The Abandoned Island

Tedious Work

Plans would start to made for both the near future and the major goals. All of these plans would be made with everyone's inputs, and they would be asked what jobs they would prefer to do and when. With everyone's involvement, including the Ffarquhar crew, when they were all brought to the Steamworks, deadlines were set up for all the work that would hopefully be done. One of these projects would be Kelly, Oliver, Byron, and Monty wripping up all the roads they could. Kelly would supervise, but also, he would unload supplies for the group and help move fallen trees and powerlines off the road. Nelson and Boco would be used to retrieve both Trevor and Elizabeth, both of whom would also be brought to the Steamworks. Everyone was excited to see them and happily caught up in their free time. Boco and Derek would run the grass cutting machines up and down the main line, Ffarquhar branch, and Brendam Branch, including the loop. Arry and Bert would be on the clay pit trains every week, and when those weren't being ran, Zeph and Salty would go to Knapford and Tidmouth with some trucks. There, they would clean up all the glass and pull out all the broken and intact glass panes from the collapsed canopies. They were preparing the canopies for winter, where projects would be limited.

Also, as far as the clay runs were concerned, they began running three loads a day, which would take the majority of the day. However, this gave them back spending money. This money was used for the obvious supplies like food, fuel, oil, and coal, but was also used for new heavy-duty rails and sleepers. With the sleepers, Zeph was able to work out a deal where they would supply the wood, and in turn, a company would cut it down and treat them so the sleepers would last twice as long. As far as the wood went, she asked for Henry's permission to log his forest for all the fallen and eldest trees, and in turn, they would plant new ones at a later date. The big engine hardly hesitated as he saw the benefit this would be for the island, both in getting brand new sleepers for the rails, but also it would help remove all the damage from the forest and allow the younger trees to prosper. So, some days, the third load of clay was supplemented with logs, which they stacked neatly along the tracks. They didn't just take from Henry's forest, but all fallen trees across the discovered parts of the island were taken, so nothing went to waste. Zeph also asked Trevor for permission to pick the fruit from the orchard, and with his blessing, she would fill crates with the ripe fruit and load them onto her ship proper the day before she left with the clay shipments. That way, she could sell them to stores and markets for even more money and good relations with stores.

When the new rails and sleepers came in, the engines rotated who helped Zeph wrip up the old rails and sleepers and put in the new ones. They started at the clay pits and replaced one line of track all the way to Wellsworth before doing the other line. That way, trains could always be ran. By the time those two lines had been fully replaced, it was mid-fall. So, instead of starting wripping up the main line, they focused on wood and fruit gathering. This way, they could store as many sleepers and rails in the warehouses at the docks as possible for when spring came. While looking through the other warehouses, they were able to find two engine snow plows, though they were in poor condition. So, during the night after the deliveries, Zeph would take time to weld and repair them for the coming winter. All the engines warned the young girl about how the islands winter could be unforgiving and relentless, and Edward would tell her some stories of accidents that had happened in the past. She would also buy several dozen bags of sand for engines so they had it in case they needed it.

For the rest of fall, they ran trains of wood and clay to the ship, and would run rails and sleepers, for both narrow gauge and standard gauge railways, to various places to be stored for the next spring. The road crew, on the other hand, made great progress. Kelly had Oliver and Monty break up the road from Wellsworth all the way down the docks, while him and Byron worked on the roads from Wellsworth towards Crovan's gate. Obviously, they wouldn't get to Crovan's gate as that was a massive undertaking, but they would reach Killdane. The roads weren't straight from point to point. They had to head down towards Suddery and then to Cronk before they could reach Killdane. But they managed to wrip it all up before winter would arrive.

