On starry nights-
"Yes, boss?"
Not you, Starry Night. Please go back indoors.
"Sorry."
Start again. On starry nights, when the moon is full, you can hear the sound of distant ships and echoing laughter. The sound runs over the hills and the valleys, through the trees and forests, and down the canals and into the sea. Everybody who lives on Sodor can tell you what that sound indicates. It tells you that Tidmouth Harbour is hard at work, and that friends are happy together, shunting trucks and assembling trains for their long journeys to places far away.
Henry was sitting on the dockside at 3 in the morning on a glorious Spring night. The air was cool, but not cold, and Fluttershy checked over one last time to ensure Henry was ready to go. That night was a tough one. There was more fish than usual, and as a result the Flying Kipper, which usually ran with 20 vans, was now a whopping 40 vans long, a load that was very heavy for a Black 5. Duck was propelling the rest of the vans into position, very slowly may I add owing to the immense weight. These vans were not the usual design used on the Flying Kipper. The normal stock used was XP rated metal 12T vans built by British Railways. The new vans were mostly old GWR vehicles, being a mixture of the wooden bodied 'Bloater' fish vans, and a handful of Hawksworth 'Monster' vans that had been hastily converted into XP rated stock.
As Duck finished moving the vans, puffing and panting at the strain, Thomas pulled up with some TPO vehicles due to collect mail and take it across the Island. "Hello Duck!" he said. "Going fishing, are we?"
"Not exactly," Duck replied. "These vans are heavy, though. I'm no stranger to hard work, but I could do with a breather!"
"You an' me both," Apple Bloom added. She had had a long day, and was currently hopped up on coffee as a precaution.
"I'd go easy," Twilight explained. "Thomas and I know the hard was how much of a mess fish can make, especially when one got stuck in Thomas' tanks and blocked the feed pipe."
"Well, I did shunt Newham Docks near Truro back in the day," Duck continued. "I knew that smelly fish was a bad sign. It was going off."
"Did you hear about the express train that had fish attached to the back?" Thomas asked. "They were moving the fish in open trucks, causing it to rot. They were fined by the Office of Rail and Road for health and safety and safe operating violations!"
"It's a good thing we have this XP rated stock then," Duck smiled. "All refridgerated, so no chance of the fish going off."
"Granny Smith once showed me how they kept fish before they invented fridges," Apple Bloom told them. "Accordin' ta her, they used ta absolutely plaster it in salt!"
"That may explain why soda sales were so high back then," Twilight mused.
"Duck!" called the foreman. "You need to proceed ahead of the Flying Kipper to Wellsworth. You will wait for it there and bank the train up Gordon's Hill!"
"On it, sir!" called Duck, and he puffed away, single lamp gleaming in the dark.
Henry continued to grumble. "This load is frightfully heavy for a Black 5. Can't I at least have a support locomotive on the front?"
"I'm certain you can do it, Henry," Fluttershy replied. "I believe in you. We only need to get as far as Wellsworth, and then Duck and Apple Bloom will help us up! Won't that be nice?"
"And then a nice run down the hill," Henry smiled. "All aboard!"
The last door banged, the guard showed his green lamp, and the Flying Kipper was, once more, ready to go. Henry's Stanier Hooter blasted over the yard, and he was on his way.
Meanwhile, Duck was sitting in the siding at Wellsworth, waiting for Henry to arrive. Applejack and Apple Bloom sat on the station platform (which was virtually deserted) sharing a mug of hot chocolate and swapping stories.
"So, it turned out Bulgy was fulla chickens!" Apple Bloom finished. "Now he's a fruit and veg stand!"
"Ah once bought an apple from there once," Applejack mused. "Did ya hear about the time that a barge was filled with stone trucks? They did repair him, but he sure weren't so rude after that."
Moments later, Henry rolled to a stop in the platform, clear of the support siding to allow Duck to buffer up. Fluttershy sounded the whistle sequence; Long-Long-Short-Long.
Duck responded with the same, as Apple Bloom had retaken the controls, and was rolled into the buffers on the rear vehicle.
"Why is there no brake van?" asked Apple Bloom.
"The train is fully fitted," Duck explained. "That means it doesn't need a brake van, as all of the trucks are connected to the engine's braking system. That's why it can run so quickly."
Duck wasn't coupled to the train, so he could stop when Henry cleared the worst of the gradient. It was an immensely heavy load for the two engines.
"Be careful!" called Edward. "It's quite slippery on the hill! We've had a bad lot of rain recently!"
Moments later, the Flying Kipper set off once more, both engines belching smoke and puffing hard, pushing or pulling depending on which end of the train they were on. The noise was so loud it could be heard miles away, the booming puff of a Stanier chimney combined with a harsh Collett bark. Henry was pulling so hard that Duck was struggling to keep up, and he actually dropped back as the weight on his buffers slackened.
"That's odd!" he said. "Henry must be having an easier time than we thought!"
"Look!" Apple Bloom called. "There's no tail lamp!" She blasted the whistle, but there was no response from Henry.
Henry, meanwhile, was still pulling ahead, but was starting to slow down. His driving wheels began to slip furiously on the wet rails. "Where's Duck?" he asked.
At the back of the train, the rear of the train suddenly loomed into view. "BRAKES!" Duck called.
Apple Bloom slammed the brakes on, but they were too close and there was not enough time to stop. Duck smashed into the rear Bloater van and completely demolished it, wood and fish flying everywhere. Fluttershy brought the train to a stop owing to the sudden jolt at the back of the train.
Duck blinked. "Oops."
The next day, Sir Toppham Hatt came to see Duck, who was unhurt but sad. "Cheer up Duck!" he said. "The accident wasn't your fault. We discovered that a faulty lamp bracket was the cause of the accident. It had come loose with age, and the rotten wood didn't help. You and Apple Bloom are good to go."
Duck still looked sad. "I'll never hear the end of this," he sighed.
Thomas, a few stalls over, felt sorry for Duck. "Don't you worry," he said. "We all make mistakes, myself more than others, but what matters is not how we fall, but how we get back up and learn from them."
Apple Bloom smiled. "Thanks," she said. "Well, it's back ta work on the Little Western. Come on Duck!"
With a blast of his whistle, Duck was back in business. Nobody mentions fish to him now!