Here is chapter 10 of my Island of Sodor remake. This one is going to be shorter than my other chapter, but at the end I explain sort of why its short and a behind the scenes of going through it. I hope you enjoy it.
Island of Sodor Remake
Chapter 10-Trees and Wind
The passengers were doing their best to cling to their hats on the windy day at Kellsthorpse Road. Lynge was at the station waiting for his passengers to get onto the local train he had to Vicarstown. The late afternoon train was made up of those that either got out of work early or were heading to the mainland for an overnight stay. Lynge had no problem with the local train, he actually quite enjoyed the long runs and hearing what's been happening around the island. Due to the fact that he was a fast-paced engine he didn't get time to stop around and notice what's been happening in the towns. So, this was how he knew what was going on. As well as what the other engines talked about at night. His guard blew his whistle and Lynge set out from Kellsthorpse Road.
He usually didn't have a mind for the weather but the pervious day's rain and today's wind wasn't the most comfortable it ever had been. He could see the leaves blowing around the fields of the country line and even noticed that the country line canal was a bit higher from the rain of the previous day. It hadn't rained enough that there was a flooding concern but there was a noticeable difference in the ponds and rivers around Sodor. But the rain had been replaced with wind and it was quite breezy especially around the open areas of Sodor.
"Hopefully it will calm down tomorrow. Wind can be annoying for passengers and can be dangerous for railways." His driver mentioned to them as they approached Crovan's Gate. They pulled next to the platform that was next to the Skarloey railway. He looked over and saw Zeth, the head engine of the Skarloey railway, at the platform with three blue coaches. His passengers got out and he waited for his other passengers to get on.
"Hey Zeth. How's it going?" Lynge asked the smaller engine.
"Its going ok. Its really a blistery day. Especially up in the mountains." Lynge hummed in response and then looked around the station and looked confused.
"Hey, where is Ellkan? I would have expected him to be around here." Lynge asked. Zeth chuckled.
"He is at the fishing village. Apparently, the fishermen were hoping that they could get a fish train that will take the train from here to around the island. They are talking to Ellkan so that he will take a train from the village to Crovan's Gate and then another engine will take it around the island. They really want to use the engines instead of trucks. Its much faster to use the railway than roads." He answered. Before Lynge could respond a big gust of wind blew through the station. A middle-aged woman walking towards Zeth's train got caught in the gust and her hat flew off her head.
"My hat!" She yelled chasing after it as it rolled with the wind along the platform. Luckily a quick porter grabbed the hat before it could get lost. He returned it to the woman, who thanked him immensely and boarded the train. At that point Lynge's guard blew his whistle and Lynge had to leave.
"Goodbye Zeth. Have a good day." He said as he pulled away from the station and back on his route.
On his way out of Crovan's Gate, he moved under the Crovan's Gate bridge realizing more that the wind was becoming more commonplace. Thankfully as he entered the forest near Crovan's Gate the wind wasn't so blustery, being blocked by the numerus trees around them. Lynge was thankful that he got to have a bit of a break before he left the forest. He was almost out when he spotted something that made him cry out.
"Stop!" he cried out. His driver, startled but efficient, braked the train and Lynge came to a stop.
"What's going on?" his driver asked looking around. But Lynge didn't have to answer as his driver and fireman saw that on the other side of the line was a tree that had been blown over and was hanging dangerously over the line, only being held up by the branches of another tree. "That's really dangerous. It must have just happened since we didn't see that when we came here before. We'll go to the nearest signal box and tell them to get someone out here to take care of the tree." Lynge readily agreed and with that they set off again.
They got to the outskirts of the forest and stopped by the signal box there and his driver alerted the signalman to the dangers with the tree. The signalman told him that he would put the call out and make sure trains weren't on the line closest to the tree just incase it feel on the line. After that Lynge set off for Vicarstown, delayed but feeling good with himself.
That night after his local train runs finished, Lynge rolled back into Knapford sheds, tired but feeling accomplished. He had gone through the forest a few more times, on a speed restriction, and saw workmen taking care of the tree. Thankfully the speed restrictions didn't put any major delays on his local trains and he felt fine about it. He was just getting ready to rest when Atul rolled back into the shed next to him.
"I heard you were the one that alerted the signalman to the tree in the forest." Atul said when he came to a stop next to him in the sheds.
"Yes, I was." Lynge replied.
Atul smiled, "Good for you. I heard from workmen after they took it down, that the tree was dying for a while and was about ready to topple over any day now. I guess the strong winds from today were just too much. Thankfully it was caught by something otherwise that could have caused a nasty accident by an unfortunate engine. Its good that you caught that. Anyone else might have just passed it by without thinking." Lynge felt good about the praise and for awhile they just talked about all different subjects.
Thank you for reading. Sorry its such a short chapter but for some reason I couldn't figure out ANYTHING to write about. So, I decided to do a bit of behind the scenes on my thought process for this chapter (just to add something else to it). So, this I hope you enjoy.
First off when I started this chapter out, I knew I had three things going for me
1) The starring character was going to be Lynge.
2) I wanted a Skarloey railway character involved so more than likely we were going to be on the eastern side of the island.
3) The weather that got picked was windy. So I knew wind should be involved someway.
So, going in those were the three things I had. Now I originally, before I even had an idea, I was going to have Lynge going from Kellaby station to Vicarstown (immediately am able to check off the Skarloey railway character by having him go through Crovan's Gate). But the big problem was how could I use wind to get an idea for a chapter. It wasn't easy. I thought of a passenger losing a hat (which I ended up using) and wheel slippage due to leaves (I discarded that due to already being used). So I just had a passenger losing a hat, not much fun. I decided to go online and just look up news articles about wind. Most of what I saw was about hurricanes, storms, and just having wind in the article. Nothing exciting. I saw one article that was about a tree falling on a car but thinking about it, it felt really simple to have a tree fall on the tracks. But at that point I really didn't have much so I decided that instead of it just falling on the tracks, it fell and was being held up. Then I realize I can incorporate Henry's Forest (not sure about a name change so it just might be the Main Line Forest) into the chapter and felt really good about adding it to the story. I then decided that I would take Kellaby out since it felt long winded to go through three stations just to get to the main part of the story, end it outside the forest (Vicarstown didn't add anything to the chapter), and add in the bit with Lynge and Atul at the end. While its not the best of all the chapters I don't think its awful. Hopefully going forward it won't be that difficult to get ideas. But thank you for reading the rambling into my thought process and hope you understand.