The Island of Sodor: The New Stories.

John the Scarred Engine (Ex. USATC No. 3394, Pres. NWR No. 20):

John is a USATC S160 built in 1944 by Baldwin Locomotive Works and shipped to Europe after D-Day. He mainly pulled goods trains around the recently liberated French countryside. Then the Allies started pushing into Germany. One day they got reports of a train of ammunition was making a sprint for Berlin. John and his crew were ordered to stop it. They took a few wagons and chased after it. They were about to reach a set of points when John's safety valve burst. He stopped just as the wagons went over the points. His crew went to find a car to get back to base, while the soldiers stayed with John. Minutes later they heard a whistle, and then they saw the train approaching fast. John told everyone to run, so they did. The train braked hard, but it hit first truck and clipped John's front. Since the train was stocked with explosives you can guess what happened next. Surprisingly, John was still mostly intact after the train exploded, but he had been thrown back by the force of the explosion. He claims to have seen a purple tank engine before he passed out. When he woke up, he was in a shop in France being repaired. He had surprisingly been easy to fix, but he now had a very prominent scar on his right eye and some minor scars on his face thanks to flying shrapnel. He soon discovered that the war had ended, and he learned the fate of his crew and the soldiers. His crew was ambushed and killed by soldiers that were stationed in destroyed buildings, and most of the soldiers had been either killed or seriously injured when the train exploded. This had a serious effect on John. After this he was put into departmental stock on the Southern Railway, and he later met two other wartime engines, Neville and Rosie. They realized that John wasn't just physically scarred, but mentally as well. It took a while for John to open up, but he eventually did. Then nationalization happened and the trio was separated. John never made friends with anyone else out of the fear of being separated again. One thing that never left his mind was the mysterious purple engine. She looked like an older class of engine, so he asked around to see if anyone knew who she was. Eventually he came face to face with the engine one moonless night. She introduced herself as Delilah. She then told him it would be better if he stopped asking about her. Then she disappeared into the night. John became almost obsessed with the supernatural. Whenever anything strange happened, John was usually the first one to investigate. This led him to become associated with a Z Class Tank engine named Maria. She had been assigned to a new branch of the police force that investigated railway crimes. Since he wasn't technically part of BR's running stock, John helped on a few cases, despite not being an officer himself. This also led to him suffering many minor breakdowns. This continued until 1968, when he was eventually withdrawn. He was towed to Crewe and placed in a sighting, where he reunited with Neville. They weren't there very long, when Sir Robert came and bought them a few months later. They were given a general fix-up and headed to Sodor under their own power. They were stationed at Ulfstead and made to look their absolute best. They were up at Ulfstead until Sir Stephen needed one or two engines to help on the main line, so he bought Neville and John from Sir Robert. They both helped with goods work on the main line. Neville was painted a dark blue with a black trim, while John was painted an interesting shade of malachite green. Then Neville was reassigned to Brendam, and John was alone again. He did what he did on BR, until Murdoch struck up a conversation with him. This helped him loosen up, and eventually he started making friends on his own. John means well but does look rather intimidating. When he first met Molly, she was terrified to go near him. After an incident with a runaway coal train, they finally became friends. Now he pulls trains in and around the heart of Sodor. In his spare time, he investigates various supernatural activity on Sodor, especially around Great Waterton. Since he runs coal trains from the mines up there, it's easy to ask the locals any questions about the town's history.