The Beginning of an End
(Hey! Message from the Author here! I encourage everyone to swap around between Chapters, since different chapters get updated at different times)
24/03/17:
In a war-ridden Great Britain, a land of greatness now drenched in wartime conflict, troops were deployed in every major city, small settlement, and village, and their quiet town homes, countryside seaside tramways and light railways were occupied by the Ministry of Defence, abbreviated colloquially as the "Mods" or M.O.Ds. Every factory and industry had their resources supplying the war effort.
And through a Stormy Windy Counteryside, there is a village, and through every small settlement passing through, every 50 kilometers, the communities becomes seemingly more densely-populated, and becoming what we could call "primitive urbanization" with very slowly-developed larger towns of what some might consider, a "small city", now reaching a massive brick wall, climbing the thousands of yards of track climbing the incline walled-in by brick walls leads to a massive rich thriving industrial compound, and a massive fancy european brick building with a dull veridian rustic metallic roof covering the top of the building, and 3 massive letters engraved in gold read the initials "L.M.S", clearly the owners of the compound. A sign read under the initials "London, Midland Scottish Railway" and then a side view of the building.
Looking through the tall wood-framed, white-stained glass windows, with all the fanciness & elegance, lay a massive factory, a stronghold for dozens of massive industrial machines doing the work of what the greatest designers dream of doing, hundreds upon hundreds of labourers working away, dozens upon dozens of hollow locomotive chassis & shells being assembled, and the parts being fed into & from a gigantic moulding machine.
At the high office of the director of this operation lay chairman of the operation, a Mr. Deryn. P Coates sat in his high office, suspended 80ft high in the air, just able to overwatch the thousands of labourers putting together locomotives, until the factory messenger man and his child assistant came With a letter from Sir Henry Fowler & James Anderson, an order was placed for about 220 locomotives of the LMS: 3F "Midland Johnson 3-Axle" to be returned back to one of the LMS's machinery parts workshops to be given extensive rebuilding after being extremely worn out from service on wartime traffic.
Most of these machines have been returned because of mechanical issues and other design faults caused by the poor care and maintenance because of the British Government's cost-saving procedures and austerity measures to keep operation costs at an all-time low during these tough times.
Locomotives No. F-23 410.Ma to F-23 629.Ma were all disassembled and shipped by rail to the facility and were sent in through the back to be taken to pieces by the labourers, and one by one, all 220 locomotives were put into several concrete containers to be melted down before being reassembled and put back on the production lines. All salvageable, necessary machine components were taken to be refurbished and refitted before being put into their frames that were being recast, while masks and number plates were being removed. Now observing the curious case of a No. F-23 568. Ma, whose number plate was removed and put onto a conveyor belt to be repainted.
Our story begins with MR No. F-23 568.Ma, Of course, there were very few locomotives out of the 220 that were in good working condition when they arrived, and unfortunately, most were in very poor condition, a rather unfortunate contrast to how they were originally built, in tip-top working order, and reduced to what is now mostly hallowed out; most of the engines' parts were too worn out to be completely functional, so the overhauls and rebuilding were necessary.
F-23 568.Ma, along with 8 other engines of his class and 3 other engines of different designs, was loaded into a container down the production lines, with very few parts of F-23 568.Ma were still in good condition, but because of the war, better quality parts had to be reserved for war vehicles and military machines, so that meant that non-military-associated vehicles wouldn't get good treatment; low-cost parts were the only option, often being made cheap or done badly.
Since barely any of F-23 568.Ma's parts would have been able to foresee another day of regular service, many, many, many parts would have needed to have been replaced, but this was a rather unfortunate time for the British & European economies and especially a bad time for sentient locomotives, especially.
Starting in the mid-(18)80s, around 1882 to be specific, locomotives were being "pre-fused" or "pre-fusioned locomotives", a now more common practice than letting the locomotive naturally come to life after having bio-mechanical attachments installed into their machinery. This practice was successful in the late (18)50s to mid-1860s in Europe after a 2-2-0 locomotive, a relic built in the 1830s named "Experiment" was the first pre-fused locomotive built, which showed many advantages over having living vehicle
This technology was patented in 1854 by an American Engineer, but the original inventor of the application of bio-mechanical fusion on machinery was against it. Bio-Mechanical Fusion, or the theory of it, was invented in 1829, but the first experiments wouldn't appear until the early 30s and would become available as medical technology in 1851 but wouldn't become popular until 1855, and most early biologists were against this idea.
