The Island of Sodor: The New Stories.

Valerie the Restored Engine (Ex. LNWR No. 399):

Valerie is one of the LNWR's famous Bloomers. In this universe, one additional Bloomer is on the roster. Valerie's title is actually Valiant, but only people who don't know her use it. Valerie was painted black with red stripes like the rest of her sisters. She worked until she was withdrawn with the others. However, instead of being scrapped, she found her way to Sodor. Her driver and fireman pooled together enough money to buy her off of the scrapyard. Valerie stayed in a shed until 1914, when her crew found out that the KCW was looking for an engine. She worked there until Fergus was bought in 1926. Not only had she been replaced, but her crew had died the previous year. Since she had no real owner, she was sent to Crock's Scrap Yard. This yard was not equipped to scrap tender engines, so she sat there until 1947, when she was sent up to the Ironworks. The engines there took pity on her and moved her to a remote part of the yard every time the scrappers got too close. One of the employees, a Cuban man named Victor Luna made it his personal mission to restore Valerie. He made good progress and the two became close. Unfortunately, he died under suspicious circumstances. Some say he was murdered, and his ghost still haunts the yards. Since Victor wasn't there to keep restoring her, Valerie fell into disrepair again. Then one day in 2016, Bert stumbled across her. He told Harry and they both worked to keep her away from the scrappers, or worse, Diego. Eventually, Harry accidentally told Belle when she was helping to do track maintenance at the works. She promised not to tell, but unfortunately Diego overheard them. He found Valerie and dragged her away to the mainland. Harry and Bert didn't hesitate to go after them, and they even roped Oliver into their mission. It took almost a week, but they finally got Valerie back. She was stored in the works while the twins told Sir Stephen about her. Sir Stephen didn't have room for her in his fleet, but Sir Robert did in his. He paid to have her completely restored and refurbished. The work that Victor did allowed Valerie to be mostly salvageable. Despite this, the job was long. After 4 long years, she was finally completed. She was very close to her original condition; except she has a cab and a different boiler and set of cylinders. She also decided to be painted red to change things a little more. In her days on Sodor, she actually met Wilbert Awdry when he visited the Island. She was incredibly rusty by this time, so when Awdry made a model of her, he painted it red. This model was recently rediscovered, much like Valerie. Now she's as happy as can be, running tourist trains from Ulfstead to Tidmouth all summer. She is now the biggest engine on the line, a title that used to belong to Ryan.