The Southern Railway Engines
Dexter was still shunting as the sun set that day and the last of the cars had been put into their proper sidings. Once that was done he returned to the sheds and to his surprise he found that Colby was there while one of the resident BR Standard Class 4 tanks was not.
Dexter: (Surprised) Colby what are you doing here? Where's Biff?
Colby: Biff's with the LNER Locomotive tonight. He had a delay caused when one of his connections was late and that in turn held me up. So I had to wait and by the time I was able to show up it was late. Some of the LMS Locomotives think that this delay was the first act of Lord Arcanon since he returned. Our other guest Bret seems to think that as well but I think it is just a case of unfortunate circumstances.
Dexter: (Confused and Surprised) Bret But he's a wartime version of Coley, Jake, and Michael's class the Stanier 8Fs. Why would he think that? More to the point, why is he even here? Shouldn't he be over with the LNER Locomotives.
Colby: You can ask him yourself, Dexter. Here he comes now.
Dexter watched as a consolidation with the words British Railways on the tender arrived in the sheds. The engine was Bret an Austerity 8F built during the Second World War.
Dexter: Hello Bret. Fancy seeing you here tonight. So why are you here?
Bret: (Speaks with an Italian accent) The Kalos Controller wants me here while Sean and Gervase are to stick around near the LNER Locomotives for the week. Considering all that has happened I can see why. Lord Arcanon must be scary enough for William Belmonte to switch up the BR Standard Class and War Department Locomotives shed assignments.
Dexter: Then I suppose we better get some sleep. No need to spend the night chatting needlessly and risk waking the rest of the shed.
Bret: Dexter's right. We're gonna need all the sleep we can get for the next day's events. Something tells me that this could be the first of the last times we'll have a quiet night.
Colby and Dexter agreed as they and Bret went to get some sleep and hoped and prayed that the rest of Dexter's shed mates would understand why Colby and Bret were there.
Next morning, Colby, Bret, and Dexter woke up to chatter and shock. The three could hear a lot of heated talking and debating and that Colby and Bret were the topic of said heated discussion.
?: I cant' believe Colby's in our sheds and so is Bret.
?: I know. I thought they were supposed to be with the LNER Locomotives.
?: Where are Alena and Biff? Are they replacing them?
?: I hope not. We already have one non Southern Railway Engine in the form of Jason.
Dexter had heard enough and decided to step in before things could get ugly.
Dexter: (Whistles loudly) Quiet! (Everyone looks at him) Now that I have your attention let us explain what is going on.
One of the Locomotives an LNWR H15 spoke up in Dexter's defense.
H15: Dexter's right. We shouldn't jump to conclusions. We need to give Colby and Bret a chance to talk and hear them out first. Remember nothing in life is permanent. Hence, the reason I stayed alert.
Dexter: We get it Mordred and to the rest of you. Mordred's right. Besides it's time like this that we have to adapt and grow stronger.
The other engines understood before an LSWR S15 began to speak with a cultured feminine tone.
S15: Personally I'd love to have Colby here. No offense to Jason but his axle boxes may have gotten a serious upgrade and he may have been upgraded for distance running like Michael, Jake, and Colby but I don't want to be saddled with Mineral trains or dirty goods trains for that matter like fish or manure. I prefer clothes, furniture, paper or express goods trains like produce. That's my style.
A Southern Railway W Class Tank engine heard that comment and had to say something.
W Class Tank Engine: We get it already. Geeze I've even seen express engines with less issues about getting dirty than you. Take Caliburn, Lord Brenton, Alolan Line, and Sir Vincent Belmonte for example. Even Duchess Corrinne is calmer than you. Then again considering her position as our leader and second only to the Kalos Controller I'm surprised she hasn't abused that power by now considering all the power she's had over the years.
The S15 was about to remark but Dexter once again stepped in.
Dexter: (To the W Class Tank Engine) That'll be all Lisa. (To the LSWR S15) And you I know about your preferences and so does Duchess Corrinne considering she recommended you for that stuff but always seems to give Sophia the fish and manure runs. Richard also knows considering he's the one supposed to shunt the trains around here. He's also one of the first Tank Engines to join the Kalos Railway and he's doine such a good job that it's left me free for doing some odd jobs.
Colby: Not to sounds like an idiot but who is Richard and what class of engine is he? More to the point Dexter who is that? (Looks to the S15) Bret and I just got here and we don't know anybody aside from the engines mentioned.
S15: Well if you must know my name is Tabitha. I'm an S15 and I'm from the early batch built by Robert Urie.
Colby: So you're the resident goods engine here. Or at least one of the Southern Railway's resident goods engines.
Tabitha: That's right but I have been known to step in on passenger trains trains if the situation called for it and thanks to Duchess Corrinne it did.
Lisa: Only because Caliburn was getting a new boiler at the time and you had to do his work as well as your own and he only has passenger runs.
Dexter: Enough squabbling. We still need to do introductions.
