Rumble lives up at the sawmill. He awoke one morning to the smell of pines and freshly chopped wood. “It’s just like home,” he smiled.
“There’s more trees than Trottingham,” Pip admitted. “I was used on an oil line.”
“I’m from here,” Featherweight told them, “and I can tell you that it used to be lot more forested.”
The factory whistle blew. “Time to work!” shouted the foreman.
Whilst the others were busy shunting the wagons, Rumble headed down the line to collect the log wagons. He ran down the line tender first, in order to reduce wear and tear on his axles, and reached the station at the bottom in around an hour. He backed into the loading platform as Apple Bloom puffed by with a slate train. “Mornin’!” she exclaimed.
“Nice to see you!” Rumble replied. He moved forward onto the siding and coupled up to the trucks. Backing up again, he waited for the points to be changed and then rolled forward, producing a colossal din as he did so.
The run up the valley was nice. It was punctuated by trees, and had some excellent views on the way. It was also very steep, so Rumble had to concentrate on his way up.
He arrived at the sawmill with the wagons, and shunted them into the sawmill for Pip and Featherweight to handle. He then backed up, and ran into a siding.
After a few minutes, the return train was ready. Rumble coupled on, only to feel another engine buffering up behind him. “Pip?” he asked.
“This train is heavy,” Pip explained. “They wanted two engines on it to get it down the hill.”
The two engines backed up and rolled along the track. The gradient was fine at first, but they got to the steepest part of the line. “Hey, Rumble, are we slowing down?” asked Pip.
“No, speed should be constant.”
There was suddenly a loud bang, and the weight of the trucks surged against them. “That doesn’t sound good!” Pip cried.
They were zooming down the hill and untold speed, racing underneath waterfalls, thundering through tunnels, and flying over bridges. All the while they were rocking from side to side, taking bends way too fast.
Both engines’ brakes screeched as they flew down the line, trying their very hardest to slow down. They flew round the bend leading to the lake, and began to tip over.
“This isn’t good!” cried Rumble.
“You think?” answered Pip.
The brakes finally began to have an effect, but the two engines whistled frantically. 4 short, sharp blasts.
The signalman, hearing the signal, threw the switch and ran the engines onto the mainline. He was most shocked when two Shays roared past, with a full train in tow.
He grabbed his radio. “Clear the line, it’s a runaway train!”
As they screeched down the mainline, the two engines braked hard, the noise terrible. They thundered through the first station, past an extremely surprised Silver Spoon.
As they came onto the final part of the track, the two engines started to slow down. They flew through the platform, and were diverted onto a siding.
At the end lay a barber’s shop. Rumble set his cylinders to run forward to try and slow them down.
It was too little, too late. The two engines and their heavy train smashed into the building, completely flattening it.
The breakdown train arrived, hauled by Gilda from the mainline with the cranes. “You got yourself in quite a mess, eh?” she asked. “Luckily, that barber shop was empty at the time you crashed into it.”
Once the two engines were lifted onto the track, and Featherweight had taken the trucks away, Cheerilee came to speak to them.
“Miss Cheerilee, it wasn’t our fault-” Pip began.
“I know, don’t worry. The brakes on those wagons were faulty. You two can return to work whenever you wish.”
And so, the 3 logging engines continued to work together up at the sawmill, though the rollercoaster was never brought up again.