The Sudrians: The Archive Collection

Deputation

It was a few weeks later after the accident with on Gordon's hill. Nobody took much notice of it. Accidents happened a lot on railways. Only accidents with passenger trains get most of the attention, which oddly don't occur on our railway.

But soon, Donald returned from the works. He had been given a new coat of paint on his tender. Making him look odd because now his tender was shiny and almost new-looking, whilst himself looked like he had been under the coal shoot for ten minutes.

Gordon, Henry and James found it a little hilarious. But Donald didn't mind.

It was still autumn on the island near the end and beginning of December. The leafs had all disappeared, and frost took its place in the mornings.

We hated the cold, but were glad when their fires would be set alight and they would be warmed up by it.

They were expecting an increase of traffic too, Christmas coming around would mean passengers would try and get to their families and freight work would increase too.

But what we didn't expect was one morning, two weeks after the accident on the hill, the doors of the shed flung open and what we saw was a surprise.

Laying on the ground everywhere, was snow.

Snow droplets still came down from the skies and we all groaned in annoyance.

"This is splendid!" yelled James.

"Snow? At this time?" quizzed Henry.

"Disgraceful," murmured Gordon, annoyed.

I looked outside, surveying the yards. "By the looks of things," I said, "you'll have to put on your snowploughs."

"And why's that?" asked James.

"Because it snows much more harsher after Wellsworth," I told them, "so snow will cover the tracks."

"Poooh," scoffed Henry, "I never need my snowplough, never got stuck in snow and never will."

"Didn't you get trapped at Vicarstown last year though?"

"Shut it Duck!"

"Och, no need ta be rude," said Donald crossly.

"Why should you be in this conversation?" asked James, "you probably don't even know how to plough snow!"

"Actually," Douglas interjected, "Scotland gets a lot of snow. Much more harsher up there than down here I may say."

I looked over to Gordon. "Since Gordon is the leader," I said, making James and Henry glare daggers at me. "What would you say?"

Gordon glanced at me, then back at the Scottish twins. "I suggest," he said, "that we do our jobs, and the twins show how they plough the snow back in their homeland."

Henry and James thought of the idea themselves, and agreed to it. We all set to work after that. Donald and Douglas asked one of the inspectors on their plan. He agreed, and Donald and Douglas began to set their plan into action.

They first found a work's coach, with men with shovels and other tools to dig away ice and snow all huddled inside. They helped fitted two snowploughs in front of the engines. They were so high that they reached the tip of their own noses. Once done, both Donald and Douglas buffered up to the work's coach with them facing away from it each end.

They soon set off, the first two engines to go out that day. I was shunting Henry's coaches into the platform. Both of us were talking about the changes on British Railways and want effects it was making.

"I asked a BR Standard on how those diesels were back at their place," said Henry, "she said they were rude and horrible to them."

"What do they say?" I asked, whilst pulling the coaches past Henry and into the platform.