Lisa: Oh right of course. Well as you know I'm Lisa I'm a W Class Adriatic Tank Engine built for short distance, inter-company/regional goods traffic transfer in London. But now that I'm here I'm usually in charge of the freight trains on the suburban area since Biff and Nina suck on goods trains. Well Biff has potential but Nina I'm not so sure about. Either way I just hope they don't incur Duchess Corrinne's wrath. You know what happened while she was gone.
Bret: We may know but just so we're clear remind us.
Mordred: Very well. Word on the tracks is Edward, Sherwood Forester, Union of South Africa, Clan Line, and King Edward I had to endure Duchess Corrinne's heavy workload after Duchess Corrinne managed to escape to the States. According to the Kalos Controller's Niece Sheena Fox, she says that Duchess Corrinne said that Shauntal Payne was forcing the Railway Board to force Jen to dump tons of work on her as revenge for testifying against Payne's eldest daughter and her fellow sorority sisters for breaking the rules and the punishment of having their formal canceled, made to endure boot camp training and forced to work at the Steelworks.
Bret: Well after meeting Sheena Fox the day after Corrinne left for the States Colby and I can confirm that the word on the tracks is true.
Colby: And there's more. Sheena said that the Cell Phones and electronic devices were all confiscated so how could Shauntal have found out? The only way for them to have done so was by mail but it would've taken them weeks to do it.
Tabitha: I blame the spawn of Diesel's current driver and his wife Dark Witch Coi.
Mordred: That's the answer for issues involving Duchess Corrinne's enemies.
?: I second that answer though if you ask me that horrid witch needs a lesson in proper manners.
The engine who spoke was an LSWR N15 King Arthur Class locomotive and had the name plates Caliburn.
Tabitha: Caliburn you're right about the proper manners part.
Colby: I second that. But what about the rest of your fellow Southern Railway Engines. Who are they?
The remaining engines in the shed were a series of five LBSCR E tank engines with each one being a different E class engine. The only E class tank engine that wasn't there was the E2 Class and there was also a Tender engine with the letters LBSC on the tender and it had a 2-6-0 wheel arrangement. There was also a SR Z Class Tank, a SR Merchant Navy Class with the name plates Alolan Line, a Battle of Britain Class Pacific with the name plates Sir Vincent Belmonte and another Battle of Britain Class Pacific with the name plates Dover, a Lord Nelson Class with the name plates Lord Brenton, an N Class Mogul with the name plates Ashley, and a U Class Mogul with the name plates Andrea.
Dexter: Well as you can guess that's Andrea she's a U Class Mogul, then there's Ashley, she's an N Class Mogul. The Lord Nelson class is Lord Brenton, The SR Merchant Navy Pacific is Alolan Line, and he's named after a shipping line. The two West County/Battle of Britain Class Locomotives over there are Sir Vincent Belmonte and Dover.
Caliburn: And as for the Tank engines we have plenty of them and our controller gave them name plates.
Colby: Yeah we kinda figured that out based upon the name plates.
Bret: But it's been known for engines to wear the name plates of other engines. Take Braunton for example. She's wearing the name plates of 34052 Lord Dowding.
Sir Vincent Belmonte decided to speak up.
Sir Vincent Belmonte: Well we can confirm that these are our name plates. The Kalos Controller at the time offered to give us new ones but we respectfully declined. We did tell him however to keep the new name plates as spares in case we lost our old name plates.
Colby: Okay well that explains one thing but why do some of the Tank Engines have name plates?
The E1 Tank engine to take that question.
E1 Tank: Well as you know the Kalos Controller didn't want to confuse anybody so he gave us nameplates in addition to our old company names on our side tanks so people wouldn't get us mixed up. For the record my name is Rufus. The E3 is Zoey, the lone female E class tank among us. The E4 is Colton, E5 is called Craig and the E6 is called Cody.
Zoey: Hello.
Colton: Howdy.
Craig: Welcome.
Cody: Greetings.
Bret: Good to meet you but are there other engines here?
Colton: Yeah. There's Daniel. The only LBSC Tender engine to join us here on the Kalos Railway, and Richard a Southern Railway Z Class Tank engine. Richard's the resident Shunting engine and Daniel is the one who usually pulls various trains but his best work is usually carrying munitions and weapons.
Daniel having heard that decided to speak up.
Daniel: Yep and I even pulled my weight on a troop train. I'd love to tell the story but it's almost time for us to get to work.
Caliburn: Daniel's right. The Kalos Controller will be here at any minute.
Tabitha: Hey wait aren't we forgetting some engines?
Mordred: If you mean Alena and Nina then they'll show up later. They're down at the docks for the moment.
Dexter: I was wondering why I didn't see them last night.
Bret: Yeah we know those two already. They're BR Standard Class steam engines like Colby.
Colby: But unlike me they're built for secondary and suburban duties respectively. But either way we better get going.
The engines all zipped their mouths as the Kalos Controller arrived and handed the engines the jobs for the day. He also explained the shed reassignments and told them what he told the LMS engines, Thomas, and Gervase about Lord Arcanon having returned which put everyone on guard before they went to work.