t look like the ones I met last night.” He said.

“No.” Said Skarloey, who was evidently awake even though his eyes were shut. “There’s more of us than that.”

“Oh!” The other engine said brightly. “In that case, I’m-”

“I don’t care who you are.” Skarloey said with much more bite to his tone than Peter Sam had ever heard before.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You won’t get any, but you can try.” Skarloey said without opening his eyes. “I heard what you said about my friend Rusty. Now, I don’t care what your actual thoughts about diesels are - I understand that you’ve had a bad experience with them, but Rusty is too innocent to hear your hurtful remarks.”

The old engine paused, and Peter Sam tried to not look like he was staring in shock - he’d never seen Skarloey speak to anyone like this.

Skarloey continued. “If I ever hear you speak to Rusty like that,”

His eyes opened, and both Peter Sam and the big engine lurched back from the deep-seated malice in his gaze.

“The difference in gauges will not save you. Understand?”

Salty

(I’d like to point out that I’m really not sure if Salty would fit into an Awdry-style universe, so this may or may not be canon)

“So then the Ghost Ship rose out of the deep! Lighting flashed, and ice crackled - the two tugboats were scared out o’ their minds by images of King Neptune that they saw in the fog!”

Salty’s story was in full swing, and the dockside machinery were enjoying themselves, but the visiting diesel was having none of it.

“Oh come on, that’s not scary!” He protested. “I’ve seen worse than that with my own eyes!”

Salty grinned. “Oh-kay then! What have ye got? Some buffer-tingling story is just what I need!”

“Oh. Well, it’s not a story really.” The Class 37 said. “It’s just - I’ve been doing the scrap trains recently, and let me tell you, going through the lines of dead steamers is scary even in the day - and I’ve had to go out there at night!”

That kind of took the air out of shed. Salty, the cranes, and a tramp steamer within earshot all looked dejected.

“What?” The 37 asked. “It is scary!”

“Aye, lad, it is, but this be Sodor,” Salty said slowly. “And we don’t like that ‘round these parts. It’s too depressing, especially for the steamers.”

As if to illustrate his point, a steam whistle sounded in the distance - a small green tank engine trundled around the side of a building and appeared in the distance.

With a barely audible “YIPE!”, he took one look at the pair of diesels, screeched to a halt, and went steaming backwards as fast as he could.

“Y’see?” Salty said after a moment. “We don’t do that here.”

#ttte #ask response #sodor #sodor shenangians #fic #ttte oliver #ttte skarloey #ttte peter sam #ttte salty #ttte mavis #ttte daisy #ttte thomas

53 notes · View notes

joezworld · 3 years

Note

What is the absolute dumbest thing each engine(Sudrian engines, plus the NRM engines, Scotsman, the expat A4s, Tornado, and anyone else you feel like adding) has had to experience at any point in their careers?

That’s a fantastic question, and there are multiple answers:

1. If you mean “the dumbest thing that has ever happened to them because of another person”, the answer will be, with few exceptions, BR’s modernization plan. That’s not even a joke answer - it was so badly executed on nearly every possible metric that it really can’t be considered anything other than extremely dumb.

2. If you mean “the dumbest thing that I (the engine) have ever done” well, that is just preposterous! All engines are perfect and faultless beings who can do no wrong ever.

3. If you mean “the dumbest thing I (the engine) have ever seen somebody else do”, then there is a wealth of tales:

Obviously, there have been many things to happen on the Island of Sodor that could be considered dumb, but three instances really take the cake:

Mind Reading, Soul Stealing, Red Eyed, Diesel Electric Monsters!

