Thhhe soooouuuuuth Deeeevvooooon sssssuuuuun issss loooovely iiiin the suummmeeer, and wheeeeeeen the sssssssssky iiiiiiis bluuuuueeeeeeee-
Hang on a second, the narrator appears to be in Season 16 mode. Let me just speed him up a bit.
The south Devon sun is lovely in the summer, and when the sky is blue people flock to the beaches to enjoy. Many travel many miles. Some come by car. Others come by boat. And others still go by train.
One such spot is Goodrington Sands, a long beach which can be found near the town of Paignton, in Devon. People have come to sample the beaches here for a very long time. And the railways were quick to capitalise on this, with the local railway opening in 1859, and a dedicated station for the beach opening in 1928.
That railway is still there today, called the Kingswear Steam Railway and Riverboat Company. It is a common sight to see trains blasting past the beaches, with visitors waving to them as they roll by.
But the tourists can be a nuisance as well as a much needed boost to the local economy. This is because these people are not always very considerate of others, and have a bad habit of dumping a lot of rubbish where they have been.
One evening, Sunny, Izzy, and their families were helping to clean up the beach. "How can all these people produce so much mess?" Sunny asked. "Is it really too much effort to take their rubbish home with them?"
"I mean, they could unicycle it," Izzy suggested, looking through several boxes of non disposable plastic. "Imagine the things that could be moved in these! The meals that could be transported! Instead it just ends up in a landfill. I mean, just because it's trash don't mean you throw it away!"
Isaac hauled another bin off the beach and up to the station. "I think Izzy's getting ideas," he said to Aurora. "She's talking about unicycling again."
"Isn't that when you ride around on a pedal powered vehicle with one wheel?" Aurora asked.
"I dunno. Still, that's another bin removed." He removed the lid and revealed a lot of junk in it. "Packed to the rafters, and we still haven't cleaned half the beach!"
"They really should start fining people," Argyle said. "It's not fair on the people who live here."
"The people who do it don't care," Isaac explained. "As far as they're concerned, it's somebody else's problem."
Sunny and Izzy then joined them. "How are we going to move all this garbage?" Sunny asked.
Izzy grinned. "I think I have a solution."
"Have you loaded some sort of biohazard onto the train?" Porter asked, as he was attached to the trucks. "Because it stinks!"
"It's a trash train!" Izzy explained. "We're removing all of the rubbish people leave at the beach and taking it to places to be recycled and reused. Otherwise it would just be burned, and that is a waste of good resources."
"And what's that thing at the end?" Porter asked.
Salty had just attached another wagon onto the train. "It looks to be some sort of organ, me hearties!" he said. "It looks rather too small to be fitted in a church, though, so it may have been part of a travelling fair."
"The owner sold it to a scrapyard, so you're taking it there," Sunny explained. "Good luck. This load looks heavy."
The Kingswear branch is connected to the main line at Paignton via a single line, which is sometimes used by mainline trains to access the carriage sidings. A diesel train was moving into it, which meant Porter had to wait.
Once it was clear, Izzy sounded the whistle. But something sounded wrong. "The whistle sounds a bit odd!" she said.
"Hopefully it isn't a wonky whistle," Porter said. The signal then changed, and the train was now underway. The rather odd formation puffed through the Devon countryside, straining over the banks towards its destination of Newton Abbot goods yard. This was where the wagons full of rubbish would be dropped off and collected by a mainline engine for final transit to a dumping yard near Didcot. The weather remained pleasant as they rattled down the line, and sure enough they came across some people crossing the line.
Porter whistled to warn them- and didn't stop. "Izzy! That's a bit much!"
"I'm not doing anything!" Izzy replied, as they rolled down the hill. "The whistle valved has jammed open!"
The people below certainly got the warning, and ran across the line as Porter sped towards them. Then something far worse happened. Porter's whistle suddenly shot into the air and rocketed away, leaving a jet of steam coming out of the top of the firebox.
"Where'd my whistle go?" he asked.
Izzy brought Porter to a stop. "Somewhere up in the air," she said sadly. "We can't go look for it now. It could be anywhere!"
Not far from the line, a man called Headmaster Hastings was enjoying a walk, when suddenly a metal object landed in a pond next to him. "What was that?" he asked, as he went and looked.
"A steam whistle!" he said. "Not that I was expecting to find an electric whistle out here." He looked around, and saw a steam engine coming to a stop nearby. "Maybe it came from there!"
Izzy was looking at the boiler. "Even if we could repair the whistle I would have to wait for you to cool down," she said. "And the whistle is probably very hot at the moment. Too hot to handle, you could say."
"Oh the indignity," said Porter. "Charles is going to have a field day with this!"
"Excuse me?" said a voice. It was the voice of Headmaster Hastings. "Did you relieve yourself of a whistle recently?"
"That's mine," Porter said. "But we need a way of communicating with other trains. It isn't safe for a train to run with no whistle!"
"Or other means of communication," Izzy added.
"It's right there with you," Headmaster Hastings said. "That's the calliope from the old Churston Fair!"
"The what?" Porter asked.
"A calliope," Headmaster Hastings explained, "is a type of organ powered by steam. It consists of series of whistles, each of which are tuned to a different note. It can be used to play melodies, though it is very loud." He paused. "If you can connect some pipes to the organ, I can play it and warn the other trains that we are approaching!"
"We don't have any pipes," Porter said.
"But we can make them from the trash we've got!" Izzy said. "Time to get creative! I will need a box of macaroni, a tube of glue, fourteen gooey bunnies, and three jelly beans. Oh. And glitter. Lots of glitter."
After a few minutes of work, Izzy had jury-rigged a system of steam pipes from Porter to the calliope. Steam flooded into the pipes and into the organ, which gradually rose to operating pressure. "That should be good!" Izzy called. "Take it away, maestro!"
Headmaster Hastings smiled. "Just like old times." He began to play an elaborate tune to check all the whistles were functioning correctly. The sound caused the local public to turn out in amazement.
He turned to Izzy. "Some of the tuning is a bit wonky, but it should do the trick until we get to Newton Abbot!" he said.
Izzy gave a thumbs up, and opened the regulator after releasing the brakes. The train rolled off down the hill and towards Newton Abbot, with Headmaster Hastings sounding musical notes to emulate engine whistles as required.
Safe to say, nobody had ever seen anything like it. The train eventually arrived in the platform at Newton Abbot, with Headmaster Hastings till playing.
The diesel that was waiting to take the train onwards was amazed. "That was some real creativity, you three!" she said. "Safe to say, nobody had ever thought of that! And old Headmaster Hastings too!"
"I used to play similar instruments back in the day," Headmaster Hastings replied. "But none of this would have been possible without Izzy and her pipes. I shall purchase this organ and restore it to working order!"
That evening, Izzy finished fitting Porter with his whistle, and she went and joined Sunny on the beachfront. "That was an exciting day!" she said.
"Using that old organ to signal your approach was seriously clever," Sunny said. "You sure are good at improvising solutions from trash, Izzy."
"You know what they say. One person's trash is another person's treasure. And I made good use of the things I found. I really must try cosplaying some day." Izzy paused. "It's good to know that organ is going to a good home. Headmaster Hastings has said he'll take it to local fairs to show it off."
"I imagine it'll wow the crowds wherever it goes," Sunny said. "But we're yet to answer the most important question of all."
"Namely?"
"Haddock or cod?"
Izzy smiled. "Isn't the answer obvious? Cod in the south, haddock in the north!"
Salty looked at Porter. "What are they talking about?"
"Sounds fishy to me," Porter replied.