//------------------------------//
// Foaming at the Funnel 
// Story: Thomas and Friends: More Tales from Sodor 
// by The Blue EM2 
//------------------------------//

A short way down Thomas' branch line, there is a junction. One line takes trains off to the harbour, and the other leads to Knapford Junction. Near this junction is a dairy. Every morning, specially converted, refridgerated tankers are positioned next to pipes, where they are vacuum unloaded of their supply of cream. Then, they are loaded with milk, and taken away for distribution. Percy is normally the engine who moves the loaded tankers up the line on his first train.

One morning, Wilbert had been assigned this duty, and Thomas was explaining to him in painstaking detail how it all worked. "Keep an eye out for the hosepipe!" he said. "This device allows for the milk to be pumped into the tankers without it going everywhere and making a sticky mess. Make sure to position the tankers correctly to avoid this. Got it?"

"I think so," said Wilbert, who was sure to listen carefully to everything he was told. 

"Are there any other details we should know?" Torque Wrench asked, as she opened Wilbert's cylinder cocks.

"Not that I can think of," Twilight replied. "You two will mostly be on goods traffic, but I imagine you two won't have a problem with that."

And they didn't. Wilbert was assigned to many of Percy's trains, and could handle them with no difficulty, being a much larger and more powerful steam engine than Percy. The trucks were fully aware of this, and were careful to not mess about. The duo had an excellent day, moving trucks about and carefully pulling passengers on occassion when Thomas was indisposed or busy, and Daisy had duties elsewhere.

One day, Wilbert took loaded stone to the harbour. He had set off without his tanks being completely refilled, as the standpipe at the shed was damaged. "I hope I can make it with this much water!" he said.

"We've got 600 gallons!" Torque Wrench replied. "I think we'll be fine."

Once they had dropped off the stone, they remarshalled the train so that the tankers were now out front. They took these up to the junction and pushed them into the dairy siding so they could be emptied of cream. Once that was done, Wilbert collected some vans from the siding, and pushed them onto the mainline. Then he connected to another brake van, and took them up the line with him to Knapford Junction. "If we leave the vans here," he said, "we can collect the tankers when we get to the junction again. Then, we collect the empty stone trucks, drop the tankers as we go up the line, and then leave the empties at the quarry. Easy as pie!"

At the junction, James steamed in. "Hello Wilbert!" he said. "You look splendid!"

"Thank you," Wilbert replied. "And you?"

"I," said James, "have been showing Mister Sunny Skies around the Island. He and that Petunia lady think our island is very beautiful."

Sunny Skies put his head out of the carriage window. "How are you getting on, Wilbert?" he asked.

"Right as rain, sir!" Wilbert replied. "The work here sure is good, and its nice to stretch one's wheels." Torque Wrench hopped out to operate the water tower.

She turned the key.

Nothing happened.

"What?"

Just then, Kerfuffle walked up the platform with the Barrel Twins in tow. "Sorry about that!" she called. "I was out with the track maintenance team earlier. The water supply in the town is cut off as some idiots put something noxious in the water."

Torque Wrench instantly understood what that meant. "Oh, yippee," she said, sarcastically. "No chance to fill up, and we're running low."

Wilbert did look concerned. "Do you think we can do the run on 400 gallons, or should we fill up with a bucket by the river?"

"There's got to be another place where we can fill Wilbert's tanks!" Pickle said.

"Tank," Barley corrected. "Wilbert is a saddle tank. He only has one."

"Alright, Miss Perdantic," Pickle snorted. "The sentiment is the same nontheless."

"Can we come with you?" Kerfuffle asked the guard. "These two need dropping off at Ellsbridge, and there's some trackwork that needs looking at north of Toryreck."

"By all means," said the guard, and they scrambled onboard the guard's van. They made good time to the junction to the harbour, and Wilbert moved onto the siding, ready for the pickup.

Pickle pointed to the siding. "There's a standpipe there," he said. "You could fill Wilbert's boiler from that."

Kerfuffle smiled. "Good thinking, Pickle! Torque, you can use the pipe there to refill the boiler!"

"Got it!" Torque called, and stopped Wilbert just short of the tankers. She grabbed the hosepipe, popped Wilbert's water tank hatch open, and dropped in the pipe before turning the valve.

Barley walked up the train to watch the refuelling procedure, as she was naturally interested in what was going on. "That's funny," she said. "That water is a weird colour."

She clambered into the sideboard, and peered in. "Torque! You have to turn the tap off!" she shouted.

"Why?" Torque Wrench asked.

"You're not filling Wilbert's tanks with water! You're filling it with milk!"

"Horseapples!" Torque Wrench cursed, and ran back up the train after switching the tap off. "Drop the fire! DROP THE FIRE!"

Luckily, Pickle was one step ahead of her, and threw Wilbert's fire out onto the lineside. "He'd have been foaming at the funnel if any of that got into the boiler!" he said.

"And whose idea was it to fill me up here?" Wilbert countered. Thomas eventually came down the line to drag Wilbert back to the shed so his tank could be pumped out. It took them ages to clean up the mess, but by the next morning Wilbert's boiler had been successfully drained, and he was ready to return to service.

Thomas, and thankfully everybody else, was able to see the funny side of the situation. "You and Percy make a fine pair," he joked. "He got the porridge, and you the milk!"

Just then, they overheard some talk outside the shed. It was the voices of Sunny Skies and Petunia Petals. "You know," said Barley, "I think there's something going on between those two..."





"Well," said Sunny, looking up at the night sky, "We don't get night skies like this back home!"

"Nope!" Petunia replied, neither aware the other was blushing. "All that light pollution gets in the way. Out here, we've got all the space and lack of light to see the stars."

Sunny could now sense that his moment to reveal his feelings had come. "Petunia," he said, "Before we go, there's something I wanted to tell you."

"We won't be goin' for a few days, silly!" Petunia replied. "In fact, if that's the case, we've got one last stop at Knapford Junction before we truly set off home."

"I'll do it then, then," Sunny resolved, and all was set.