Tornado came to the Island of Sodor for the first time in 2015, just a few weeks after the 2015 Wootton Bassett SPAD Incident. She was not involved with that at all, but she was in Barrow between rail tours when West Coast Train’s operating certificate got pulled, thereby cancelling 90% of all steam hauled rail tours for the foreseeable future. Tornado, having never been to Sodor before, asked if she could go now that she had some free time. (It should be noted that she didn’t so much ask as she begged - she’d watched a lot of TTTE while being built, and was about as much of a fan as you readers must be.) The engines of Sodor knew who “Tornado the new build” was, but critically did not know what that engine looked like, and so when she showed up on Sodor, everyone else kind of assumed that she was new (to the NWR), not New (in general). This theory quickly came under fire when Tornado - who had watched the TV show - knew the engines a lot better than they knew her. This being Sodor, the main line engines accidentally gaslighted themselves into assuming that she had been on the Island for a while and they hadn’t noticed. In order to avoid being made fun of when/if this was revealed, they decided to act like they’d known her the entire time. This attitude very quickly spread to the branch lines once Tornado ran into a lorry at a railroad crossing and had to be repainted. The paint shops only had “NWR Blue” on hand, so she rolled out of Crovan’s Gate looking like a funhouse mirror version of Gordon. Tornado, meanwhile, has approximately 3 (three) brain cells in her smokebox, so she just assumed that everyone on Sodor was really friendly and didn’t notice. This farce went on for two months until the A1 Trust came to take her back to Darlington, at which point she absentmindedly told Gordon and Henry who she was. They decided to say nothing.

Someone once tried to steal Bertie the Bus - emphasis on the word tried, as they could not figure out his marvelous anti-theft system known as a manual transmission. Bertie is still livid about the state of Driver’s Education on the island as a result of this.

Flying Scotsman can and will talk at length about morons with more cameras than sense. While a good lesson, it’s very annoying when you’ve heard it fifteen times already Scot give it break will you?

Bittern had the incredible good fortune to not only get into Hollywood, but also be good at acting. This has resulted in a wonderful career, but also has meant that she’s had to endure the celebrity tabloid media/press. Of particular instance are British Journalists who have no idea how to deal with her - she’s a train with an acting job??!11? PrEPosTEroUs?! - She almost bit a reporter from Sky News.

As noted elsewhere, Duchess of Hamilton and Coronation got their nameplates swapped waaay back in 1939. There have been a few times when Duchess (the one in England) got called by the wrong name, but it was usually someone who knew her from before then. That its, until Duchess got re-streaminlined in 2009 - since then, a simply absurd number of American tourists have acted as though they knew her in some fashion - which is simply absurd - none of the Coronation Scot class have been in the Americas since the 1940s!

#ask response #people are dumb #flying scotsman #bittern #sodor #sodor shenangians #ttte gordon #ttte henry #tornado

38 notes · View notes

joezworld · 3 years

Note

sooo... pip and emma headcanon?

So, I had to put some thought into this one - behold my result.

The Princess Dragon and The Dragon (better known as Pip & Emma)

There are few ‘true’ siblings on the railways - engines not only related by class and proximity, but also age. Sodor has three such sets - Donald and Douglas, Skarloey and Rheneas, and Pip and Emma.

They were close from birth - they were built right after each other, numbers 43017 and 43018. They were outshopped the same day, and each were the first locomotive they saw once ‘born’.

‘Close’ does not begin to begin to describe the two. From their introduction to service in the 70′s, they were kept as a pair, working trains all over BR’s network as a matched set - where one went, the other followed. Attempts to separate them in order to meet trainset needs typically ended poorly - both units operated well below norms when alone, and often exceeded those same norms when together. By 1983, a notice had been put into BR’s computer system to ensure that they wouldn’t be separated.

Such close proximity is nothing new to engines (look at Donald and Douglas), but with Pip and Emma there was a new twist:

Ask most diesels about being a trailing unit - one that is controlled by the lead engine via Multiple Unit (MU) controls - and they will say that it’s a necessary discomfort. (To sum up many different opinions: It feels weird, and not in a good way. )

Because the HST sets were supposed to permanently run ‘top and tail’ on their trains, BR did design them in such a way as to make MUing more comfortable, and most class 43s have no strong opinions on being MUed.

The key word there, is most.

Pip and Emma - who had spent most of their lives connected to one another in just about every way, including mechanically - began to exhibit some form of telepathy with each other as early as 1985, and by the early 90′s had basically stopped acting as two separate entities.

While they remained two (interconnected) minds, they became basically one body - totally aware of what each other was seeing and feeling at all times.

[They can also sense each other’s thoughts, but wisely have kept that on the down-low, and have said little on exactly how close they are.]

-(They’re totally drift compatible, btw)-

Now, after decades of basically living in one another’s heads, the sisters are capable of sensing each other even when disconnected, which has caused no small amount of shock for bystanders when one of them is in for maintenance, and the other one is miles away on a train, but they’re still talking to each other.

They originally gained nicknames back in the late 70′s, when a cracked exhaust manifold caused Emma’s engine to roar loudly at idle. Pip’s somewhat demure attitude at the time quickly gained them the nickname of “The Princess and The Dragon”.

