//------------------------------//
// Casey Jones was a Mighty Man 
// Story: Thomas and Friends: Legends of Strasburg 
// by The Blue EM2 
//------------------------------//

At a local establishment, the parents of the group had gathered to watch proceedings on the railway over some warm drinks. At the moment, Marilyn was being prepared for duty on a passenger train, with Izzy oiling the engine round before setting off. The girl had the usual spring in her step, and a smile on her face. Her mouth movements indicated conversation or possibly even singing, whichever was more plausible.

Aurora leaned back in her chair and smiled. "That's my Izzy," she said happily. "Always on the move, never keeping still."

"She does seem to have a limitless reserve of energy," Argyle noted. "I don't think I've ever seen her tired!"

"Encouraging her to sleep was a bit hard in the early days, but now she follows a regular sleep pattern. Admittedly jetlag has slightly messed that up, but at least going this way you wake up early. I'm not looking forward to the sleepless nights going the other way." Aurora glanced to one side. "I've had plenty of those, even before Izzy was born."

"Natural insomnia?" Lady Haven asked. "I've had that a few times."

"Not always," Aurora admitted. "Remember when I said Izzy was always on the move? That was even the case when I was pregnant with her! It was like there was a football match going on in there."

The women nodded in sympathy, all knowing what she was referring to.

Aurora then continued. "Of course, the fact she was larger than normal made things a bit more challenging."

Goldie looked over. "Really?"

"Don't believe me? I looked like I was lugging a beach ball around during the third trimester." Aurora scrolled through her photos on her phone. "I always keep a shot of me holding Izzy for the first time on here, but boy was she a weight to hold up." She finally found the image she was looking for and showed it to Goldie. "There you go. Izzy at the start of her life."

Goldie's eyes widened in surprise. "Wow. I can relate to that. Though in my neck of the woods the comparison was usually to a basketball for some reason." She shrugged her shoulders. "Sunny was two weeks late, so I ended up pretty big. Did people think you were having twins?"

"Yep, and it certainly felt like it." Aurora laughed. "Not sure if I could have coped with twins. Izzy's enough of a handful!"

Goldie glanced to Argyle. "Certainly puts having Sunny into perspective, eh?"

"Every experience is valid," Argyle replied, placing a hand on her shoulder. "And they've all turned out pretty well."

"Thank you," Goldie smiled.

To their surprise, Lady Haven suddenly spoke. "As somebody who has had twins, my condolences to your spine, Aurora."

Aurora looked over. "Really? I thought Pipp and Zipp were different ages. What's it like?"

Lady Haven sighed. "It has benefits and drawbacks. Robert and I had always planned on having two children, so learning I had two passengers onboard brought a sort of relief- after all, it got it out of the way in one go. But that itself was a drawback, as I was effectively going through two pregnancies at once. Shifting all that weight around in the third trimester wasn't fun, and even after they were born we were having to acquire new clothing for both of them at the same time- hand me downs doesn't work when both of your children are the same age." She reached forward for her drink and adjusted her sunglasses. "But to round this off on a positive note, I would say the end results were well worth it."

The women nodded in agreement, as did the husbands too.





Mastodon pulled into the loop partway down the line and came to a stop. "This is ridiculous," he said. "This train won't fit in the loop."

"It doesn't help at all," Hitch said. "The trucks are from another train, as the mixed train had to be switched for more passenger coaches."

"We're not transporting trucks here."

Hitch nodded. "Sorry. I'd forgotten that the word used here is freight cars."

Suddenly, there was a whistle from further down the line, and the other train rumbled into the loop with Marilyn running smokebox first. "Hello!" she called. "Long train, huh?"

"Tell me about it," Mastodon grumbled. "All this work on one engine!"

Marilyn came to a stop at the signal and looked back. "Err, this doesn't look right."

Izzy looked out of the cab and glanced back. "Ah, I see!" she said. "The train is too long to fit in the loop! And so is the goods train! We're going nowhere fast unless we change directions!"

Hitch sighed. "Brilliant. We've got no sidings to dump some of this in, so we're pushing it all the way back to Strasburg."

And so they did. The propelling move was extremely slow going thanks to the weight of the train, and stopped in the sidings at the other end. Hitch dropped off a full half of the train before setting off again. "Well, that wasted time. Who thought that was a good idea?"

"I don't know," Mastodon said. "We'll need another engine to move the other cars."

"Or we do two trips. Either way it produces the same result," Hitch admitted, spotting Sherman moving about in the yard to process the freight vehicles. "We'll be taking those later!"

"Just testing you!" Sherman called.

They finally got underway again, and pulled into the loop, considerably shorter. The passengers on the train were getting annoyed.

"They said this was a one hour round trip! What's the holdup?" a passenger demanded.

"Yes, what is the holdup?" asked another. "I've got a guided tour of the Dutch country booked!"

"Overly long train," Mastodon replied. "Unless you wanted a crash, we had to go and ditch the back half."

