When you become so acquainted with an individual, you subconsciously record every fine detail about them. In the case of an engine, I recognised him down to the rivets, the bogie mechanics, even the buffer beam layout.
Yet there was one glaring omission.
My eyes kept being drawn to the roof. There was indeed a claw on Ten's roof, but not the one I was expecting. Pinchy was nowhere to be seen.
But the Grabber was.
The humungous metal monster, the very same four-fingered menace who'd tried to catch Stepney, had collapsed from its mechanism, landing squarely on top of Ten's roof. Ten's body was dented, misshapen so it dipped in the centre, even warping his chassis frame.
"Why are you beneath the Grabber?" I asked the obvious question.
"Is that what you call it?" Ten replied, "With so many engines, and little money at the time, the mechanics of this place were worked to the bone." His gaze looked up towards the rusting monument on his roof. "Then the influx of engines came in. Up until that point we'd only melted down their parts. Scrapping whole engines added extra strain to the equipment. Then one day, I was parked here, and the beams and pulley chains above gave out. The claw plummeted to the ground, pinning me to this very spot. At that point, health and safety stepped in. They deemed the site too dangerous. The operators opted to shut it down instead of undertaking site-wide repairs, which were too costly. The doors were closed and I've been here ever since."
"You melted down engines?" my breath left my body colder than when it entered. Perhaps he was as they said...
"I didn't want to," Ten averted his gaze, "I'd grown quite fond of some of them, and tolerated even the worst of them. But a job's a job."
"What was your job on the island?"
"I was a special order, co-designed by Sir Topham," Ten began, "He wanted a diesel small enough to run around the yard organising trains, but big enough to take trains along the main line. I helped organise scrap to be melted down, and delivered freshly made iron and steel to various points on the island."
I stayed quiet, the revelation feeling somewhat benign. It didn't sound very villainous. "There have been stories told about you," I approached the topic with sensitivity, "Did you ever carry a claw of your own on your roof?"
"Not besides this one," Ten replied, "And I've never carried this anywhere."
"Which means none of them could be real?" I surmised.
"None of what?"
"The stories," I clarified, "About you being an evil diesel chasing engines round the island, stealing items, smashing sheds and the like."
"I never chased anyone," Ten huffed, "Sure, I had a dislike of steam engines when I first arrived. They hissed about me as they knew I broke up their parts. Rumours milled that I'd push them into the Smelting pit, or be their executioner when Sir Topham deemed them too old, though I guess they were right on that one in the end." He took a deep, strong breath. "But I was reluctant."
The diesel, anything but sinister, took a moment to gather his main recollections. "I did try and get back at one or two... problem engines. Nothing more than smashing some buffers to humiliate them when they least expected it."
A sheer coincidence, or stretched inspiration? My mind began to wonder. "What about the Lost Engine? Or the Conductor Family?"
"I only recall one lost engine," Ten squinted as he recalled, "A small golden tank engine. Ended up here on a foggy night. 'Arry and Bert thought bringing him inside would be a great joke."
"They worked here with you?"
"Sir Topham got them to help with the shunting. As the railway expanded, so did the amount of worn parts that needed melting down, and the metal required to maintain the railway."
Splatter and Dodge must've been based on the Ironworks Twins... another stretch from reality into a marketing ploy. Still, I was surprised at how much rang true from the Magic Railroad film. A lost engine, some assaults on buffers. And Ten himself being real.
"And what about you," Ten turned his attention to me, "What's your story?"
"I grew up with the stories," I kept it succinct, "I wanted to find out what had become of the island and the railway."
"I hope you set your expectations low," Ten huffed, "There's not much out there, I imagine."
"More than you'd think," I thought about all I'd found. Rosie, Abigail, Arthur, Sir Handel and Peter Sam... Sodor was more alive than I'd expected in some respects.
Then I remembered Bear, Hank, Derek, Murdoch...
"Why were you scrapping whole engines in the end?" I asked.
"Reasons varied," Ten's face went sullen, "Some were already prevalent in preservation collections so couldn't be sold. Some were cannibalised for parts for other engines. Some who were too problematic failed to find buyers, so ended up here."
"Cannibalised?" I gasped. I knew the financial situation was bad, but never suspected it was bad enough that engines would be scrapped to keep others going. Perhaps the Scottish Twin outside had given their life for the other...
"It's the way of all things," Ten muttered, "You either find a noble end, or outlive the end and whittle away in insignificance."
His defeatist aura weighed on me as the Grabber must have on him. If there had ever been any magic on Sodor, it seemed to have vanished a long time ago. Something within me felt it was my place to say otherwise. "Your depiction in the shared stories of Sodor was wildly inaccurate, but you absolutely captivated children the world over."
"It was a depiction done without my consent," Ten puffed, "They were captivated by the falsehoods, not me as me."
"True," I recalled all the fanfictions surrounding Pinchy and its purpose, "But many wrote redemptions for you. The number of those I've seen far outweigh any villainous presence Hollywood bestowed you with. I guess deep down they could tell who you really were, even if it wasn't shown to them."