This nickname lasted almost three whole years, until Pip learned what a dragon actually was, decided that they were much more exciting than princesses, and began referring to herself as ‘the dragon’ as well. Emma, being an enabler, agreed with her sister totally on this point, and the two of them essentially gaslit members of staff at BR into believing that they had always been referred to as “The Dragon and The Dragon”. This nickname has stuck ever since - including after their move to Sodor, but nobody on the Island knows why they’re called that, so it doesn’t get as much use unless they’re feeling quite ornery, at which point they become insistent on being called by their “titles”.

Also, in the 1980′s, some true Agent of Chaos in the Western Region taught Pip how to growl and roar like a “real” dragon. Naturally this meant that Emma learned that skill as well, and the ‘Dragon Sisters’ have occasionally expressed their frustrations by roaring into the night when they think nobody is around.

On more than one occasion, this has absolutely scared the living daylights out of some poor shunter parked just out of sight.

(It’s a ridiculously accurate sound too, and isn’t helped at all by both sisters having seen ‘jurassic park’ enough times to be able to mimic the t-rex’s roar. When coming out of two little express engines, this sound can and has startled bigger engines off the rails)

Moving to Sodor happened in the 90′s. The newly independent North Western Railway wanted a diesel express service for running into London, and The Fat Controller (the Third) found an agreeable pair of West Coast Main Line HSTs in London.

That agreeable pair was promptly killed less than a week later in the Southall Rail Crash, forcing Stephen Hatt to go back to Great Western Trains for a different set.

GWT, now down a pair of 43s, wouldn’t sell him any more, which forced him to go to GNER, where he found Pip and Emma, who jumped at the chance to go back to the strange island full of steam engines that they’d visited before.

Their arrival on Sodor doesn’t go perfectly, as some engines who shall remain nameless *cough cough* Oliver, Douglas. *cough* are still opposed to new diesels - *for somewhat* understandable reasons. (It’s 1998 guys - stop stereotyping. They’re not all evil.)

However, Pip and Emma really don’t help avoid suspicion when they intentionally act “evil” and “scheming” whenever certain engines are about.

BoCo and Bear, who are always down to psychologically torment idiots, get involved too, and the prank goes wildly out of hand when everyone on Thomas’ branch line (except a very unamused Daisy) starts panicking about ‘soul stealing, mind reading, red-eyed, diesel electric monsters!’

The prank is eventually brought to heel after an embarrassing incident at Kellsthorpe road station involving tinfoil, Annie, Percy, and one of the engines from the Electric Branch. The Fat Controller - once he learns all the facts and can speak without laughing, is merely glad that Pip and Emma are integrating well to the railway.

[Note - this does totally ignore RWS book 42 “Thomas and his Friends”, which states that Pip and Emma arrive on the island in 2011. This is because that book is dumb. The last time any main line engines are mentioned in the RWS before then is in 1995 in “Thomas and the Fat Controller’s Engines”. There is zero reason for the NWR to have waited almost 20 years to buy an HST set. It makes no sense. Also, it ruined a very good Railway Series fanfiction on the Sodor Island Forums, which had to be taken down because it defied continuity. So I say they showed up in the late 90′s. Deal with it.]

In 2007, Pip pleads/threatens the paint shop staff at the works, and gets herself and Emma a Christmas present: A giant, fire-breathing dragon painted on both of their cabs. The works’ paint shop staff consists of a bunch of guys who customize old cars in their free time, and a bunch of young apprentices who play D&D in their off-hours. The resulting Dragons are some of the most amazing vehicle art ever applied to something that isn’t a 1970′s Chevy Van, and actually win several awards from hot rod magazines.

More concerningly, the dragons do not appear to be stationary, as multiple pictures taken by trainspotters show the dragons on different parts of the engines at different times. Pip and Emma have not been asked, but one can assume that the Dragon Sisters might have more than just flashy paint, they may actually have real dragons now.

#ttte #ttte headcanon #ttte pip #ttte emma #ttte pip&emma #sodor #headcanon #ask response #dragons #all of this happens before Game of Thrones is aired #both of them answered to Daenerys #They hated the end of the show - just like everyone else #I wrote this for like me and two other people at most #trains #thomas the tank engine #extremely specific headcanon

36 notes · View notes