Chapters The engines awoke in a palpable state of fright. Where, oh where, was Cozy Glow?
“She’s vanished!” cried Diamond.
“But who would take her?” asked Babs.
Scootaloo narrowed her eyes. “I heard a massive steam engine pass through here last night, and something else appeared on the other line, according to a foreman.”
“Tirek, it has to be,” Sweetie Belle replied.
Cheerilee ran into the depot, having heard the news. “All of you, Cozy Glow must be found!” she cried. “That includes you, Ocellus!”
Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle set off for the lakeside station, leaving only Diamond and Silver to handle passengers. But with 3 engines down, it was required that some rejigging of the timetable was required. As a consequence, the roster of engines for the logging line was reduced from 3 to 2. In addition, Button Mash was reassigned to the quarry. To say the least, he was most glad for the change in scenery.
But this meant that the wharf had no engine overseeing it. So, that honour fell to Pip. Not surprisingly, he was a little nervous at this prospect, and feared things going wrong.
One day, he backed into the trucks with a jolt, not being used to slate wagons, and sent them rolling backwards.
“Sorry!” he said, sheepishly.
“We want a proper engine, not a brown monster!” the trucks shouted.
“Well, you’ll have to settle with me,” Pip told them. “There is no engine else to do the work.”
Apart from that mishap, Pip handled the wharf very well. His increased power allowed him to move the trucks around quite easily, and the trucks behaved for the most part. Cheerilee was most impressed with the work he had done.
“Pip, I am very pleased with what you have done today,” she smiled. “I hope you are happy with overseeing it tomorrow.”
“Thank you miss Cheerilee!” said the Shay, beaming with pride.
That night, at the depot, he spoke with the others about it.
“Miss Cheerilee asked me to work the Wharf again tomorrow, how about that?”
“She must have confidence in you,” Rumble admitted.
“Button may want to be careful,” Featherweight laughed, “Or you may get his job!”
Pip was immensely worried. He didn’t want to take any other engine’s jobs, and hadn’t realised that Featherweight was joking.
The next morning at the Wharf, Pip steamed around, looking worried. Featherweight’s words echoed in his mind, and he didn’t concentrate on what he was doing.
As a result, he crashed into some trucks-again.
“Sorry!” he said, again.
But trucks are not so easy to forgive. They decided to play a little game on the Shay.
Later in the day, Pip was pulling the trucks back toward the shed. On the way toward the shed, there was a turntable, which Pip had to pass over in order to reach the shed.
It was then the trucks saw their chance. “Go, go, go!” shouted their leader. They surged forward, pushing the engine along the track.
“Hey! What gives?” Pip exclaimed. But he slid along the line, uncontrollably, being propelled by some angry slate wagons.
He put his brakes on, and the train started to slow down. “I’m winning!” he gasped.
But he was nowhere near winning. He realised his mistake when his rear power truck touched air, and tilted downwards, falling into the turntable pit. His smokebox pitched into the air, his cylinders spinning wildly.
“This is embarrassing!” he cried.
But the worst was yet to come. The ballast was not designed to take an engine of his weight, and the ground beneath him collapsed, causing the geared locomotive to fall partially into the ground.
“HELP!”
Later that day, Snips and Snails arrived with the breakdown train. Gilda and Lightning Dust brought the mainline cranes, as the narrow-gauge cranes couldn’t lift the logging engine.
After some considerable effort, and several hours, they finally had the engine back on the rails.
Cheerilee came to see him. “What happened?” she asked.
“I’m really sorry,” said Pip. “I wasn’t focusing on what I was doing and must have bumped the trucks. They pushed me along the rails and I ended up in the turntable pit.”
“Pip,” Cheerilee explained, “You need to focus on your work, or else you can make mistakes.”
“I know, Miss Cheerilee. I suppose I won’t be taking Button’s job then.”
“What?”
Pip quickly explained what Featherweight had said. Cheerilee simply laughed.
“Featherweight was joking! We’ve only got the engines set up this way because of the locomotive shortage. When the others come back, we are all going back to our old jobs.”
Pip was most relieved, but from then one was a wiser engine who didn’t let what others said bother him.
