Tales from the rails

Rail Yard Bowling

In the warmest winter weeks, tourists enjoy coming to the island and taking rides in the warm passenger coaches, and the island sometimes has a bit of trouble with the extra work load. Another reason is because crews often take off work around this time and are often not able to help with the work. Rhys and Dan's crews were taking a few days off themselves, and they were setting up pins and practicing bowling in Drenk yards, the two engines would love to watch. Whenever they do this, they use the ballast in the yards as the gutters, placing some wooden planks on the sides and making a rough gutter. Due to this, rocks often are kicked up by the plastic ball they use. The rocks do come close to the line side and often don't cause problems, though if an engine or a piece of rolling stock were sitting where the ballast was, they could get tiny dents in their bodies. A lot of tourists arrived, some were here to see a special visitor. Stepney came to the island, he was going to be there to haul a special train with a diesel from the mainland. Stepney arrived at Drenk station to see the four kids bowling with Dan and Rhys watching. "Hello everybody!" Whistled Stepney as he puffed over. "Hey Stepney!" Dan said looking over. "Be careful coming over, their gutter balls kick up rocks over there." Warned Rhys. "Well, I can't stay long, just wanted to check on my little brother." "Only by a few days." Dan said flatly. Rhys laughed at that and Stepney had to go. "I'm not going to be able to stay long, sorry guys. I have to get ready for a special train tonight." Stepney said as he looked back down the line. "I got to go, bye guys!" He whistled, and Stepney began to depart. "Bye Stepney!" Dan and Rhys called out as Emma bowled another strike. "Yes! A turkey! Whoa!" She said as the pins fell.

At Pleasentville Station, A diesel oiled into the station. "I thought Sodor was the only place with more steam engines than diesels." Said the diesel as he stopped at the station. "You must be D261, welcome to the D&D Railway!" Said the stationmaster. "Yes, uh, where is Levi Station?" Asked the diesel as he looked at the station sign. "On the northwestern side of the island, just keep going down the mainline and it's the last station." He explained, then the telephone rang and the stationmaster hurried away. "Right. Uh, thank you!" The diesel then oiled away. "Oh, I can't wait to pull this special." He thought to himself, he hurried down the line as he passed steam engines and diesel engines. As he kept going, at around Vale Station, he had to stop at the station, the signal was red. The engine waited, suddenly, an electric engine raced by silently with a long goods train on the express line as it switched onto D261's track! "What was that?!" He yelled as his eyes spun round. The signal turned green after a bit and he left the station. After a while, D261 made it to Levi Station. There was a loud commotion going on as the passengers were swarming the controller. He stood on an empty crate and with a megaphone, got the attention of everyone, "The train has been postponed by a horrible storm that is rolling in on the mainline, and your connection won't be here tomorrow, so we are postponing your train until tomorrow at noon, I'm sorry!" He boomed, the passengers just grumbled at this. But there was nothing they could do, so they got on a couple buses and went back to their hotels, paid for by the railway for one more day. "Oh lord." Said Sir William V as he got down from the box and walked to his office, the porters getting back to work. "Uh, sir? Where do I stay the night?" Asked D261, rolling forwards a little bit to make himself a bit more noticeable. "There should be room at Drenk." Said the controller, turning on his heel to face the engine. The controller then hurried away, he had a lot of paperwork to do and was starting to fall behind on it. D261 rolled away, back down the line and didn't stop until Drenk.

The kids were still bowling when D261 arrived. He saw the tank engines. "Be careful, the ball kicks up rocks when they get a gutter ball!" Warned Dan. "And Dan's driver here has been getting gutter ball after gutter ball!" Rhys laughed. "Oh, what's a few pebbles going to do? Oh, I'm D261 by the way, a pleasure to meet you." "Well I'm Dan, and this is Rhys." Dan said as D261 oiled closer to the engines. It was DD's turn to bowl. "I'm going to make you eat your words Rhys!" DD chuckled as he took the ball. The ball slipped to the side, and rolled into the gutter. "Clunk! Cluclink!" The stones hit the diesel, but he didn't notice nor care. Rhys noticed this, but since D261 didn't care about the stones, he dropped it. "Dang it!" DD said as everyone else laughed. "Well, it's the last inning now, so get a spare and then the strike!" Encouraged Dan as his driver got the ball from the gutter. DD concentrated hard, he lined up the ball and sent it rolling down the wooden boards. "BOBOMBOMBUHBOM!" The pins fell down, and DD got his spare. "WHOO!" DD went to go reset the pins and get the ball. DD had one last go before the game was over, and his hit a couple pins. Emma won with a score of 163, followed by Rhys with a score of 148, then Delilah with a score of 134, and DD in last with 101. The sun was setting in the distance, Stepney had arrived. "Hello Bowler." He said, a cheeky smile crossed his face. "It's D261, how would you like it if I called you '32655'?" "Well, uh-!" "Alright, alright, settle it in the shed!" Rhys said as he helped D261 to the shed. D261 had to be moved out of the way so Stepney could get in the shed first, Stepney and Dan were set up buffer to buffer, Stepney in front of Dan. Bowler and Rhys were also set up buffer to buffer, but D261 expanded across the entire turntable and blocked everyone else from getting out. " I think your shed is a little too, uh, small for me." He chuckled as the crews left for the night, shutting off the lights and closing the doors. "It is very cozy though, did you ever hear what the mainland is doing to us?" He asked, he paused and his face lost emotion. "We're being stuffed into dirty sidings and unkept sheds. And we're not getting cleaned up when we really do need it. It was a struggle to get to here with all the soot clogging my exhaust!" "That sounds an awful lot li-" Stepney started, but Bowler cut him off, "Stepney, I'm sorry. I treated you like trash when I visited Sodor, and I really want to apologize for that." Stepney was taken aback, was this really the same Bowler from 1995? "Oh, uh, it's alright D261. It was just some name calling. On both ends. We can put are pasts aside." "Can we be friends?" "I'd like that." "Alright. Now let's get to sleep, don't want to wake up late for the big train now, do we?" "Right. Good night everyone." "Goodnight." The others said, and there would soon fall asleep one by one.