Chapter Nine.:

Christmas.:

The next few days passed quickly for the little engines on the A., F. J. - Abigail and Nicola began to adjust to their new lives - it was a very different working environment to the L. B. S. C. R. - trains there stopped only at the appointed times, at appointed stopping-places. Here, trains very rarely kept to any time at all, and would stop between stations for any reason. And that was just the passenger service.

Surprising amounts of goods went up and down too, never very quickly, interspersed by occasional break-aways as rusty draw-gear and side-chains broke. Coal, bricks, timber, barrels, almost everything was sent over the railway, as well as massive trains of forty or fifty empty wagons, that would blast away up to the colliery. But then all the traffic stopped for Christmas, and then one could have found the entire Engine Dept. staff of the Company gathered in the sidings at Ashwell.

Everyone was singing joyously, carols in English and Cornish (courtesy mostly of Mr. Kernowek, who had driven Jess over for the occasion), with the men consuming unwise amounts of 'import' alcohol, and engines making a great deal of noise on their whistles. Foxhill was loudest of all, giving her own rendition of 'Good King Wencelas' that was heard by all the town.

A photo of the engines standing around, with enginemen swaying about on the running boards and Jo's toolbox full of bottles, was taken by the local stationer's shop-keeper, and hung thereafter in the engine shed.

As the sky darkened, someone piled a great deal of straw onto Abigail's fire and opened her blower - the resultant pillar of burning embers was highly impressive and would doubtless have started quite a few small fires, were it not for the fact that everything was covered in snow.

There were no traditional decorations, or presents, but there was a goose roast over the brazier, accompanied by local vegetables boiled on the stove in the shed, and all the railwayman's families turned out for the festivities. One wife had brought a lovely plum-pudding, over which was poured enough brandy to stone a small ox and set aflame according to custom, before it was enjoyed as dessert.

It was not long before many of the wives and children went home, with all the food disposed of. Some of the more cautious men went on home too, to enjoy the remainder of the evening with their families. The rest stayed with their engines, and proceeded to get fantastically drunk. Jocyspool's toolbox, which had hitherto been fully stocked and then topped up with snow, was emptied. Nobody lasted much past eight o' clock.

Young Mr. Jackson caused much hilarity, full of rum, attempting to propose marriage to each locomotive in turn, being accepted by none. Mr. Edgeley, a bit steadier on his feet but no wiser, offered Ashwell 'a drop of something strong to keep the cold out' - to the surprise of no-one, she accepted, and hiccup-ed repeatedly for long after.

They tried to have a bonfire, which they started in an open wagon with some of Nicola's burning coals borrowed for the purpose. The wagon was a flat truck within the hour. More singing was done, while Mr. Kilkenny threw up in the snow, then went to sleep in Foxhill's coal bunker, and Mr. Anderson propped himself on Ashwell's water tank and slept on her running board. A couple of others tried to leave for home, got as far as the nearest point lever, and went head-first into the snow, where they would remain until morning.

On the morning of Boxing Day, the more cautious railwaymen who had remained more or less sober the night before, returned to retrieve the rest of the Engine Department, bringing with them Mr. Kernowek, to take Jess back to the colliery.

'What the bloody hell did these inebriates get up to?' Wondered old Mr. Jenkins, although he sounded more amused than disapproving.

'They'd better hope the boss don't find that wagon,' muttered another man, examining the charred iron frames and remaining blackened woodwork of last night's 'bonfire'.

''Ere, Cornish, I'll help light up your engine if you like,' - it was Isaac Isaacs, Jo's driver.

Mr. Kernowek saw straight through this:

'Oh, that it is it? And what are you after, Ise?'

'Nothing, right hand to God, just trying to help out an old mate.'

'Your right hand is missing one-and-a-half fingers and a thumb, I suspect God would reject it. Is it that you want me to drag that one to her dockyard, and save you the effort of steaming her up?'

'Gord, you always think the worst of me, don't yer? I wouldn't dream of making such a request - but I mean, since you're offerin'...'

