It was a stormy day in Cornwall. The winds blew, and the sky was grey and full of clouds. It seemed as though the sun itself would never shine, though of course that was not the case. But it certainly felt that way.
Rebecca was waiting on shed for Hitch to arrive. Already the other engines were setting off with their jobs. "Watch you don't tip over!" she told Sophie.
"I'll be careful!" Sophie replied. "Good thing Charles isn't out here!"
"He wouldn't need the wind. He's full of it!" Porter joked, as Izzy arrived and got him ready to go.
But then, at last, Hitch arrived. He was still drinking the contents of his coffee cup, and once he had finished he dropped it into the recycling bin, picked up his work order, and climbed Rebecca's cab steps. "We've got quite an interesting job today, it seems," he said, as he read over the documents.
"What is it?" Rebecca asked, as her cutoff was wound forward.
"It's a mail train!" Hitch said. "We haven't worked a dedicated mail train in quite a while, so this should be interesting."
Rebecca eased out of the shed and up the steep access track that controlled access to the main line. Once over the points and past the shunt signal, she stopped and waited for it to clear. With a short whistle to denote she was moving off, Rebecca began to back down on her train, and rolled into the mail coaches with a gentle thump.
The mail coaches were magnificent to look at. Each was painted a deep maroon, with the words ROYAL MAIL on the side, and the crest of the General Post Office in between the words. Each had several doors to enable the efficient loading and unloading of mail, and also featured other equipment bolted into place.
"I doubt we'll be using the drop gear on this run," Hitch said, as he adjusted his jacket. The wind had hit at the wrong angle, and he felt very cold all of a sudden.
His attention was then distracted by a familiar voice approaching the station.
"Come all you young sailor men, listen to me/
I'll sing you a song of the fish in the sea!"
And then the trucks from nearby joined in.
"And it's windy weather, boys/
Stormy weather, boys!
When the wind blows, we're all together, boys!
Blow ye winds westerly, blow ye winds, blow/
Jolly sou'wester, boys, steady she goes!"
Sure enough, the familiar form of Salty rattled to a stop in the platform with a line of vans in front of him. "Foul squall, this!" he said. "Reminds me of the Storm of Southampton! It was so wet that the liner terminal was cut off for a few hours!"
"Was that the one that brought the squid?" Sunny asked.
"No, that was the Great Gale," Salty replied. He then looked over to Rebecca. "You'll have to be careful in this weather. Wind can knock an engine onto its side!"
"Can it?" Rebecca asked.
"Yes. I saw it happen once. It was while a Lord Nelson was moving off shed towards the coaling plant-"
"I thought that was due to incorrectly set points," Sunny said.
"Well, they didn't help, but the wind was the primary factor."
Suddenly, a member of staff handed Hitch a telegram, with an updated weather forecast.
Hitch sighed. "Great. Heavy rain on top of wind. This'll be hard work, I know it."
Just then, the signal dropped, and the guard blew his whistle. "Right away!"
Hitch sounded the whistle in response, and before long the mail train was on its way up the valley. The weather soon began to shift for the worse. The winds grew heavier, and the rain began to thunder down as if pouring from bottomless buckets. This made going very difficult, but they still had to stop at all the stations in order to load and unload mail.
Rebecca's wheels slipped periodically, but overall she was doing fine on her run up to Truro. Her fire burned nice and hot, and helped to keep Hitch warm considering the temperatures dropping outside.
When they arrived at Penrhyn, more bad news was to come. The rain was only continuing to get worse, and there was now thunder and lightning to contend with on top of the existing stormy conditions. Once the parcels and mail were exchanged, they were on their way once more.
Unfortunately, the line up ahead was not as safe as they had hoped. Railway lines have to cope with rain and large amounts of water, or else the water may wash away the ballast and track. To prevent this, many railway lines have storm culverts, tiny drains that help to route water away from the track.
Unfortunately, one of the storm culverts had failed in the storm, as the water levels were well in excess of what it had been designed to cope with. The resulting flood of water had poured onto the line, washing away the ballast and leaving the tracks suspended in mid air.
Luckily, a farmer had discovered the problem, and was now standing by the side of the line waving a red flag. "STOP! STOP!" he called. "THE LINE IS OUT! THE LINE IS OUT!"
Hitch was looking down the line, and suddenly he saw a red flag waving about. "Rebecca! Time to stop!" he shouted. He slammed the regulator shut and applied full brake. The brake blocks groaned and squealed as they worked against the wheels, but they succesfully bit into the wheels and brought the train to a stop.
Once the train had stopped, Hitch secured Rebecca in place and hopped down from the cab. "What's happened?" he asked.
"Come and see for yourself," the farmer replied, and he led him to the collapsed ground.
"Good grief!" Hitch said. "We wouldn't have wanted to fall down that. The gap is huge!"
"You'd be lying at the side of the river, I'd reckon," the farmer replied. "We need to report this to the railway. I can head back to Penrhyn to warn them."
Hitch looked at the train. "I'll ask the guard to lay down detonators as a warning precaution," he said. "Protecting the line is vital."
"But how will we deliver the mail?" Rebecca asked.
"Never mind the mail," Hitch said. "We'll need to ensure the line is safe, and the mail can be delivered by foot if needed."
Both of them worked to ensure the line was safe. Luckily, the failure of a track circuit in the collapse of the embankment had already put the signals on the northern end of the line to danger, and a work team was already on its way to stabilise the site.
Once the mail train had returned to Penrhyn, Hitch was greeted by a surprising sight, as the familiar horn of a van tooted in the distance. Sure enough, a bright red van pulled into the car park, and the familiar face of Fifi got out. "Hello!" she said. "I heard you were in a spot of bother, and wanted to help!"
Hitch nodded. "Could you transport all this mail to Perranwell and Truro, please?"
"Bag it up and bob's your uncle!"
"My parents are both only children," Hitch replied.
"It's a figure of speech," Fifi smiled, and walked to the platform. "Right, should be an easy job!"
Fifi loaded all the sacks of mail into her van, and then drove off towards Perranwell. Delivering all the mail took a while, but sure enough she succesfully delivered the mail. She rolled back into Penrhyn station just as Sophie arrived with an engineering train on the other platform.
"Job's done!" she called. "Mail succesfully delivered!"
"Great work," Hitch smiled. "Now the hardest job begins- fixing the line."
The repair work took a while, but by the next morning the damaged track and embankment were succesfully relayed. Now that the line was open again, trains could resume.
And with all the mail delivered, they had avoided a very unfortunate return to sender.