However, in the 1860s, building locomotives pre-fusioned would have become standard practice after a biologist had invented a special chemical formula that allowed this process to become much safer, but at what cost? The economic crisis... Because of economic issues and the general cost of creating said chemical compound, that added a lot to the cost of building locomotives, and this would have meant more workshops would have been used less to build locomotive parts, and the cost of labour in Europe wasn't looking too good at the dawn of the 20th century, but it was still at its lowest, but once the Great War started, there was little hope now...
It's common knowledge to all railway associates that how the locomotive would turn out would depend heavily on how much it was cared for, what parts were used to build it, inspections and servicing, and how much funding was put into running it.
And because of the economic crisis at the time, this would have also had an effect taken into the resources; however, this economic crisis would have been mostly gridlocked within Europe, and that would have also started the "Locomotive Decline" in many countries; however, this didn't apply to other countries, despite Europe, specifically the United Kingdom (Germany & France), being the largest manufacturer of locomotives in the export market. Locomotives exported to other continents, like South America, Asia, Africa, and Australia, never came out "bad" in a sense;
You see, during the locomotive decline of the UK, which lasted far longer than in other European countries (with reports dating as far back as the 1860s, as mentioned earlier), the worst of this happened from 1878-1921, which is about 43 years.
And since locomotive parts weren't being made of quality, what they were actually being made out of was liquid metal byproduct (molten slag) fused with bone and bio-morphosous-fuzide compandum/BMFC (a.k.a. the stuff that is used to create Bio-Mechanisms to create the locomotives and make them alike) copper plates and iron alloy sheets.
The material compound would not have gone well together; however, they were mass-produced due to their cost-effectiveness, especially during the Great War, where the quantity of this material would have reached the millions but was soon banned sometime after the early 1920s.
And with all this information laid out, and now looking at the hapless state of railway vehicle manufacturing, it would be made clear to you now that our No. F-23 568.Ma would be in a very unlucky time frame for a rebuild, and of course, he'd be rebuilt using this metallic-alloy compound as the labourers worked away cutting apart F-23 568.Ma's body was off his frame, and new, freshly moulded parts were being installed onto his body, and his boiler barrel is being hung upwards by heavy machinery, strong ropes, & heavy chains to have his boiler tubes cut out to be voided of any combustion by-product.
Watching as labourers handled many pieces of engineering equipment and heavy machines to reassemble F-23 568.Ma's newly rebuilt body was put onto a newly cast frame, but this process wouldn't be complete. Looking at a gigantic metal canister containing tonnes upon tonnes of bio-morphosous-fuzide compandum, fleshy organic matter lay dormant inside the cylinder as precision-based mechanisms, machinery, and surgeons installed the bio-mechanisms into the locomotive and mechanical engineers made adjustments to the hallowed-out shell of the 'locomotive'.
And as the container was lifted on the production belt towards a massive furnace to bake all the engines in the container, from the overhead perspective of the operation's director, who sat on his fancy swivelling chair, lay Mr. Deryn. P Coates, looking rather sly, pulled up his fine hat, and he dismissed the messenger and his assistant who stepped out of his office, and he called in an engine inspector.
A man, dressed in a fine black and green suit with a brown hat, walked up the industrial catwalk steps up into the director's office. The man was very kind, said a very kind greeting to the mailer's assistant, and smiled warmly at the mailer. Much to the director's annoyance, Mr. Coates turned his chair to face the back office's window as he watched several locomotives, fully loaded on concrete containers, be lifted through the production lines to be baked in the massive furnace, a steampunk aesthetic machine. In all of the state-of-the-art technology put into it lay its menacing glory, as the warm glow of extreme temperatures rose from the glowing red orb, being the core of the machine.
"Mr. Coates, you called me here, correct?" demanded the inspector, ringing the bell, trying to hide a look of confusion.
"Ah! Inspector Stennhouse! My good man!" said Mr. Coates, Engine Inspector Bernard. William-Coaxx Stennhouse was a good-natured man, one of the top 4 engine inspectors, and one of the best.