Mr. Kernowek gave a theatrical sigh, but was not, in fact, loath to do the favour.

'Well, all-right then, but just you make sure Jo is oiled and free of ice - and on your head be it if we get stuck.'

'That likely, d'you think?'

Mr. Kernowek considered the snow carefully.

'No, and if we do, we shan't take much longer getting down the line than we otherwise would.'

Jess' fire was quickly lit, and with residual warmth still present in her boiler, steam was raised in around an hour and a half. Jo made a bit of a fuss about being dragged along, especially on such a cold day, but was quelled rather smartly by Ashwell, who awoke at the noise, hangover pounding.

Jess departed down the line quite quickly - no-one had thought to inform Mr. Cutler about their little get-together, and despite assurances that he would turn a blind eye, Isaacs considered it unwise to have him and Jocyspool present at the wrong end of the line, surrounded by unconscious enginemen and a burned-out wagon.

They had not fitted a snow-plough to Jess' front before setting out, mostly because they hadn't one to fit, and her being what the enginemen of that time may have called a 'four-coupled-behind', with two carrying wheels (the same size as the others) under her front, the engine was apt to lift her nose alarmingly where snow and ice packed against rail edges and point flangeways. Luckily, Jo was just heavy enough to pull her back straight, preventing a derailment.

It took over just under two hours to cover the the twelve miles to the harbour, which all-together was doing very well, considering the fact that all they had with which to clear snow from the rails were Jess' guard irons, and that they almost stalled several times, once due to a burst of sudden slippage.

Dropping off Jo in her shed was a quick enough operation, but attempting to get water was a longer job. The column, to the surprise of nobody, was frozen up, and they were some time melting the ice before any water could actually make it into the small 2-4-0's tank. They moved off from the column half an hour after stopping there.

Now, what happened next was nobody's fault. Mr. Kernowek brought Jess through Jocyspool station platform quite slowly and with great caution, but the points at the far end were clogged up with ice so that when the little locomotive came upon them, with nothing behind her to act as a countering force, she wallowed over the frozen frog, found her own path through the snow, and was brought to a stand a few yards across the ground, feeling quite disoriented.

Having caused perhaps the most sedate derailment of a locomotive ever seen (Jess had left the metals at about four miles an hour), the most logical resolution was simply to heave the great heavy reversing handle into back-gear, and run her back onto the rails the way she'd come. Had the station not been almost completely deserted at the time, there would undoubtedly have been general applause when this tactic actually worked.

Isaacs and Kernowek spent considerably longer melting the ice using hot ashes than they had derailing and re-railing Jess, and by the time they'd got the engine up to the colliery it was mid-afternoon. After having a belated lunch, Isaacs was dispatched back home to Jocyspool in an empty wagon, while Kernowek banked up Jess' fire and made her comfortable.

That was about the sum of movement on the railway until New Year's Eve, when there was a big party in Jocyspool. Now, it seemed from the crowd at Ashwell station that the entire town was planning to attend, and when Abigail brought the coaches to the platform (she seemed to spend a lot of time pottering about the top station) it became quite clear the six ancient vehicles would be quite unable to accommodate them all.

First, every available seat was filled, then the passengers scrambled up onto the roofs, using the luggage rails as grab-irons. Every attempt by staff to remove them failed, and there were still more on the platform. Abigail, taking inspiration from a story she once heard about the old mainline excursions, fetched some open wagons that didn't look too filthy, and attached them to the rear of the train.

The throng invaded the wagons, too, and filled them, apparently not concerned about the cold. There was just about enough room for everyone, albeit with quite a crush, and the wagon sides groaning ominously.

This party was an annual tradition, and so too the train, and usually Ashwell and Foxhill would take it, but neither had actually been put into steam, and Abigail had been the only active locomotive for the day. So she was told to take the train. Being an obedient sort of engine, the train Abigail took.

It was quite an effort, and she made a lot of noise and smoke climbing all the gradients - most of the passengers on the roofs became very sooty on the journey. The passengers in the wagons were knocked and bruised, as well as dirtied by the remaining dust and grit inside (the trucks weren't quite so clean as Abigail had judged.)

