The grouping was an event that made several locomotive types obsolete, as the routes were longer than ever, and new classifications had to be made. This was done either masterfully, as demonstrated by Sir Nigel Gresley, or horribly, as the chaos that was the early LMS shows.
Speaking of which, the LMS was still trying to get the NWR to back down on their stance to stay independent. After a couple of visits by Bertram, the Fat Director's cousin, however, the idea was abandoned, or at the very least, put on the back burner. It would not be until 1924 that they would finally back off for real, but that's a story for another time.
On the first of July, 1923, a couple of new engines would arrive at the Island, to help with finishing the Ballaswein extension, and then to operate the newly-reopened Norramby branch line. A line to Crewgir had also been reconsidered, and negotiations were going well. Not all of these engines wanted to be on Sodor though. One that did want to stay was a Great Central 4-6-0 B5 "Fish Engine", who turned out to be old friends with Luci. With her came another GCR engine: an Atlantic, who didn't want to stay.
"I don't get you. This island is beautiful! Besides, isn't Lucifer property of this railway?" asked the Fish Engine.
"You are the one who doesn't get it. This island is cursed!"
The fish engine tried very hard to hide her laughter.
"Sure…cursed. What evidence is there?" she asked.
"The sabotage!" the Atlantic answered, paranoia clear in his voice "I've heard all the rumors. It's clear demons roam this island at night."
"And why would demons want to destroy a railway?" asked the Fish Engine.
"Because they hate everyone!"
Eventually, both engines were greeted by the Fat Director.
"You two must be two of our new engines, Am I right?"
"Yes sir."
"Excellent! What are your names?"
"The Atlantic is called Ian, I'm Barbara."
"Excellent. I have work for you two to do. Ian, you are to take a boat train to Kirk Ronan."
"Yes sir"
"And you, Barbara, there's a fast goods going down to Tidmouth. Would you like to take it?"
"Of course I would, sir," said Barbara.
"Good. The new branch line to Lasigar will be finished in a week," the Fat Director finished.
As he did, Gordon came racing past, showing off his new blue paint and safety valve.
"Express coming through!" he shouted.
He tried to stop at a bay platform, but it was no good. He hit the buffers, not too hard, but still hit them.
"Hah! Perfect safety, with no damage at all!" he boasted.
"Oh god, not again," groaned the Fat Director. This had been a recurring thing: after returning from the Works, Gordon wouldn't stop showing off his new safety valve.
"Who are these two, sir? Servants?" asked Gordon after coming over. "Well, you two, it must be an honour to meet me, a prestigious express engine. I'm top-link for this railway, pride of the North Western and London and North Eastern. The best there ever…"
"Incase you haven't noticed," interrupted Barbara, "neither of us are tank engines. Also, you don't own us."
"Oh, I was just joking, my dear," said Gordon quickly.
"Anyway, I'll go fetch my goods train," said Barbara. She left without another word.
"Goods train? How undignified, and shunting your own trucks too. It's disgraceful."
"Nobody said she was shunting the trucks," Thomas pointed out.
"I am, actually. Even though I hate it," said Barbara, coming up with a few trucks.
"That's odd: I thought I already shunted all the trucks for your train together," said Thomas the Tank Engine.
"A few more were needed than you put down," Barbara explained.
Thomas was slightly embarrassed, but tried to hide it and returned to work.
As Barbara departed, Luci gave a whistle.
"Oi! Barbara!" he shouted.
"Luci. Nice to see you again," she called as she rolled past. "We must catch up once more tonight."
Luci didn't seem to be affected by her cold answer.
"Indeed we must, my old flame," he muttered.
Ian gave Luci a playful bump.
"I know what that was about," he said.
"What're you talking about?" asked Thomas. "If you're implying something romantic, I'd leave it for later."
"Oh, yes. That boat train… Where is it?" asked Ian.
"In the platform of course, that's why I left earlier," said Thomas.
"Oh, right," said Ian, and he immediately backed down onto the train. "Before you say anything, Thomas, I like travelling tender first."
"Ok, but that's rather odd," said Thomas.
"Not all tender engines like using turntables," said Luci. "And not all tender engines dislike shunting. It's difficult for larger engines like me, but smaller tender engines can do shunting no problem."
Something weird happened as Ian coupled up to his train. An icy wind began blowing.