"Its good to have called over one of my finest inspectors to have this job here," said Mr. Coates
"And what's the job you've called me over here for?" asked Mr. Stennhouse
"Well, we all know how there's going to be a shortage of resources in our region and how resources are now going to be more distributed across regions," pointed out Mr. Coates. "So this job is going to require plenty of travelling; I'll pay for a hotel; as for you, well, that's unfortunate; you'll be stationed very far from home."
"Oh, well, that's unfortunate; I've not been able to spend too much time with my own family lately with all the conflict in the far east of the rest of Europe and west Asia," said Mr. Stennhouse. "And I hope my own family has been doing fine, because one of my fellow co-workers lost one of their relatives to the bombings."
"I understand your concerns. I'll ask the company's factory office mailer (F.C.M) to go pick up the weekly post for everyone because lots of us will be travelling. Because of the war, it's hard to lock most resources in a single region. I'm not sure about their plans, but there is a government-appointed policy that essentially allows rolling stock and railway equipment to be routed to different regions, meaning our engines won't be locked in Scotland," responded Mr. Coates.
Mr. Coates continued to lay out the details of the current situation and told Mr. B. W-C Stennhouse to be careful on his travels because the UK isn't exactly a safe country during Wartime.
"Fully understood, Sir!" said Mr. Stennhouse. "Alright, Good, now that you have all the details, let me tell you WHAT you'll be doing, starting with the engines: there are about 220 new engines being built; they're of the 3F Midland Johnson types; however, they won't be locked in Midland Railway Lines for long, as some will be sent down southwest and further East; that's where the most danger is," explained Mr. Coates.
Mr. Stennhouse felt content, albeit his thoughts were rather a mixture; he wasn't sure about leaving everyone behind just to stay at a hotel and travel to various junctions to visit 220 locomotives he hasn't met yet, but then he had a change in mindset: what good could he have brought out of this?
He knew very much about the LMS and their engineering, and he was very well educated about locomotive design on the Midland Railway Line and what types of engines they used.
"Mr. Coates… You can count on me!" said Mr. Stennhouse confidently; he signed the waiver with Mr. Coates. "And that's my man!" said Mr. Coates. they gave each other a friendly handshake, and Mr. Stennhouse picked up a jacket and stepped out of the high office. And now back to the furnace.
As the labourers finished their procedures and cuttings on No. F-23 568.Ma's body, with all the running elements and what made the engine an engine installed, along with all the bio-mechanisms, life-support devices, and organic material.
They had finished all the bioengineering involved with all the anatomy and organ structuring, and they all got out. A dozen locomotives sat in a concrete container and were being pulled into a massive furnace to be baked.
And after the dozen in the container were pulled out, the back of the Furnace (Yes, it's a double-ended furnace) and the air vent, located on the steam chest of the engine, were opened, and workmen carefully inserted a blue crystal into the air vent and sealed it shut. And cool gas was sprayed across the section of the factory, and whilst that happened, through the dim factory and all the flashing, a face was being formed under the metalwork of the front of the locomotive. 23 568 had just started sentientiation and had just gained a face.
23 568, now sentient but still dormant, drifted to a quiet slumber as he was moved, the other locomotives showing signs of sentience too.
Now, then a massive crane came, and one by one lifted all the locomotives out of the container, the container was then looped, and sped its way to the beginning of the production line, 23 568 asleep was lifted into the factory halls, and placed onto shiny glistening rails, the only shining lights in the dimness of the stormy exterior, but as 23 568 was being checked over, being primed, the raging storm had begun to fade away, and even through the embattled lands of the Greater Britain, and the rest of Europe, a pale pinkish-orange shade painted a picturesque image of several villages in the mountains, outside the ornamented wooden window frames of the blue-tinted glass, as 23 568 started awakening from his slumber.
They awoke to the bright sunlight shining through the dull blue-grey clouds lumbering far off in the distance. the bright beam of sunlight annoyed their right eye, so they looked away. they heard sounds, loud sounds, and voices coming from short, shadowy figures; they couldn't see well, or specifically, see well through their mask, and couldn't tell them apart. However, whenever they narrowed their eyes, they could see different colours—brown, blue, and some green and yellow. But mostly grey or white.
They weren't accustomed to their new environment, so the first thing they thought of was to leave. But… They couldn't; 23 568 hadn't had a fire lit and didn't have any steam to move or make any sounds. they looked around and were being approached by several (in reality, 12 workmen) shadowy figures, all becoming clearer in the light. But he couldn't recognise much. They could have been able to see different shades of colour, but he didn't know what they were.
