Size Matters

One morning on the Skarloey Railway, Rheneas and Peter Sam were resting in the shed, when Skarloey, Ivo Hugh and Duncan arrived.

"Uh, oh! Here's trouble!" Rheneas sighed.

"Those trucks have no respect for engines!" Duncan fumed. "They held me back and I couldn't move! The Thin Controller said I could've moved them if I'd wanted to, but he just doesn't understand. We're not strong enough for that! We're not like the big engines!"

"Just be grateful you're not any smaller than you are, Duncan," Ivo Hugh grinned. "I've heard of a railway that uses engines even smaller than us to haul their trains."

Duncan frowned. "How could it? Engines of that size would be completely useless!"

"Not according to the Thin Controller," Peter Sam said. "He owns part of that railway, as does our Owner. They say that the smaller an engine is, the more powerful it is in size to weight ratio."

"Pah!" Duncan scoffed. "I don't believe it!"

At that moment, Douglas arrived with a flatbed truck. Secured to the top of the truck was a small blue tender engine. The narrow-gauge engines stared at the engine, who was only half their own size. He was fast asleep.

"Hauld yer wheesht!" Douglas whispered. "The wee engine's tired."

"We can see that," Rheneas said. "Who is he?"

"He's called Bert. He's here for a rebuild. He comes from a wee railway on the ither side of the Island."

"The Small Railway!" Rheneas, Skarloey, Ivo Hugh and Peter Sam exclaimed in unison. They glared pointedly at Duncan, who flushed bright red.

"Shh!" Douglas shushed. "You'll wake him!"

"Sorry!" the engines whispered.

Douglas shunted Bert into the siding beside the narrow-gauge engines, before returning to his work.

When Bert awoke, he found the narrow-gauge engines staring at him. He glanced around anxiously.

"Where am I?" he wondered. "And who are you?"

The engines told him their names and where he was. Bert breathed a sigh of relief.

"That's good. And I take it that that's the Works over there?"

"Yes," Skarloey confirmed. "We understand that you're going to be rebuilt."

"That's right. But I'm really nervous about it."

"You needn't be," Skarloey assured him. "I felt fantastic after I was rebuilt many years ago. I got an extra set of wheels and a cab. What are the men going to do to you?"

"New exhaust system and a bigger firebox," Bert replied with a small smile. "I have a lot of breathing difficulties."

"I wonder if you'll get a funnel like mine," Peter Sam said, glancing up proudly at his Giesl funnel. "I haven't had any breathing difficulties since I got it."

"Do you really pull heavy trains?" Duncan blurted out.

"Oh, of course! All the time," Bert smiled.

"But how?" Duncan protested. "You're only half the size of us!"

Bert smiled. "Because we're smaller, our steam is compressed more easily than yours. That makes us more powerful. Sadly though, we suffer a lot from breathing issues. When your fires are lit each morning, you're able to breathe easily without help. But we need to have a small vacuum fan put in our funnels each morning to help us draw up our fires."

"Doesn't that hurt?" Peter Sam asked.

"No! Anyway, we're used to it."

"What's the heaviest train you ever pulled?" Ivo Hugh asked.

"Oh…I think it was about fifteen ballast hoppers. Rex had an accident recently when he tried to haul twenty, but it wasn't his fault. He'd have been fine if his brakes hadn't failed."

"Twenty trucks! That's a lot!" Peter Sam said, impressed.

"What about carriages?" Duncan wondered.

"We usually don't haul more than ten."

"Some of us have difficulty pulling more than four carriages at a time," Skarloey said, looking pointedly at Duncan again. Duncan scowled.

The Thin Controller and the Owner walked into the yard.

"Ah, Bert!" the Owner smiled. "I hope my other engines have been keeping you entertained?"

"They have, sir. They're been very kind to me."

"Good. Because they're ready for you over in the Works now."

"Do you really own Bert?" Duncan asked the Owner.

"We're both part owners of him," the Thin Controller told him just as the Works' diesel arrived to shunt Bert into the Works.

"Thank you for talking to me," Bert said to the engines. "You've all made me feel much better and I'm not nervous now."

"Hope you feel better soon!" Skarloey called as the diesel took Bert away.