Many quarries and companies on Sodor have privately owned engines. The china clay pits has Bill & Ben and the Toryreck lead mines has Sonny. The cement works has a blue rail traction engine named Fergus. Fergus first came to Sodor in 1924 and became the cement works private engine, he is a strict disciplinarian for the rules, if you did something wrong, he's bound to say "Do it right". One day Fergus was filling up some trucks with cement sand when the manageress came up to him. "Good morning Fergus." She greeted. "Hello ma'am." Fergus said, "What is it today?"
"We have been able to fill our quota, due to this, I informed the Toryreck lead mines and the manager and we agreed that you will help out with Sonny until we are able to get another shipment." Fergus set off to the lead mines. Sonny was working hard, bringing lead trucks to the docks and shunting the empty ones so they can be filled up again. Fergus then rolled up and gave a friendly peep peep of his whistle. "Oh, 'ello gov'nor." Sonny said, "You must be the cement works engine." "Yep." Fergus answered, "Where can I start my work?" Sonny looked at some trucks, "There's some trucks that need to be shunted. Some of them need to be filled up." Fergus moved to the empty trucks until he saw some of the trucks with a broken plank of wood.
"Excuse me." Fergus exclaimed, "How old are these trucks? For I can see a broken planks, these are not acceptable." Sonny puffed up to one of the trucks and looked at the broken plank, "Oh. Well there's no problem with that." "No problem." Fergus said crossly, "What if the rest of the planks break, there will be lead ore on the tracks, you can either leave them here until they'll collapse, or do it right and get some new ones." Sonny just ignored Fergus and went back to work. Hours later, and Sonny was told to bring a shipment of lead to the docks, the lead was loaded into the broken trucks, Sonny was coupled up and began to move out the mine.
Sonny puffed down the line, he was enjoying it until he began to here some creaking. "Driver?" He said, "Do you here that?" The driver looked back and saw one of the trucks planks beginning to crack. "Oh dear." Said Sonny's driver, "One of the trucks is going to collapse. We need to contact the mine about this." But before Sonny could even be uncoupled from the trucks, the planks finally gave way, lead ore spilled onto the track. Sonny's driver hopped out and placed down warning flags about the problem and walked back to the mines.
Sonny waited until he heard Fergus' whistle. "I told you those trucks were going to break soon." Fergus said. The manager inspected the area, "I knew this was going to happen, but these were the only trucks available at the time, we'll have to experience a backlog for a few days until we'll get new ones. Some workers that came on Fergus' trucks cleaned up the track. Sonny had to bring a scrap truck from Tidmouth to pick up the broken wood and metal remains of the broken truck.
That night, Sonny returned to the sheds where Fergus was sleeping. "Hey gov'nor." Sonny started, "I'm sorry that I ignored you." "Don't be sorry about that." Fergus yawned, "It wasn't your fault that the trucks were broken. Also, you might've ignored me because you had a job to do. The last time someone ignored me, it was with two silly twins, and they ignored me on purpose, but they soon understood about the rules when their actions resulted in a rockslide."
Sonny smiled and went to peacefully to sleep.