"That's odd: winds don't get this cold during the summer," remarked the Fat Director as he stood on the platform.
The clock struck midday, and a crow perched itself on the station roof. Ian shivered in fear.
"Everything ok, Ian?" asked the Fat Director. "I know you aren't cold: you have a fire in your firebox after all."
"It's…it's…the crow over there. The pet of a demon is warning us to stay put," said Ian.
"Crows aren't pets, they're wild animals," reassured the Fat Director.
"Only a demon would ever master one. I beg you, delay this train! You must!"
"And how will I explain that to the passengers? They won't accept that it's because of a crow. My railway will not become a laughingstock again, now please: don't worry, nothing will go wrong."
Ian gulped as the guard blew his whistle.
"Has Ian always been that suspicious?" Emily asked Luci.
"He claims to see the supernatural, and that nothing otherworldly can escape him. I think he's slightly insane," Luci answered. "I'll admit, I did crash into him once and admitted to it. However, for some reason, he refused to believe it was me."
"And I thought honesty was supposed to make you more trustworthy," snorted Emily.
"Clearly Ian's mind doesn't work that way," agreed Luci.
Meanwhile, Ian refused to speed over 30 miles per hour, to the exasperation of his new crew.
"Come on, Ian, we're a fast train!" snapped the driver as they passed through Henry's Tunnel. "You can't go slow!"
"I must go slow!" insisted Ian. "This speed is safe. Means demons will stay away."
"They're more likely to stay away if you go faster," said the driver. "Now come on: we have a timetable to keep to."
Reluctantly, Ian sped up,worried about what would happen if he did.
Nothing happened, however. The Atlantic made it to Kirk Ronan safely.
"See? Nothing bad happened," said the driver.
"Doesn't mean it won't later," muttered Ian. The crew rolled their eyes as the last passenger left the coach. The Atlantic then uncoupled and went to take on more water.
On the main line, Barbara had just passed Knapford and was now approaching Knapford Ridge, the tunnel in between Tidmouth and Knapford. As she did so, a strange white thing formed in front of them.
"Did you see that?" she asked her driver.
"If by "that" you mean some white floating head, indeed I did," confirmed the driver.
They passed through the tunnel without incident, but neither couldn't help but feel confused.
At Tidmouth, Barbara was greeted by Selena.
"Nice to see another goods engine here," she said. "I'm Selena, what's…whoa! Everything ok? You look like you've had a fright."
"I…think I did," admitted Barbara. "When we passed through the Ridge, my crew and I saw something odd."
"What sort of something?" asked Selena.
"Some kind of white thing, looked like a floating human head," answered Barbara. "I don't know, it was all very strange."
Selena was puzzled.
"A human head? Without a body? How is that possible?"
"If my driver hadn't seen it either, I'd chalk it up to my imagination running wild," Barbara answered.
Before anyone said anything else, Barbara was instructed to take a fish train to Maron.
"Good luck," called Selena.
"I'll need it," replied Barbara as she set off.
At the other end of the tunnel, Barbara thought she saw someone standing on the tracks. She blew her whistle to warn him to clear off. Nothing happened!
"Perhaps he's deaf or has hearing problems," suggested the driver, and he put on the brakes. After stopping, he stepped down and walked up to the man.
"Excuse me, sir," he said, "I'm afraid you can't stand here, we need to pass through: it's dangerous to just stand on the railway line." The man didn't reply. "I'm being serious here," said the driver. "If you keep blocking the line, you'll cause…" He stopped in his throat when he tried to grab the man's hand: his own passed through it! "What on Earth?!" Then, he felt cold…death cold. The driver tried to touch the man's shoulder, but the same thing happened!
"Why can't I touch you?!" he shouted, angrily trying to grab the man's arm over and over again.
"That sounded wrong," remarked Barbara.
"Never mind that!" shouted the fireman, pointing ahead. "Look!"
Barbara looked just as the man turned. While neither she nor her fireman saw his face, the driver collapsed, and the man vanished into thin air.
"Well there goes my career," said the driver. "I can't feel my legs anymore." And he fainted. It was then they heard a voice that hadn't spoken until now: the guard.
"I don't know what just happened," he said, "but I'll have to run down the line and stop any trains from crashing into us. Fireman, take the driver to the hospital. If anybody asks, Barbara broke a valve and ran him over, I can't think of a more logical explanation than that."
