It was 1967. The night was pitch dark and silent, masking the form of a wayward tank engine fleeing across the other railway in hopes of finding safety on the Island of Sodor. He was accompanied by a great western brakevan and an old auto coach, also slated for scrap.
They were somewhere around Barrow in Furness when they ran into trouble.
"Well, that's the last of it." Said the fireman, scraping the last of the coal from the small engine's bunker.
"That's it? We'll never make it over the bridge on just that little bit!" The driver exclaimed.
"I won't give up!" The engine called to his comrades, determined.
But he could already feel himself losing steam. The outcasts trudged on, until the old engine let out his last puff and could go no further. The crew disembarked to scavenge in the woods along the line for things to burn, leaving their train waiting on the line.
"I'm sorry." The engine whispered, downcast.
The coach rang her bell. "Nevermind, Oliver. You tried. That's all that matters."
"You gave us one last run." The brakevan agreed.
They sat in silence, unable to do anything but accept their fate. Suddenly though, the quiet was shattered by the wail of a deep-toned whistle. It resonated eerily through the forest, an echo of another time.
"Did you hear that?" The engine, Oliver, gasped. "There's a steam engine about! Driver! Fireman!"
The men appeared beside them, climbing back aboard. "We heard it too."
"Someone's coming!" The brakevan called.
No sooner had those words left his mouth than they got a gentle bump from behind and another echoing whistle.
"Oh, h-hello." Said the brakevan.
The new arrival did not respond. It's face was blank, eyes as black as the night sky. There was a strange misty glow about it, like a breath in the cold air and it seemed to drift over the rails, there but not.
The brakevan trembled nervously as it began to push them, however gently.
"Uh, uh o-okay." Oliver spoke. "Where are you taking us?"
He got no reply. Soon, they were being pushed off the mainline onto a seemingly random old sideline. At once, they stopped beside an abandoned signal box. The brakevan shrieked in surprise as their escort vanished before him.
"Hush, Toad!" He was silenced. "Look!"
There was an old coal bunker set beside the signal box. The crew rushed over to check it.
"There's still some left!"
They quickly set about transferring it to Oliver's bunker and steaming him up again. Soon, they were reversing back to the mainline and back enroute to Sodor. None of them realized as they left that the points for the sideline had never been switched.
It was a while later that they came upon a small rural station, closed for the night. There was a pale shape, the hazy form of a tender engine, sitting at the platform. As soon as the cavalcade drew near, it started moving, running ahead on their line. It's whistle wailed, the same one from before.
"What the. . .who is that?" Oliver whispered. They hadn't seen any steam engines running in the area - they were all gone. So who was this one? Was it from Sodor?
The whole encounter was strange. The mysterious engine seemed to be leading them, its eerie form flickering down the line just ahead. If they fell behind, it would stop and wait for them to catch up. If they were following too closely, it would speed up. Sometimes, it would vanish, only to reappear a moment later a bit further on, but it never disappeared completely and it never spoke.
As the line curved close to the sea, they became lost in the swirling mist along the coastline. Their ghostly escort blended into it, the only sign it was still there being the telltale sound of its pistons pumping and a guiding whistle every once in a while, a shift in the mist ahead.
Soon, the lights of Barrow could be seen glowing against the night sky in the distance and a few minutes later the hulking silhouette of a massive bridge was visible against the surface of the water. Their escort led the way across it and, as his wheels touched solid ground on the other side, Oliver saw a sign beside the line, words lost to the darkness.
"FĂ ilte gu Sodor. Ye are safe now, wee engine."
The words were not so much spoken aloud as they did echo through his mind. They were spoken in a thick Scottish burr, a mix of two languages whispered across the night.
Oliver stared ahead at the ghostly form of his escort, but said nothing.
The lights of Vickerstown shone through the trees but they did not stop, instead whistling through the station and further onto the island. The sun was just beginning to rise as they came across the next town - Croven's Gate, set to a backdrop of distant mountains turned pink by the rising sun. The form of their escort flickered, vanished, and reappeared stationary in front of a large building labeled 'steamworks'.
The cavalcade pulled off the mainline and into the shadow of the big works building, breathing sighs of relief.
"Thank you. Whoever you are." Said Oliver.
The form seemed to solidify in the pale dawn light, a stark black tender engine with the curves and angles of a Scottish built 812. Although it bore the livery of British rails, the space on its tender where the logo or at least a number should have been, was blank. The air around it was ice cold, it's mouth never moving even as Oliver was sure it was speaking.
"I ne'er made it here. Like many before and after me, my escape failed. But you did. Make good on your second chance, lucky one. You are among the last of our kind, now. Dinnae let our legacy be forgotten."
Its form began to fade, like dissipating fog, as it began to puff away. Then, it paused, so briefly Oliver wasn't sure it actually had.
"Wear my number ten wi' pride, wee engine."
