October 9, 1928
Skarloey sighed. "What a beautiful day!" he smiled.
"Indeed, boyo!" agreed his driver. "Lovely weather! You wouldn't know fall started not three weeks ago!"
Skarloey laughed and continued puffing along the line with a line of slate trucks. They were empties he was bringing back to the yard. He was lucky that none of them were Lifers; the living trucks were getting antsy as of late, their normal vitriol giving way to outright physical violence. Edward had mentioned his unease about the global economy, especially this year; were the trucks plotting a riot if it did collapse, as Edward predicted it would?
Skarloey was too caught up to notice that the bridge in front of him had rotted through until he nearly fell off it. "Oh!" he cried out in alarm.
Rheneas, a vermillion Fletcher Jennings Class Bb, the railway's No. 2 and Skarloey's half-brother, pulled him up an hour later. "You alright, boyo?" Rheneas asked timidly.
"I can't say for sure," Skarloey replied.
"I know what you mean," Rheneas admitted. "That would've been a nasty tumble!"
Glinda, the only female of the Coffeepots, coughed. "What a horrid thing, boiler sludge!" she grimaced, noticing that some of it had spilled out of her mouth and onto her green paintwork.
"Indeed," Glynn, the red one and the eldest of the four siblings, agreed as they bustled about the Anopha Quarry.
"Brother, you are so fortunate that you don't get that as often as we do," Glinda sighed. "You're the first of us built and you're going to be the last of us scrapped, I just know it."
"Come now, Glinda. Sir Topham isn't that kind of controller."
"He isn't, but if this island goes under like Ed says it will, who's to say our next controller won't be?"
Glynn sighed in concession. "If only there were laws preventing scrapping of a Lifer who hasn't yet died."
"If only," she agreed wistfully.
The next day, Mr. Handel Brown approached his engines. "Alright you two, we've got a big day ahead of us." He noticed Skarloey's nervous expression. "Are you alright, Skarloey?"
"The old iron bridge...was it fixed?" Skarloey asked.
"Don't worry, it has. Temporarily. Next week we're going to replace the darn thing like we should've done in the summer." He sighed. "Can you at least promise me you'll try to cross it?"
"I can, sir."
"Excellent. You have a freight train to Green Hills Junction first thing. See to it that it's done."
"Of course, sir."
Crovan was minding his own business when his signal went red. "Aw, come on!" he griped as he stopped. "We were making such good time, too!"
"Really useful engines don't take rests in the middle of the line, Crovan!" the second of Alfred's coaches, Tabitha, taunted as Alfred passed with the Wild Nor'wester. She and her sisters, who laughed at their remark, were now painted green and cream.
"Shove off!" Crovan snapped back. He sighed. "Women! Don't need 'em, don't WANT 'em!"
"Careful, Crovan," said his driver. "You can't say that kind of thing anymore."
"I can too!"
"Not if you don't want ME to clear your line of that tree," Juliet growled as she puffed by with a crane, snorting embers in his direction. Crovan's eyes widened when one landed dangerously close to his face and he laughed nervously before quickly blowing it out.
Skarloey gulped as he approached the bridge. "I can do this...it's been fixed, I won't fall."
"You can do it, love!" called Cora, his guard's van. Emboldened by this, Skarloey puffed across the bridge.
"Phew!" he wheeshed when he'd finished. "I'll be glad when we replace that next week!"
"Us too," agreed his fireman, patting his throttle affectionately. "Us too."
The week after, the iron bridge was torn down. A rickety trestle was put in its place until the new bridge would be finished. This one made Skarloey even more nervous. "What's the weight rating on this bridge?" he asked himself as he waited for his signal to cross it.
"Eh," shrugged one of the trucks in his train. "If you do fall, it's been nice knowing you." A pause. "NOT!"
The trucks laughed. Skarloey sighed in exasperation. "If I had hands, one would be on my forehead right now."
"Skarloey!" exclaimed one of the workmen. "Just got a call. Rheneas ran out of water and you need to help him!"
"So THAT'S why I'm here," snarked one of the trucks, a water tanker. "Oh, joy."
"Belt up, Tybalt," snapped the workman. Tybalt did so. "He's on the other side of the bridge. Bring Tybalt with you, and only Tybalt." Skarloey gulped, but his brother's health was more important at the moment. He uncoupled from his train, and rearranged it so he could couple up to the water tanker and take it across the bridge.
He did so, and soon Rheneas was back in steam. "I guess I should've been more mindful of my water levels," Rheneas said that night.
"OR we need another engine," Mr. Brown said. "Your train was much too long, Rheneas. What were you thinking?"
"I didn't want to be late if I had to make two trips, sir," Rheneas said timidly.
Brown sighed. "I see. Hm...do you think the MSR boys know where to get another engine?"