They only made it about a mile and a half before trouble began. Well, on the stretch before the Manor there is a bridge across the river, and then the railway rises steeply, falls, and then rises again to the halt. Abigail got over the first incline, then started down the other side - the old wagon couplings went slack with clunk. As the noise of her exhaust lifted again, and she turned her nose up the farther incline, the draw-gear went quite sharply tight, and the hook was plucked straight from the frame of the second wagon.

Abigail felt the division, and stopped - and per Brighton regulations did so with her air-brake in 'full-service' - but the wagons did not, and collided hard with the rear of the train. Several of the passengers were knocked quite badly. The guard fastened the two safety chains to act as couplings, as they could not repair the centre hook. They carried on again, having lost five minutes.

The train broke three times more in three different places, and was very late indeed by the time it finally tumbled its shambolic, wavering, lurching way into Jocyspool. A large swarm of passengers rolled out into the town, bruised, dirty and bewildered by the journey, but never-the-less celebratory. Their path to the big town square, currently the centre of a protracted orgy of heavy drinking and heavier singing, was lighted by wild fireworks that reeled through the air and coloured the sky with a thousand burning merriments.

Abigail watched and indeed heard the scene with some amusement - in fact the whole display made her feel somehow at ease, hordes of revellers in varying states of intoxication, full of delighted excitement for the approaching New Year. She closed her eyes, remembering. Exactly a year ago from then, Abigail thought, she had stood at London Bridge, and listened to all the same songs echoing down the streets and explosions going off overhead, and while, by-and-large, she preferred quieter settings, it was nice to experience, from due distance, the chorus of humanity in full party. She fell quite deeply asleep to the noise.

A few hours had elapsed before she opened her eyes, to find her engineman rubbing away at her displacement lubricator, attempting to wake her.

'Up are you, mare? Headline news for you, it's 1903.'

'Oh. Good to hear. Do you know when we're going back?'

'That is the question of the night. I suppose it depends if our passengers want to go home.. Earli er in the morning, or sleep it off and return about mid-day. You can go back to sleep as well if you like, I just thought I'd make you aware it's gone midnight.'

Abigail yawned, and might well have stretched, but did not get back to sleep before the guard sidled up.

''Ere, Edge, d'you reckon it's worth hanging about, or should we take this lot back now?'

'Well, that depends if you wanna clean up the coaches tomorrow after carrying a drunken rabble - I reckon we scarper, then I can go home to the wife, and we can get this one nice and cosy rather than leave her here in the cold all night.'

The guard chuckled:

'All-right, come on, bring her 'round the train, I've rigged up the couplings so I don't reckon we'll split again.'

'When you say rigged...?'

'It'd tow the Great Eastern.'

So Mr. Edgeley, Abigail's driver, along with the fireman and the guard and the train and Abigail herself of course, disappeared up the line again without really telling anyone, and an hour later they were squirreling the coaches away and tucking Abigail into the shed. She was happy with that arrangement, for Ashwell was inside too. Foxhill had elected to sleep outside, despite the cold, as the wharf was about as far as she could get from the noise of the town - it didn't rival Jocyspool's volume but was still something of a disturbance.

Ashwell was asleep when Abigail arrived, and at the gentle touch of the latter's buffers she only murmered a soft 'hullo?' under her breath before resuming her slumber. Abigail smiled slightly, and yawned, before falling asleep with her usual sigh of sooty steam.

The first of January, on the A.,F. J.'s timetable, was a normal working day. However the timetable was usually treated as a guideline at best, and on this occasion it was a mere suggestion. Foxhill brought the hung-over party-goers home a little before two o' clock in the afternoon, as well as working the goods on the same trip. Nobody seemed to mind.

The Company's margin for 'on time' was an hour either side of the posted schedule, but even by that incredibly loose measure the only train to depart Ashwell punctually was the evening passenger, which moved off on the stroke of five o' clock. And 11 minutes. Nicola pulled it.