The fish train still arrived at Maron, but hauled by Hurricane instead. Barbara was given a replacement crew there and steamed back to Vicarstown light engine.
Fortunately, her driver hadn't been killed and did recover the use of his legs. That didn't stop Ian and him from refusing to accept the explanation they were told.
"I know what I saw, and nobody was run over!" insisted the driver.
"I know," said the fireman, "but it's what we must go with: do you really think anybody will believe a man can just vanish into thin air?"
The driver harrumphed.
Ian, for his part, went ballistic when he was told about it..
"See? SEE?!" he shrieked. "There are demons here, I told you!"
"You're being stupid," snorted Henry. "One of her valves failed and she ran a guy over."
"And how can she run somebody over when she's going slow?!" Ian countered.
Barbara, for the most part, kept quiet, not because she didn't know what to say, but because she wasn't sure if she should stray away from the story the guard told her to tell. Eventually, Edward put an end to the argument.
"Alright, that's enough," he said. "The person she hit probably had hearing problems. It could happen to anybody."
Selena was the only engine who knew what had actually happened, having been informed about it by Barbara when they next met. Not knowing much about Sodor's history before she came, she went down to Crovan's Gate to talk to Skarloey.
On the way, she thought she heard whispers, despairing pleading whispers, near Battlefield Bridge.
"Who's there?!" she called out. There came no reply. Selena felt unnerved by this as she made her way over to Crovan's Gate. She went into the Transfer Siding, where Skarloey was.
"Everything alright, Selena?" asked Skarloey. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"A ghost actually appeared, Skarloey," said Selena. "Not to me, but to Barbara. It occurred at Knapford Ridge."
"Who's Barbara?""
"That would be me," said the Fish Engine, rolling up behind Selena. "Sorry, I needed to get away from all that arguing."
"Well, Barbara," said Skarloey, "if you tell me what you saw, I might be able to reveal a few things. I've been here all my life, and there's only one engine who knows more than me"
Baraba took a deep breath and relayed her story. When she finished, Skarloey's frown turned from concern to sadness.
"So he's still there after all," he sighed.
"Who's still there?"
"I heard this from TKE #3 when he came over for maintenance. When the tunnel between Knapford and Tidmouth was first being built following the TKE receiving a treasury grant, a man was trapped under a landslide. Nobody bothered to dig his corpse out, and the tunnel was built with a skeleton on the wall. Now legend has it he haunts both that tunnel and Knapford Ridge Tunnel. I've no idea why he haunts both, though apparently, there are two different versions: nobody can seem to decide if it was the Knapford Ridge tunnel or the Crosby tunnel."
"I don't remember seeing a skeleton in either tunnel," said Barbara.
"Me neither," added Selena. "Then again, just because we never saw a skeleton doesn't mean it never existed. It may have been taken out before we came to this island."
"Good riddance!" huffed Gordon, as he pulled into the station. "A skeleton inside a tunnel would ruin this railway's image. And all this rubbish about a ghost, please!"
"I saw it," said Barbara. "So did my crew, how can you argue when there were multiple witnesses?"
"Think rationally. How can I not doubt? Do you have any direct proof of what you saw?"
Gordon had a point, but his attitude was not welcome.
"Gordon, this is not a good time," said Barbara.
"Indeed," agreed Gordon. "I have to take an evening express. That means I must depart. Goodbye you two: see you tomorrow!" And with that, Gordon departed.
For a while, everything went perfectly, and Gordon made excellent time. Strange whispers taunted him, however. The A0 ignored them and began to speed up.
"Hurry, hurry, hurry!" he puffed.
"Trickety-trock, trickety-trock," sand the coaches.
As he passed by Killdane, the whispers began to grow louder. They seemed to be pleading for something. Gordon decided to go even faster.
"Driver, more steam please."
Confused, the driver obliged and Gordon began to go even faster. He was soon going at 90 MPH. The driver still slowed him down as they descended Gordon's Hill.
"I hate that name," Gordon growled. As he passed through Wellsworth, the whispers began again. Gordon had had enough. "Knock it off, voices!" he shouted.
The voices seemed to be insulted by that, and Gordon began to hear "Sir Bagel Ginsley" over and over again.
"Stop it, stop it, STOP IT!" he shouted.
"Gordon, why are you shouting? Who are you talking to?"