Pip got no end of ribbing as a result of the accident. Rumble and Featherweight would talk endlessly about engines who ended up in turntable pits, whereas Pip would respond with stories of engines who went on rollercoaster rides and got splashed in paint.
One day, Babs was waiting at the junction with her passenger train. Pip came down the line with Rumble and Featherweight in tow.
“Watch those trucks, or else they may end up in a turntable!” Rumble laughed.
Pip was obviously upset about this, and Babs saw this.
“Hey!” she shouted. “Stop that, you guys!”
“Why should we?” asked Featherweight. “It’s extremely funny!”
“Well, I’ll whoop your sorry tenders if you don’t!”
That shut them up.
There is one particular working that is especially important. That working is the express. It departs from Ponyville at 1’o clock every day, and returns at 2. It usually handled by the most powerful engines on the line.
One morning, Diamond Tiara was being readied for the express run. Silver Spoon was up in the quarry helping Button, as the workload was too heavy for him on some days.
“You see Babs,” she said. “We tender engines are important. We are the only ones who can handle the heavier trains.”
Babs rolled her eyes. She was used to tender engines giving her rubbish, but the fact that Diamond was just a glorified tank engine made it worse. She said nothing as Diamond went on.
There was a loud whistle. “That’s my cue!” Diamond said. “See you at 2!”
Babs pulled some more coaches into the platform and waited for the return train. However, she was made aware of a loud wheeshing noise as she waited.
Coming toward her, was Diamond Tiara and her coaches.
“Hey, is it 2 already?” Babs laughed.
“No, there’s a faulty signal,” Diamond explained. “We had to be sent back. So embarrassing!”
The Station Master came over. “We need to get things moving again. Babs, your train will form the express.”
“Me?” the tank engine said, looking extremely surprised.
“It’s that, or we disappoint a lot of people.”
“I’ll do it,” said Babs.
The passengers climbed onboard, and the guard blew his whistle and waved his flag. Babs started off, much more gently this time, and climbed the hill out of the station with not too much difficulty.
The countryside seemed to fly by. For the small tank engine, used to shunting trucks in a gasworks, this was a very different life. She thundered through the stations, racing past the Refreshment Lady who was expecting a load of passengers.
“Oh, not again!” she groaned.
Babs took the gradient up to the top station in her stride. Though her wheels slipped and skidded, she kept going nonetheless. She had a duty to these passengers, and she would do it.
The noise echoed off of the walls of the valley, a small tank engine lugging a colossal train up a steep slope. Passengers at the top station came out to see what was going on.
A loud whistle echoed up the line, and Babs steamed into the platform, exhausted but happy.
Cheerilee was waiting at the top station. “Well done Babs!” she said. “In spite of being underpowered for the train, you continued onward nonetheless. As a result, I have decided to name you, as you have more than earned your name.”
Babs could only beam with pride. “Thank you Miss Cheerilee,” she said.
Whilst this was going on, Scootaloo, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle had gone down the old branch line from which Cozy had emerged. They followed it along, before it suddenly dived into a cave in the ground!
Before they knew what was happening, they were descending at high speed into the very depths of the Earth.
They soared over bridges built of crystal, and through canyons of glass. But what awaited them was horrifying.
They found a vast cavern, with railway lines snaking everywhere. There were engines of a multitude of builds and era shunting trucks around, all of them looking to be in a very poor state. Suddenly, they saw Cozy Glow amongst them, her paintwork smudged and the text on her tanks reapplied, although in such a haphazard way a blind monkey could have done a better job.
Scootaloo noticed a sign, and read it out. “You are now entering Tartarus Mining Corporation property.” She looked shocked. “I didn’t believe it until now, but those engines are really poorly treated.”
In the centre, a standard-gauge line was visible, with Cerberus hauling a long heavy train.
“Move along, my little tank engines,” said a voice behind them.
Two diesel engines rudely shoved the three tank engines along the track, to a set of points before a turntable. There was a large red Beyer-Garratt positioned on this turntable.
The deck of the turntable slowly rotated round, to reveal the engine in all his horror.
“Hello,” he said. “I was expecting you.”