At last, the passenger train could move away, and it did, steam blowing from the engine's cylinders. Mastodon could finally move off again, and dropped off his freight cars at the interchange for a Norfolk Southern train. "We can sit here and watch an NS freight. They can take up to half an hour to pass by."

"I'd heard about that," Hitch said. "That sort of train length is unthinkable back in the UK!"





Back at the other end of the line, Goldie appeared to have a moment of realisation. "Argyle?" she said. "I've realised why I recognised the ghost story."

"You did?" Argyle said. "Oh, of course. Sorry. Forgot for a moment. Please do tell."

And so his wife began.





The storm lashed down outside, thunder booming and rain pouring down the windows. Goldie couldn't sleep thanks to the noise. That and her passenger had chosen the worst possible moment to wake up.

"Alright, I get it. You can't sleep too," she said, gently rubbing her bump and climbing out of bed. Perhaps a few moments by the window would help calm them down.

She made her way downstairs and sat down in the kitchen, having set some sleep tea to brew. Suddenly, a loud booming noise attracted her attention, and she wandered over to the window she saw a jet black shape rumble away. It looked like an engine of some sort- Goldie wasn't sure what the class was as Argyle was still helping her learn the differences- but it had an odd number painted on one side. It seemed to be laughing as it pulled away, black smoke pouring into the air as it left Falmouth.

Goldie rubbed her eyes in confusion. "What the Hell?"

"I see you can't sleep," came Argyle's voice from behind.

Goldi turned around, slowly. "Well, it's more a case they can't, but it produces the same result. Did you- no, never mind. Hopefully this storm soon lets up."





Argyle looked in surprise. "Why did you never tell me about this?" he asked.

"I thought I was seeing things!" Goldie replied. "Hormones do all sorts of strange things to the brain. But I'm beginning to think the ghost engine I saw and the engine from this story are somehow connected."

"Possibly best if we try to find out more," Lord Haven said, the first he had said for a while. The parents got up and said their goodbyes, then returned to their respective duties.





A storm front seemed to be moving in. Sunny looked out of Valentina's cab in concern. "That doesn't look good," she said. "Storm front. That usually brings heavy rain and lightning. Two things I don't like."

"Rain storms can be very intense out here," Valentina clarified. "You'd probably best be putting me under cover, so I can be sheltered from the rain. If the weather is bad enough we stop running and put the engines under cover as best we can."

As Sunny began to move Valentina to the shed, her mind was starting to wander. What was causing all this strange activity? Was it truly that there was a ghost around, causing trouble for them and trying to make their lives harder? Or was it something else?

That was the second time Opaline had appeared in her nightmares, and both times it had been very intense. Was Opaline out here too, causing trouble?

"...Finish the work..." said a spooky voice, causing Sunny to flinch. Now she was hearing things? Just what was going on around here?

She hopped down from the cab as she finished stabling the engine. Those questions could wait. Right now what she needed was a nice refreshing drink to take her mind off the situation.





Argyle hummed to himself as he popped into the local library. The library was a place he always felt comfortable and safe. After all, he'd spent many hours in the library of the air base he'd grown up on north of Leeds. He sighed as he stepped in, looking into the local history section. Maybe that would have some more info on the whole strange situation.

Whilst digging through the texts, he thought of the story Goldie had told. She'd requested some time alone, a request Argyle had honoured of course. An important part of marriage was knowing when your spouse needed some alone time, and Argyle felt 20 years of being a married man had made him pretty good at judging it.

A while passed, and Argyle decided to get something to drink from the library cafe. He walked in and ordered a coffee, before taking a seat at a table.

He focused on his phone to see if anybody had contacted him. Nothing yet. Not a problem, though.

Just then, he suddenly noticed a man take a seat opposite him. "I don't recognise your face. You here with that load of kids?"

Argyle was surprised by his bluntness, but decided to answer. "Yes, actually. My daughter's one of the drivers, actually."

The man nodded. "I see. Married man, I see."

Argyle glanced down. "Yes, actually. Coming up on twenty years, actually."

"Lucky you," the man said. "I'm a local developer. Trying to make this place better. Bit run down."

"I think it's quite charming," Argyle said. "I've always felt towns should maintain their heritage instead of knocking down perfectly good buildings. I live on a lighthouse complex, actually. Some people would have just knocked it down, but the house was renovated quite well."

The man seemed to be distracted. "Sorry, I was just thinking about yesterday."

Argyle was starting to recognise him. "Wait a minute. You're the man who hit on my wife."

The man snorted. "You? She married you? You look like a complete nerd. What sort of love potion did you use?"

"You're hardly an exemplary vision of attraction yourself," Argyle replied. "And I prefer the term academic to nerd. I'm a university lecturer."

There was no reply from the other man, who seemed to be annoyed by that statement.

Argyle got up. "I need to get back to reading now. But I'm warning you now- Goldie doesn't take kindly to creeps flirting with her."

The man sighed, and waited until Argyle was out of earshot. "Then I'll just give her an offer she can't refuse."