Gordon snapped back to reality when he heard his driver's voice.
"Uh, nobody," he said, slightly embarrassed. "Please, slow down a little."
Up ahead, he saw the tunnel between Knapford and Crosby, which wasn't too far from the station itself. He saw something else, however: a man standing in the middle of the track.
"Look out!" Gordon shouted, but the man didn't move, not the way Gordon expected: instead, it turned around facing Gordon, then he saw it: the face…The flesh was intact on the head, except for that man's face: it was only bone…with two eyes still attached to the skull. The eyes suddenly bulged, and exploded.
"Oh no! It's true! GHOST!"
Suddenly, Gordon began to speed up!
"Slow down!" his driver called.
"A demon!" shouted Gordon, blowing his whistle frantically. "I must get away! I must get away!"
The driver tried to shut off steam and apply the brakes, but Gordon wouldn't respond! He raced past Knapford at dangerous speeds, and approached the second tunnel, still going too fast.
"Gordon! You'll kill us! We're approaching Tidmouth, slow down!"
It was then that Gordon finally came back to his senses. Realising he was near Tidmouth Station, he applied his brakes and braced for the impact he knew he couldn't avoid!
CRASH!
His eyes shut, Gordon could only wince as he heard smashing and people screaming, before he felt something in front of him break and his buffers touch something hard! When he opened his eyes, the A0 found himself facing a district that was in front of Tidmouth Station. He'd stopped on the staircase leading to the station's entrance
"Help me…please!" he called.
The Fat Director was furious, but only at first. Then he saw the horrific scene.
"My God, Gordon! Are you alright?!"
"I…I don't know!" he wailed.
The driver had broken an arm, but he explained the details.
"Something must have frightened Gordon as we passed through Crosby Tunnel," he told him. "Afterwards, somehow, I couldn't control him."
"At least nobody was killed in the accident," said the Fat Director.
"MY WIFE!"
The driver and Fat Director turned to a man who was staring at the lifeless body of a woman underneath a piece of glass, as well as part of Gordon's bufferbeam.
"MURDERER! I want this engine scrapped!"
"Gordon did not kill her on purpose," said the Fat Director sternly.
The man seemed broken, and began throwing stones at Gordon. That was until two passing police officers tackled him to the ground.
The wife was the only casualty, but the guard and two passengers had also been injured.
"Will I be scrapped, sir?" Gordon asked weakly.
"Of course not: you were by no means responsible for the death of that woman," reassured the Fat Director. "That said, you will need major repairs. Vickers Shipyard will be the best bet: they're the closest one available."
"Yes sir," said Gordon.
"Olive will return to being the sole express engine while you're under repairs, I hope that stupid rivalry will not continue."
"Of course it won't, sir," promised Gordon.
Gordon's driver ended up being fined 50 pounds and sentenced to two months in prison, even though the Fat Director had argued the situation was beyond the driver's control. An engine being able to not stop when the brakes weren't applied just didn't seem possible to the court. The passenger coaches were easily removed, and were mostly unharmed. Gordon, on the other hand, had to stay where he was for two days until the investigation was finished.
However, the other engines were worried, not for their reputation of their railway, but for the story Gordon told when he was recovered: by request, he stayed in Vicarstown yard for the night before heading over to Vickers.
"This ghost seems hostile," stated Selena. "But why is he after us?"
"Maybe he hates railways for how he died," suggested Edward. Thomas rolled his eyes.
"It's all rubbish!" he snorted. "Gordon crashed because his brakes failed!"
"Agreed," muttered Conan.
"If my brakes failed, little Thomas," interjected Gordon, "how was I able to apply them before I crashed?"
"Simple: they weren't strong enough!" said Thomas.
"Don't be absurd: my brakes have been fine up until this moment! IF they weren't strong enough, I would've had a crash sooner!"
Henry decided to intervene.
"You two, shut up."
Both actually did so, much to everyone's surprise.
"We have more important things to worry about," said Henry.
As Gordon was taken away the next morning, the other engines were left in suspense on what this ghost would try next.
(Author's Note: This story takes inspiration from The Signalman by Charles Dickens. Gordon's crash is our version of "A Better View for Gordon" from Season 5, based on the same Garre Montparnasse crash. We also meet two new characters from the Great Central: Barbara, a fish engine who may have had a thing with Luci, and Ian, an Atlantic who is very supersitious.)