23 568 didn't know what to do; they felt steps on their shining black footplate as men cleaned off their shoes and started checking over their body, and a man, bald, wearing a brown hat with dark blue overalls, smiled at him, and he told him with a reassuring voice, "Everything will be fine; just leave it up to us."
23 568 didn't know what to do; they didn't know how to speak; they listened to what would have been foreign tongues confused, and with a bit of intrigue, they looked around as the men fiddled around with the machinery on his sides, and then after a few hours, the men clambered off his footplate. it felt funny, the feel of soles on his footplate; they felt giddy and wanted to shake it off, but their body was stiff and completely rigid; they couldn't pivot nor articulate yet.
They looked ahead as they saw a smaller locomotive, painted all black with a similar face to him, pull the other locomotive out of the works, and then 23 568 themself was pulled forward out of the works, out of the factory, and into the open world.
Their first trip hadn't been much to take notice of, as they were pushed out into a massive yard and were pushed into the container by the same engine. they 2 hadn't spoken, but he heard a sentence he couldn't recognise at first, a light, youngish-sounding voice shouting, "Good luck out there! You'll need it, really!"
They were loaded into a soundproof chamber inside the container; the container was loaded onto another vehicle, and the ride was bumpy, but he could hear the faint sounds of... similar beings to him?
23 568 then drifted off to an uncomfortable sleep; their first sleep had nothing in it, and they only faintly saw themselves. he didn't bother to look at himself; besides… he was still a hull; he couldn't articulate his body off his pivots; he couldn't —Not yet. At least.
The Following Morning, 23 568 woke up. facing him was a small brick trainshed; adjacent to the left were several lanes of track stretching off into a tunnel, and in the shed sat rows of engines. at the very front of the shed, 3 engines built similarly to 23 568, nearly identical—almost—behind the trio sat rows upon rows of several other engines, all shaken up, bouncing upwards off their chassis to try to get a better view, and some were showing signs of movement with intent on the new engine, whilst some remained dormant as workmen and crews fiddled around with them.
However, one thing for certain was that their painted-on pupils on their lenses were all trailing a certain someone, 23 568, and 23 568 only was their fixation. all the engines were painted in Black with Gray Rims, with lining carved around their boilers, with various 4- or 5-digit numeric integers printed on their sides to indicate their identity.
All these engines on their front, rear, or whatever direction they were facing all carried grotesque 'facial' expressions, barely closely resembling, but more so, poorly mimicking human facial expressions.
Their faces had a twisted expression of what would have looked like 'expressions" meant to 'mimic' fear, confusion, anxiety, concern, and surprise almost; some carried what would have seemed like 'joy', anger, and sadness, and some were indifferent to it.
Their faces were all very dirty, and they all carried injuries; very few were able to retain a full face or even have a 'clean face'. many had injuries, most of them severe; sections of their faces had been torn off, sometimes showing their smokebox doors or even, gruesomely, their endoskeletons.
Some engines didn't even have faces, and some just wore cardboard cutouts on the front; many had wounds that were covered by metal plating, bandages or eye patches. some of the workmen were even working with these injuries.
There was no other colour than black that day, and any other colour painted on an engine was being primed off by workmen, and the crippling paint chips were scraped off by labourers.
Their shiny grey metallic bodies or dull black iron hulls were being painted over with a fresh coat of black paint; the engines had the initials "M. R" painted on their sides, clearly indicating their owners, painted in either white or yellow.
Turning to 23 568's perspective, they felt mostly indifferent, like some of the other engines; however, their deepest feeling was— …discomfort. They couldn't distinguish one engine from another since they were very poorly sighted at the time; however, they were able to distinguish some.
The 2nd engine in the middle steamed up and pulled its way through the middle lane; the workmen called him over to pull 23 568 out of the container. 23 568 looked down as the handcart's couplings had a rope attached to it, and a hook was put in place of the cutout on his buffer board.
Then the middle engine, the 2nd built, is similar to 23 568; they manoeuvred their way out of the sheds, and the other engines shook to face him, clearly agitated, confused or scared about what's about to happen. The engine didn't seem afraid; they twisted a stern expression as their dry eyes turned to look to their right and then to their left.
