Chapter 20
After all the announcements of marriages and with the railway growing and humans coming in to assist on the fleet, as well as more and more work ponies joining the ranks, it put Dangersignal’s mind at ease. Another thing that put his mind at ease was that Rainbow Dash was willing to help by acting as a message courier.
Dragonstorm took up being the Assistant Controller and Lightning Dust acted as a second message courier. During the time that the two couples were planning their marriage, the shops at the Crystal Empire had rolled out the eleven Manors needed to work the steep graded line to the Crystal Empire from Canterlot.
“Why’d you have these “Manor” engines built?” Rainbow Dash asked Dangersignal one day over doughnuts and cocoa. The others were joining them and were rather curious as well.
“Well Manors have a reputation for putting the Welsh Mountains in their place. They were basically smaller 4-6-0s to the Kings, Castles, Halls, Saints and Stars. When they were built, their blast pipe, which creates a vacuum that helps keep steam pressure were built slightly too big, which created all sorts of drafting problems. Later in 1951, the blast pipe was reduced by ½ an inch and couple that with a slightly tweaked superheater and you have an engine that could put most of the British Railway Standards to shame,” Dangersignal said.
“Ah, a regular mountain attacker,” Lightning Dust said. “Must have been a great class.”
“They were,” Dangersignal agreed. “However, only 30 were built and nine survive into preservation.”
To them, that was a real shock. After finding their tongues, Applejack asked about the LBSCR E2 class tank engines that she saw shunting around Baltimare harbor.
“Ten built, all ten scrapped by the end of something called WWII. In fiction, Thomas the Tank Engine himself is based on an E2 with Extended Side tanks, and is the only one of the entire class of ten preserved,” Dangersignal said. “When British Railways decided to modernize their railway network and introduce diesels, steam engines were withdrawn and cut up before preservationists could get to them.”
“What is this “preservation” thing?” Twilight asked.
“Preservation is the act of preserving history, so people in today’s day and age can experience travel that was experienced in the 1920’s and into the 1960’s. In fact, the first preserved railway wasn’t a standard gauge railway at all, it was a narrow gauge railway,” Dangersignal explained. “In the early days of preservation, preservationists, or people who wanted to save history, would snatch anything they could get their hands on. Scrap Merchants and even Scrap Yards were making money on this preservation ordeal and even one Scrapyard in Southern Wales, known as Barry Island Scrapyard, had a group dedicated to saving steam engines that came to their yard. The team was known as the “Barry Steam Locomotive Action Group” and they would go around and list the condition of whatever locomotives they had left.”
“Woah,” Rainbow Dash said. “So this scrap yard was bent on saving locomotives?”
“Yes, in fact, Dai Woodham himself ordered his men to break up wagons and coaches first, then engines,” Dangersignal said.
The others were silent as they let the knowledge that Dangersignal imparted sink in. Another thought struck them.
“I’ve got something to ask you,” Rarity said.
“Shoot,” Dangersignal said.
“What is with the black on most, if not all the engines?” she asked.
“Oh, most of the engines on this railway are goods engine, so they were painted black to hide grime and dirt,” Dangersignal stated. “And when British Railways was formed, the steam engines were painted black or Brunswick Green, as they were phasing out steam traction in favor of the diesel locomotive. Many passenger engines are painted Black for the time being, considering we don’t have any good color photographs of the engines in their proper livery.”
Again, they nodded. The talk of railways reminded Dangersignal of something and he pulled out a small calendar to check something, then he groaned.
“I’d forgotten that!” he spluttered.
“Forgotten what?” Rarity asked.
“A special shipment of fabrics and supplies that you ordered are waiting at Baltimare harbor and I forgot to get an engine to take it!” Dangersignal stated.
“You…forgot…my…” Rarity stammered out.
“Wait here, I’ll fix this in no time at all,” he said.
With that, Dangersignal bolted after paying for his doughnuts and cocoa. Once clear of the station, he took to the sky and flew towards Baltimare. When he arrived, he saw the special delivery waiting, but no engine to take it. He then ran to the sheds to see that the K class 2-6-0 was sitting, waiting for “turn of duty”. the paint was fading away and the poor thing looked like it was waiting for the end.
He inspected the engine and found nothing wrong with it, which was a relief. He spent his time getting the engine fired up to “rescue” the stranded goods train. It was a stroke of luck that there was an engine to do this at all. Normally, the entire fleet would be out on runs, but it seemed that this engine was left behind.
Dangersignal was slightly upset that a splendid engine would be left behind, but he had no time to be angry with anyone. Instead, when he had pressure up, he ran the engine over to the wagons and coupled them up. The guard was ready and when the signals dropped and points clanked into position, the guard gave the green flag and the train started off.
“Now this is what I live for!” he cheered over the rattling and clanking of the fast rolling goods train.
He fired through the junction outside Canterlot and was now rolling towards Ponyville’s goods platform. Easing back the regulator and setting the brakes, Dangersignal checked all signals. He began the appropriate motions to keep the wagons in check, but it happened.
One minute, they were carefully reaching the platform starter signal, the next, there came a screeching banging noise. He glanced back to see sparks shooting up from the middle of the train!
He set the brakes and whistled the appropriate message for the guard to pin the brakes. When the guard did and the train came to a safe stand, Dangersignal ran back to where he’d seen the sparks. What he saw caused him to stare blankly for half an hour.
“I don’t believe it!” he yelped in surprise. “The axles on the middle van are gone completely!”
He was right, where the axles should be was empty. Instead axle boxes and frames were left in place. The pieces of the axles were found several feet back. Dangersignal soon sighed with relief.
“We’re lucky that we didn’t dump the train,” he said.
“I agree,” said the guard.
The goods were soon unloaded and delivered while Dangersignal waited for a crane and well wagon. Rules stated that the driver had to wait with the damaged train until help arrived. The guard caught the local back to Baltimare. When the passenger train was gone, Dangersignal took the K class 2-6-0 and moved the rear portion of the train off the damaged wagon and then did the same with the front portion, shunting them about until the engine was coupled to the return train.
The crane and well wagon soon came up and the wagon was loaded. Once it was secured, the rescue train set off, leaving men and ponies to check the rails. The goods train set off an hour later and Dangersignal was careful all the way back to Baltimare harbor.
He felt a little silly, trying to rush about and ending up damaging a wagon. Luckily, none of the goods were damaged and he was able to rest easy. After shunting the wagons into their proper siding and shunting the engine over the “fire dump pit” track to dump the fire, he flew back to Ponyville. The long flight gave his mind time to play back over all that happened.
“Yes,” he said, grinning contentedly. “We’ve succeeded.”