Changes in the Wind: Part II - Edward and the Arcane Ones

Chapter VII: Legends

Mountains rolled past them, tall and high. Station after station they travelled through was always slightly different from the previous. The landscape of Thesang was extremely different to the one of Sodor's. And Edward couldn't help but be in awe of it. Soon the mountainous terrain went across in front of the railway. Now tall cuttings came and many, many tunnels also came. Ashfull then told Edward to be cautious of this part since rocks could slide onto the tracks and fog could come into these parts very easily and make the trip through this terrain extremely difficult. Ashfull then told the story of how a fogman was replaced with a foghorn, which caused more harm. "Cause the mountains shook loose rocks onto the tracks and with the fog blocking my view, I crashed right into the rockfall," he said, "not a pleasant experience I would say, the entire undercarriage was wrecked! I was at the works for weeks!" They then went through a tunnel longer than most, thankfully, it had small cuttings in between but it had always been referred to as Pleckness Tunnel. At last, when they got out, they travelled a mile until they came across the longest viaduct Edward had ever seen!

The valley wasn't deep as the blue engine thought, being the same depth as the viaduct at home. However, the length of it was at least three times longer. Ashfull explained the viaduct was a new build, constructed after the region merged together from three railways after nationalisation.

"There was the Central Camford, Berkstone and Truds Railway, the Pleckness and Carrag Railway and the Isle of Nardferg Railway. A smaller island apart of Thesang in the southeast of the main island, it thankfully had its line connecting at Carrag later in its history, so when all railways joined to form the Thesang Region, Mr Lang decided to build the new mainline up to Amberworth using part of those tracks by INR."

"Which railway were you with?" asked Edward curiously.

"I was with the CCBTR," replied Ashfull, "the first one. But Mr Lang came from the PCR, when renumbering happened, he had all engines there be given numbers first. Then us engines at CCBTR, then lastly INR."

"How many were there of you in total?" asked Edward.

Ashfull pondered carefully. "Hard to say," he said, "can't really remember. Mr Lang will know when you see him."

Edward didn't say anymore and continued the journey, crossing the viaduct completely and leaving it far behind.

***

They reached a big junction where they had to stop called Berkstone. A secondary route when the other way but then turned to go east into the heart of Thesang. Other engines went there, all doing their usual business, but all looked exhausted and overworked. Edward then realised that the station as big as it may be, was quite empty, with long trains to cope with the loss of engines not there and shunting engines scurrying about, trying to catch up with the backlog of trucks.

Ashfull looked on with disdain. "It wasn't like this before in Berkstone," he said, "there would be loads of us engines going about our business. But now, there are only a few. And we're being overworked because of it."

Edward couldn't help but feel sorry, but he had no idea what to do to help them.

They travelled further up north. They reached a town, where the mainline split off. A goods line going through a yard, whilst a passenger line heading to the station. Ashfull and Edward went straight on through the yard, they slowed to be careful coming through, but once out and the lines merged back together, they picked up speed. "That was Telmouth," said Ashfull, "one of the oddest areas on Thesang, but from what I hear from other parts of Thesang. It is far from the one odd area that these rails go through." Edward didn't know what to say, so kept on going, he knew they were on the final stretch now.