The engine bravely made their way out of the shed; they were being called over and gestured to by the workmen, and 2 wooden hands came from behind the smokebox supports to shove some of the other engines off. they eventually got onto the right side of the line; dirty grey-brown smoke billowing out of their glowing molten particles flamboyantly danced with the steam of smoke.
Their face was a full face, that was for sure, but their face was rotten beige-yellow, and the top & bottom ends of the 'face' were severely burnt, and their eyes seemed to have not been made properly, often moving very jerkily and roughly as the engine observed their surroundings.
The engine's face had various streaks of blood and several wounds; the 'face' itself was very grimy and weathered, but the engine was stern throughout his short run. he climbed up the ramp to the container; they pulled out a chain from under their footplate and tied the chain from their couplings to the handcar; and the workmen gave the trainmen their green light.
23 568 throughout all this was confused and started showing signs of worry; it was their first trip out of the works, and they were being eyed as if they'd done wrong, but they had just come back from the works?
The other engine then jerkily moved their eyes; the back of their eyes could have been seen through their grotesquely dilated eye sockets. it appears to have been melted & deshaped by the heat of the boiler, but the other engine didn't mind; their jaw creaked and cracked, and stretched a grotesque grin-shaped expression across their face, and they released some hot steam.
The steam shot out from under the engine's chassis, and the steam drifted through the air, and 23 568 could hear the faint noises; it sounded like… Human voices?
The voices drifted through the air; however, the wind blew them away, then the engine blew a cloud of foggy smoke, ash, and steam hissed in the atmosphere, and the smell of pre-combusted charcoal and… wounded intestines… filled the air. the sounds were faint and hard for 23 568 to hear, but then they remembered.
Like one of the workmen said, "Everything will be Fine", "and we'll do the rest." the 2/3rd charge of steam blew, billowing from the sides of the engine's wheels; sparks and smoke blew into 23 568's delicate face as the engine, dead-looking, creaked its way into a second structure adjoining the engine sheds, also adjacent to the mainline, which led to a massive Tunnel cut open in the brownstone mountain.
23 568 yawned and tried to hiss, but no sound was emitted, and then they fell asleep in the workshop.
By morning, it was time to go; the same engine's tender faced 23 568's nose, and then a smaller engine coupled 23 568 to a strange wooden structure mounted on a conflat, as they thought.
With a weakened groan and a heavy creaking sort of sound, a deep-toned, gruff whistle chimed. as 23 568 felt the strength of the near-identical engine, it felt its once rigid-feeling axle boxes feel the sudden jerk of force provided by the engine and was towed along with the strange wooden "Dog Kennel" on rails by the black engine. seeing the ugly pug, the smaller engine shouted, "Good luck out there! You'll need it, really!"
The engines were rather ugly-looking, with a grotesque face high up on their body, thin eyebrows, some hair growing on their chin, and a warped nose shape.
The wooden 'Dog Kennel' creaked and croaked. it also had 2 dry yellow eyes sticking out of its door, observing 23 568's rear end. 23 568 looked closer and realised the window sill and frames slowly warped to form a pointy-nose shape, and under the door were teeth.
23 568, feeling disgusted, quickly looked away, but then again, "How did he look back anyways?", the trip was rather uneventful.
23 568 observed the foreign-looking scenery around them, seeing massive chimneys in the distance and cities with their varying number of towers. 23 568 counted the tallest buildings as they travelled but didn't really learn what the numbers were. they observed quiet villages and looked for the different churches so they could identify which was which and the number of houses in a town's outskirts.
Then the bluish-grey mountains in the distance became closer as 23 568 and the lead engine approached a massive dull brown-maroon structure with a unique-looking rotund office at the front. the engine then pushed 23 568 from behind the apparently sentient 'Dog Kennel' towards the entrance, a brick workshop's mouth that had 2 old creaky wooden doors, the formerly silver-iron hinges now rusted to close to no shine at all.
23 568 entered the workshop, and various men began their work; however, without realising, they felt something pierce through the side of their vessel—a Syringe.
Bitter Purple Liquid was injected into their body, and they fell asleep.
And as they fell asleep, men carrying old parts in cardboard boxes walked through the door approaching them, and that was the last thing they saw before drifting off to another uneasy sleep.