When winter did arrive, it arrived with a flourish. The snow would fall so thick that the team couldn't actually leave the Works that day, so they spent the day relaxing while Zeph worked on them all. She gave the diesels and working steamies maintenance, and when that was done, she began working on the non-working engines. The following day, the snow had gone from near blizzard to that of a light sprinkle, so Zeph would mount the snow plows, with Kevins help, onto Boco and Edward. Edward would grab one of the breakdown cranes, while Boco would take several trucks. They would then head outside into the four feet deep snow and head towards Knapford. It was slow going with all the snow and the occasional wheel slip, but they eventually arrived at Knapford station. After positioning the crane and trucks, Zeph climbed out of Edwards cab and began the long and arduous process of cutting up the mangled, twisted frame of the massive canopy. She would cut them up into as big of pieces as she could before using the crane to carefully load them into the trucks. The goal was to clear one of the through lines, or in this case, platform line one. Edward told her that this was Gordon's platform, the one he always left from with the express. Zeph was glad to have both Boco and Edward here, as listening to their stories made the work go by faster, but also, Edward's fire kept her warm when she took breaks.

The Knapford canopies, and later the Tidmouth canopies, would take a month and a half to cut up and clear away. Thankfully, Salty and her had cleared away all the glass, so there was no worry of her cutting herself again. With both canopies dismantled and transported to the Ironworks/scrapyard, the main line could be considered clear. This meant they now had access to Tidmouth sheds and the massive Knapford freight yard. With the main winter project done with, the rest of winter would be spent running clay shipments and working on the engines and rolling stock.

When spring finally arrived, Bill, Ben, Porter, Thomas, Toby, and Percy had mostly been restored. All of their boilers were still outside her expertise to restore, but all of their valve gear and pipes and such, she was able to fix. Daisy was able to be restored to working order, and Annie, Clarabel, Henrietta, Victoria, and Elsie were restored and even repainted so they would be ready for use. Their upholstery needed to be fixed still, but everything else was able to be fixed. The little SECR P class also received some TLC, with Zeph being able to remove all the paint on the little engine, and restore the majority of the engines parts, and those she couldn't, she was able to have replaced. There was still the case of fixing all the holes, changing out their boiler which they had, and reinstalling everything, but besides fixing all the holes, the engine was almost completely ready to be put back together. It had taken nearly a year of working in her spare time and at night for her to strip and repair everything she could, but soon, the little engine could work again.

Also, with the start of spring, started the beginning of the track and road repair, or more accurately, track repair and road wripping up. The next line to be focused on repairing was all the track at Crovan's gate, including that of the Skarloey railway. This undertaking would take two months as there was a lot of track here on both gauges of railway. Thankfully, Rusty and Fred, who had also been overhauled during winter, gladly helped. When that was complete, the next line to receive its much needed maintenance was the Ffarquhar branch. Since there was a weight limit that had to be watched due to the bridges, Rosie and Salty helped repair the line. This would take to late summer to complete, but with the new sleepers and heavy duty rails, even Boco had a chance to run down the line. That currently left the main line, which they worked on when they could, the engines taking turns on doing the boring job. This and the roads were the main projects for the rest of summer and during the fall, with continuous shipments of clay, fruit, and wood to Britain, and sleepers, Heavy duty standard and narrow gauge rails, fuel, coal, oil, food, and other supplies being brought back to the island.

By the start of the second winter, they had fixed one of the three main lines all the way from Knapford to Maron. But, going off of the previous winter, they would need projects to do. So it was decided that now that they could get to Knapford yard, that they would start moving engines and rolling stock around. Bill, Ben, Porter, and the Ffarquhar crew were moved to the Knapford freight yard, and in turn, many rolling stock were brought to the Works to be worked on. Most importantly, low loader cars so the Pack could be moved much easier, but also other trucks, vans, and tankers. All of these trucks would be the focus of repair and the little P Class locomotive, during the second winter in between shipments of clay and wood. And when that winter came to an end, half of the Knapford yard fleet was ready to be used again. Everyone was rather excited for this third year, and with all the work they had done so far, they were ready for what this year would bring.

(Apologies, Wattpad is being weird and is struggling to let me post this part. I have no clue what is going on. Also, sorry for this time lapsed part. I doubt y'all wanted to read multiple boring parts.)