“What do ya want with Cozy?” Apple Bloom demanded.
“Asking questions of me, how extremely bold,” laughed the engine. “I think some introductions are in order. My name...is Tirek.”
The three Hunslets shuddered. “Tirek!” they chorused.
“The very same. I have authority courtesy of the manager of the company down here. My word is law. Now then, about your friend.”
“Will you give her back?” asked Sweetie Belle.
“No.”
“Why?” Scootaloo asked.
“Because she is property of the Tartarus Mining Corporation until the Manager decides otherwise!” Tirek laughed. “That is how economics works, you know.”
“But you never sell engines!” Apple Bloom protested. “You work them until they wear out and then scrap them!”
“Because they are machines, and when a machine is no longer of use, you break it down,” Tirek explained. “That’s how Cerberus was created. True, he has no intellect, having the personalities of 3 engines mashed together, but nonetheless he is a very good worker.”
“But Cozy Glow is staying, no matter what. But seeing as you are so desperate to see her, you will stay here as well.”
Work in the Tartarus mine was difficult. The days were long, the conditions were hot and noisy, and the environment was not clean. It was not long until the engines were grubby and dirty, their paintwork no longer visible under all the soot.
Scootaloo shoved some wagons under the coaling chute. Grubby, brown coal fell out of the hopper and into the trucks. As Scootaloo puffed forward, another release came out, and covered her in soot.
“Help!” she cried. “I’m choking!”
Suddenly, a steel cable attached itself to her back coupling, and began pulling her backwards along with the truck. Scootaloo backed up, coughing as she reversed, and saw her rescuer.
He was a WD 2-10-0, painted black with red lining. He was old, but kind, and looked at her with an expression of sadness and pity.
“Thanks,” Scootaloo said.
“No problem,” replied the engine. “I’m called Sanguine. For the record, I want to get out of here too.”
“How do we escape?” asked the tank engine.
“Cerberus covers the standard-gauge line out of the mine, whereas those diesels you met-Cockatrix and Bugbear-cover the other lines. If we want to succeed, we have to rush both lines at once.”
That night, they put their plan into effect. The standard gauge engines fired up, and charged for the door whilst the narrow-gauge engines snuck out via the back door. Scootaloo led the charge, with Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle right behind. Cozy Glow followed shortly after, but a loud roar could be heard as the diesels charged after them.
Apparently incapable of speaking, the two diesels simply roared and shrieked at them. The sound was terrifying. The caverns streaked out ahead of them as they thundered upwards.
Just as the three engines emerged from the darkness, a scream could be heard behind them. "Help me!"
Sweetie Belle shouted to the others, “Cozy’s in trouble!”
Tirek had coupled up to her. “Hello Cozy!” he laughed.
Cozy’s wheels spun furiously as she tried to get free. But Tirek was too strong, dragging her back down into the mine.
Scootaloo looked at the others. “I’m going after them.”
“Are ya crazy?” asked Apple Bloom.
“I have to help a friend! Get out of here!”
The two other engines sadly continued to the surface.
Scootaloo ran at speed through the tunnels, finally reaching a junction. There, Tirek had dragged Cozy to the edge.
“You move another wheel,” he said, “and I push her over the edge.”
“What would that gain you?” Scootaloo asked.
Tirek puzzled that. “Nothing,” he replied.
“So why not come with us?”
The Beyer-Garratt looked sad. “Tartarus is all I’ve known.”
“There’s a whole world out there! Come on and enjoy it!”
Tirek smiled. “I will, then.”
Once the engines returned, there was a great party thrown in their honour. One of the engines they had rescued was named Dinky, and after a refit and repair, was put into service with the railway.
Tirek, for his size, was a very useful engine. He was soon put to work on the heavy slate trains on the line.
Cozy Glow made up with Applejack, and the engines came together. They were friends, they were together, and theirs had been a narrow-gauge adventure.
The End.
Cast-in order of appearance:
Author's Note
The final group of new engines introduced this story:
Well, that concludes this first series of narrow gauge stories! I'm taking a break from this to focus on other projects, but I will be coming back to this, as well as writing some standard gauge stories.
