A/N: this goes out to @Kieron0103 and his Haven Railway story, and I thought I'd get back in the saddle of making a Thomas and Friends story again. Also, this is tied in with @Kieron0103's book 'The Beacon Railway'.
Sodor is the island of the North...
It's been a few long days for Braedey, but now, it was time for him to go back home. It was saddening for the others that their new friends was leaving, but he knew he belonged to his railway. He promised that he'll come over whenever he gets the chance to.
~*~*~
One afternoon, Sir Topham stood outside of the sheds, with Braedey nearby the water tower, the other engines in sidings or in the sheds nearby. The crimson red engine smiled gently to the controller of the NWR, for he had given him the opportunity to travel to Sodor.
Sir Topham turned to Braedey. "We shall miss you. You have been a great hand on our island." Braedey whistled in response, and Sir Topham turned to his engines. "My railway is running fine, but I believe you need some help." He paused impressively for a moment, as the engines all looked at each other with confusion, and they looked back to the controller. "A diesel, is all that's available. So, please be cautious of any, eh, disturbances." With that, Sir Topham Hatt tipped his top hat, and he left in his car, as the engines talked amongst each other with the news they heard.
"What does 'disturbances' mean?" Percy asked to the others with confusion on his face. He wasn't good with new and odd words.
"That means this diesel is nothing but trouble." James snapped, clearly not too happy about working with a diesel from the Other Railway. He had gotten along with diesels like Boco, Mavis, Salty, and Daisy, but he never got along with diesels from the Other Railway.
"I've learnt a thing or two about diesels from the Other Railway." Braedey spoke up. "Some are rather friendly to steam engines, but others, they suffer from a type of prejudice and see steam engines as inferior to them, even if we've been around longer than them."
"Duly noted." James muttered, but he was still not going to like this new diesel.
~*~*~
A few hours later, the diesel arrived on the island. He made his way down to the sheds, a rumble and growl in his engine, sneering at the landscape around him, wanting to see this island with nothing but cities and depots instead of farms and green fields. He gave a growling snarl at some cows, scaring the animals away from the railway lines, much to the farmer's annoyance and yelling at the departing diesel.
Sure enough, the diesel arrived at Tidmouth Sheds. The engines looked to the newcomer. The diesel was a British Rail Class 44 diesel, also known as a Sulzer Type 4, built by British Railways' Derby Works between 1959 and 1960. The diesel was painted in BR green with red buffer beams, and with quad-axle bogies.
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The BR Class 44s were some of the first big diesels commissioned for the British Rail modernisation project and were the precursors to the Class 45 and Class 46 locomotives of similar design. They were originally designed to have a Co-Co wheel arrangement, but it proved impossible to keep below the 20 long tonnes (20,000kg) axle loading limit imposed by the British Railways Civil Engineer. A 1-Co bogie design originally used on the Southern Railway 10201 was used instead. Construction began in summer of 1958, although the first example wasn't completed until April 1959. The ten locomotives were allocated to Camden motive power depot, and used on the West Coast Mainline, although also often seen on the Midland mainline. However, with the advent of large numbers of Class 45 locomotives the 10 Class 44 locomotives were transferred to Toton.