"How?" Ten arched an eyebrow, "How would they figure that out?"
"I don't know," I conceded, "But many were fond of you over many of the other engines. You became somewhat legendary."
"Legends transcend into myth," Ten pouted, "I could tell when you entered you'd been doubting if I was real."
"And I'm glad I was wrong," I whipped out my notebook and pen from my pockets, "And I'm going to note your real story right now. I'm sure people would be fascinated to get to know the real you."
For the first time, the smallest of smiles crept across Ten's face. He began his recollections again, now told through grins and twinkling eyes.
With everything written down, I slipped my writing equipment away and returned to examining my surroundings. The area behind me, where I had entered, had dimmed somewhat. It was getting late. The day had been eventful and flown by. The Dipper, the scrapyards...
My mind switched to planning for the night ahead. The scrapyard had been haunting enough in daylight. It wasn't wise to stay the night, for it would likely be sleepless. "I must be going now. I need to get back to Killdane by nightfall."
"Is that where you're staying?" Ten asked, "Are there still people on Sodor?"
"No," I shook my head, "I've not come across anyone so far. I'm just squatting there."
"I wondered why Sodor was deserted," Ten mulled.
So do I, I thought.
We said our goodbyes, and after I'd retrieved my bag, I followed the lines from the yard, pressing on towards Killdane as the skies continued to ink black. Tomorrow would be here soon, and a solid rest would leave me best prepared for another day of unknowns.
If I've learnt anything over the past few days, it's that planning is an overrated waste of time. After getting settled in the lobby of Killdane station, another glance at my map of Sodor convinced me to abandon the main line yet again.
The principal reason was another viaduct between Cronk and Maron. After my tussle with crossing the Big Dipper, and the extreme luck I had in surviving, round two with another gargantuan bridge seemed too much of an ask. Coupled with my bad night's sleep, it didn't seem wise. The thoughts of engines cannibalised so others could continue running, and the rusty corpses I'd found, all played on my mind. Some of the faces I'd come to know and were gone, forever. No amount of exploration or searching would change the fact.
My new plan was to cut through the town of Cronk, heading by road down to Suddery. Along that branch line was where the Island Records Office was rumoured to be located. If an accurate, reliable account of Sodor's last days was to be found anywhere, it was there. After ransacking their archives, I could loop through Brendam docks, then swing by the clay pits before following a road back to Wellsworth.
I polished off the remaining breakfast items I had in my backpack. My many detours were now taking a severe toll on my rations, and the prospect of securing more food stuffs was wearing thin. Fuelled for the day ahead at least, I set off.
Cronk station was a fresh surprise. In the show, it had struck me as nonsensically small for a mainline station. I'd never seen it explicitly named Railway Series illustrations. But here, three tracks ran through, with an island platform positioned between the farthest left and central track. The main platform and station building were position on the far right, very reminiscent of the show's take on Wellsworth's station building. A small siding peeled off, stopping next to a pile of wooden panels, rotted and blackened by time. The area covered by the grotty wood indicated a sizeable warehouse had once been there. Metal piping, funnels and containers snaked and poked from among the timber, suggesting it had been some kind of refinery or distillery.
Wandering through the station, I turned left, following the road up to the bridge that crossed the tracks just beyond the station. Passing over the lines, I descended into what had once been Cronk town.
The dead streets held a '28 Days Later' kind of atmosphere - littered pavements, busted building windows, the odd car parked on the kerb, tyres flat. I followed the main high street, which was now at rock bottom. Hotels and restaurants sat empty. Curtainless windows on floors above me resembled empty eye sockets, black and empty.
A few newsagents passed, all devoid of foods. The town had been cleared out long ago.
I pushed South, and the edge of town came into view. A large house to the side of the road, the last before the countryside resumed, piqued my interest. Its garden's hedges had grown wild and frizzy, blocking the view of the house's front.
Locating the rotted, collapsed remains of the front gate, I stepped through onto the weedy front path. Even in decay, the house was quaint. All exterior walls were white. Save for cracks and patches of lichen, it was the spitting image of a picturesque English cottage. Drawn mothballed curtains kept nosy eyes out of the interior. Someone had once called it home, but not for a long time.
The wind carried something unexpected to my ear, barely audible over the crunching of gravel under my feet.
"Hello?"
Another voice. But I was far from the railway lines.
Then I spotted it.
To the left of the house was a garage. Brown, wooden doors sat closed, not rotten but not quite in working order either. I walked over, feet crunching on the gravel driveway, and peered through gaps in the door for whoever was inside.
"Mr Dalby. Is that you?"
Tugging the doors open, scraping gravel as I did, sunlight entered the interior, illuminating the company I'd heard. Partly sheeted by a dust cover, I knew the face, but its arrangement was profoundly odd to see in the flesh (or metal?).
The headlights were no such thing. They were eyes.
I blinked. The red, dusty Morris Cabriolet blinked back, equally puzzled. "You're not Mr Dalby. Who are you, and what are you doing on private property?"
I blinked again. It wasn't just the trains.
This car could talk as well.