Diesel didn’t much like working in the shunting yard these days. Half the sidings had sad steam engines sitting idle in them. They made him uncomfortable with their long faces and longing looks. When he rolled by to arrange his trucks, they would try to talk to him and ask about the goings on at the station.
“I can’t sit around here with you,” he’d say snidely. “I have work to do.”
He did have work to do, but he also didn’t want any other diesels to see him talking to the steam engines. The diesels were quite proud of how well they were replacing steam. When they worked in the Yard, most of them would leer and jeer and honk their horns at the steam engines. Steam, they said, was going to be abolished soon. Diesel didn’t know what “abolished” meant exactly, but he could guess that the steam engines would all be scrapped because of it.
One night, he was putting some trucks in order for the next day when he heard something along the track out of the Yard. Read more
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