About a week later, Mr. Cutler recieved a letter, with the wax seal of the Company on the envelope. He groaned - this must be the reply to a strongly worded missive he'd sent to Mr. Kelley, asking for approval for expenditure on several things, maintenance first and foremost, but also a bigger loco shed, as his engines were sleeping on sidings and room was running out. He had also inserted a 'request' that he might write to the London South Western, with the hope of getting at the very least a few more coaches. In reality, he had already sent such a letter, without permission.

Mr. Kelley's reply was about as he expected - a firm dismissal that any of these things were needed, and a series of confidently put but nonetheless flawed arguments as to why. He also added, in about as many words, that if anything resembling an invoice from the L.S.W.R. was put on his desk, he would write to the Board of Directors personally. Mr. Cutler cast that letter into the fire and decided that he would write to the Directors first.

The way the A.,F. J.'s higher level management was set out is unusual - the role of Mr. Cutler, General Manager was really more of a Head Foreman, fully in charge of the actual day-to-day running of the railway, and all the Department Heads were immediately answerable to him - the trouble was, he himself was answerable to the Directors, with no-one inbetween, which tended to put him in a very strained position.

Completely disconnected from the railway's actual operations, but Mr. Cutler's equal in terms of authority, was Mr. Kelley. If the former spent any money without the latter's approval, it would get him into very hot water indeed - and it must be said he had an unfortunate tendency to boil the kettle himself - but simultaneously, if Mr. Kelley tried to take over the job of administrating the staff, overseeing the operations, and so forth - interfering with and disrupting Mr. Cutler's work - he would find himself up to his neck in it.

And so it was a sort of balance was maintained between the two men. By and large. On the whole. Generally. If you didn't look too closely into it. But perhaps it was not so good for the railway as a whole, and it was with this in mind that Mr. Cutler decided to wade in over his head, apply directly to the 'powers that be', who lived in the posh bit of Ashwell, and try and get some cash on hand with which to actually, you know, manage the railway. His letter, requesting that he might entertain a director or two in particularly pleasant local eatery, was sent half an hour later.

Concurrently, in the station yard, Abigail and Nicola were idly chatting. The topic of conversation was, it seemed, the fact they were idly chatting.

'Don't you think the amount of engines this railway has is a bit much, with us here? I've never had so much down-time,' said Nicola.

'I reckon we're here to fill in the gap that'll appear when someone goes in for overhaul...' Was Abigail's answer, tailing off. The idea of her new friend Ashwell, who she had grown quite fond of, disappearing for repair for an indeterminate period was not one she liked.

'Even still, three trains a day, each way, mostly, usually a goods, and the coal traffic. Can't see why they'd need more than a single replacement engine.'

'Perhaps they didn't need both of us, but you refused to go unless I could come as well, and for whatever reason the manager took a shine to you for that...'

'Hph... S'pose that is how that went. I exp- oh, hullo Mowzel.'

'Meow.'

'You've brought us something, have you? Thank-you, I s'pose. That a mouse, Abi?'

'Don't ask me, could be an elephant for all I know - stop brushing your tail on my guard-irons, that's ticklish!'

It was a very gentle admonishment, and was only dignified with another 'meow', before the little animal trotted off. Mowzel was the shed cat - not by appointment as much as tradition - and in all weathers could be found about the yard, keeping the rodents down. Unafraid of the engines, but really quite a small animal for her species, no depiction of Ashwell station was complete without her. Her name was taken from 'Mousehole', a coastal village a fair way west, albeit with the spelling altered that non-local visitors might have a hope of pronouncing it right.

'Where was I?' Nicola tried to begin the conversation as before, but struggled - distracting her could sometimes be painfully easy. Even if she had, her train of thought was derailed again by the sound of Foxhill's whistle echoing up the cutting. Soon enough, her wheezes too became audible, as she led the 'mixed' up the gradient. She had just passed one of the curious four-sided disk-and-crossbar signals which were favoured by the company, when she emitted an awful ringing noise, which was clearly audible to Abigail and Nicola, and stopped as though she had run into a brick wall.