The night soon vanished away, travelling into the darkness like the great sagas of old do pass away and fade, and a new morning dawned upon the city of Carlisle, the jewel of the Solway Firth (subject of possibly the most pointless bridge ever built in British history, as it went more or less nowhere across the Solway Firth, which is a very important waterway that is not to be confused with the Firth of Tay, or the Firth of Forth, which are not only mostly in an entirely separate country, that country being Scotland, they are also on the opposite side of the land of Britain, nearer to Berwick upon Tweed than Carlisle). To the north of the city lies Kingmoor, a small surburb that was chosen by the Caledonian and London and North Western Railway as the facility for an engine shed where they could keep their engines, coal and water them, refuel them, and turn them around to either continue on north to Glasgow or return south to Preston. The arrival of the Midland in 1870 had made things even more complicated, and when the Glasgow and South Western had begun running trains into Carlisle with the Port Road and the Ayr Line, the place became a hive of activity, not to mention an absolutely bottleneck for passenger and freight traffic.
Alas time, in all its wisdom, had marched onwards to the future, and the old depot, 12A, had closed in 1967 with little to show for itself other than grubby Black 5s and 8Fs. A new depot, or Tractive Maintenance Depot (or TMD, for short) had been built on the other side of the line to specifically service diesel locomotives, as they were the future until the electrification of the West Coast Main Line could be completed. This depot had itself been closed in 1987, but had been reopened in 1998 by Direct Rail Services (DRS), and now was home to large numbers of diesel engines that belonged to the operator.
That morning, as the sun rose and beheld its sleepy eye upon the world, the depot began to wake up, sounding gently to the ticking of spirax valves and the start of engines, which whined and roared as they were pulled out of bed far earlier than they were comfortable with. In one part of the shed, near the turntable, were 70000 and 60077, having rested overnight from the previous day's excitement. In the time since we last met them, the leaky tanks on 60077 had been fixed by the engineers from the National Railway Museum, but to be safe, they had stated that the engine could not run under full power for the rest of the run to avoid using too much water from the tender. This could cause the problem to start all over again, and that was the last thing they needed with a railtour to run and a network to slot in with. It would lead to delays (though, frankly, Northern Rail travellers wouldn't notice much of a difference in that regard).
Tom, Jimmy, Katrina and Stephanie headed toward the depot to get the engines prepared for work. "OK," Tom spoke up. "Because of the technical problems we've been having with 60077, we are going to put that engine on the front of the train. That way, if the engine were to fail, 70000 can provide most of the power and keep it going until we can drop the engine off at a siding for repairs."
"Hopefully that won't happen," Katrina said quietly.
"Yeah!" Steph snorted. "I doubt the National Railway Museum would be happy with us breaking one of their engines!"
"Indeed," Jimmy laughed as well. Katrina looked annoyed.
"Cool it, ladies," Tom told them. "We've got a job to do. You can argue all you want when we get back to Bury. Before that, we need to get this train back home. We need to move our engine onto the turntable first, then 60077 can be turned. After that, we can proceed over to the marshalling yards, collect our coaches, and be on our way."
The two crews hopped into their respective cabs, and the engines were moved and turned with speed and efficiency. The two locomotives, now coupled together, began to move backwards toward the coaches, which had been cleaned since yesterday and were ready to go once again. After successfully coupling up, the two engines began to pull them forward, out of the yard, and past the depot. As they ran toward the station, the working was diverted over the freight lines via Bog Junction, and went up and down some rare track (or trackage, as Americans would call it), and after a short run up to the platforms, came to a smooth stop in the platform at Carlisle Citadel.
Meanwhile, the families who had been travelling on the train had had a similarly pleasant day in Carlisle, and had had a meal out at one of the hotels before going to bed for the next morning. Now they were up, and hyped for their onward journey, and had assembled on the platform.
"I think this direction is the better one," Rainbow Dash told Scootaloo. "True, you've got the flat bit from Carlisle to Appleby, but beyond that, its a nonstop climb to Garsdale!"
"I've heard it's especially fun with a Jubilee, or a Black five!" Scootaloo replied, checking over some of her pictures from yesterday. "That's funny, the two engines are the other way around today."
"Didn't ya hear they were havin' technical problems?" Applejack asked her in all seriousness. "They've put The White Knight on the front as it was leakin' like a busted drain yesterday. That way, if it fails, they won't damage the engine by pullin' on it too hard. They'll only be pushin'!"
"That makes sense."
Just then, the doors opened, and the passengers got onboard to await departure at 7:11 AM.
Thunder thundered overhead, as it usually did, in an otherwise clear sky.