Deviation Actions
Harry is a little switcher on the Golden Valley Railroad. He has four small wheels, three domes, one brass bell and a silver smokestack. Every day he and Baldwin arranged passenger and freight cars in the yard for the bigger locomotives. Occasionally, Baldwin would leave the yard with a small freight train or a local passenger train leaving Harry to do the work alone. Harry always works hard and doesn’t mind the extra work, but sometimes grows lonely with only cars for company all day.
One wet evening in April, Harry was in the roundhouse with the other locos. Baldwin was just arriving home after taking a light freight train from the coal mine at the end of one of the branch lines. He was covered in coal dust!
“Take your dust someplace else, Baldwin!” Hudson groaned. “I was just polished this morning!” Baldwin just ignored the streamlined engine. He was used to his condescending remarks.
“A dirty loco’s a hard working loco, I always say!” said Sullivan with a wink.
“I can’t help getting dirty! Those mines are hot, dusty and smelly!” said Baldwin. “It’s not exactly my favorite job either.”
“At least you get to leave the yard once and a while!” said Harry. “I’m stuck here all day with only cars for company! They’re not exactly good conversationalists! I wouldn’t mind getting my paint dirty if it meant a change of scenery!”
The next day Baldwin was away at the mines again, so Harry was left alone in the yard to do the switching. It had rained heavily during the night, and the fresh rain combined with the newly melted snow made for enormous puddles all over the yard. Some were so deep that they completely covered the track. As Harry rushed backwards and forwards arranging cars and coaches for the big locomotives he would splash through the deep puddles sending water soaring across the yard!
“WHOOSH!” he said as he rolled through an especially large puddle, “Now this is fun! Oh, I wish Baldwin were here to see this!” he chuckled.
Gilbert was in the yard backing down on a freight train when Harry came rushing towards him on another line.
“Hey, Gilbert!” he whistle, “Watch this!” Harry whooshed past through a puddle showing Gilbert in muddy water. Gilbert laughed as the water rolled down his boiler.
“Be careful Harry,” he said. “Looks like fun, but you might put out your fire!” But Harry didn’t hear Gilbert and continued to splash around the yard as he arranged the cars for the other engines.
“‘In Just – spring, when the world is mud-luscious the little lame balloonman whistles far and wee…’” Richard recited quietly to himself in the roundhouse that evening.
“How would anyone know he was coming if he was whistling ‘far and wee’?” pondered Harry who himself was looking very ‘mud-luscious’. He was covered in brown muddy speckles from all his playing in the puddles.
“He doesn’t need to get anyone’s attention, he was just whistling to pass the time!” explained Richard. “It’s a poem by a man called e. e. cummings. ‘And eddieandbill come running…’”
“I heard you had a mud-luscious day yourself, Harry!” Baldwin said and winked at Harry “Managing to cope without me around I see!”
“The puddles in the yard made it more fun,” Harry said, “but my engineer wouldn’t let me go as fast as I wanted. He said it was too dangerous to race around the freight yard like I did.”
“‘… when the world is puddle-wonderful…’” Richard’s poem went on in a sleepy voice.
“He’s right you know. Be careful Harry,” advised Baldwin, who had worked in the yard much longer than Harry, “or you’ll get into trouble!”
“I get so bored all by myself!” Harry complained. “I need a breath of fresh air, that’s all! Then I wouldn’t be so antsy!”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Baldwin. “You take my cars to the mine tomorrow and I’ll stay in the yard. I’m sure our engineers will agree!”
“‘… and the goat-footed balloonMan whistles… far… and… wee…’” Richard’s poem finished just as it began to rain, and as the raindrops pitter pattered on the roof of the roundhouse, the locomotives fell quietly to sleep.
The next morning everything was soaked! The sun was just beginning to break through the cloud cover revealing a beautiful morning rainbow in the sky. Baldwin and Harry told their engineers and stokers about their plan, and when they said yes the two locos went excitedly to work. Harry waited patiently in the yard as Baldwin readied his train.
“It sure feels nice to have someone arranging a train for me for a change,” Harry smiled. “instead of the other way around!” Soon everything was ready, and Harry set out from the yard towards the mines with his empty cars.
The world was indeed ‘puddle-wonderful’ that morning! Low patches of grass had turned into marshy bogs and it seemed to Harry like he was racing through deep puddles with every other puff he took! His engineer tried to slow him down as they approached deeper ones, but his heavy cars made it hard to slow down much. Water lapped his wheels and mud splattered his boiler as he sped happily down the line.
They couldn’t have known that during the night a river that ran alongside the line had burst its banks and flooded the land nearby. The tracks had disappeared into the flood and much of the ballast that kept the rails from the ground had been washed away. As Harry approached the place he was going fast. He’d convinced his engineer to speed up to save time on the journey home. When they saw the flood his driver tried to stop, but Harry was going much too fast to stop in time.
“This will be the biggest splash ever!” Harry said to himself has he drew nearer and neared to the flood.
“Harry, stop!” shouted his engineer. “It’s too deep!” Harry realized his driver was right and tried to stop, but the wet rails and the weight of his train made it impossible. With a tremendous WHOOSH his wheels plunged beneath water. Moments later they left the rail as the floods had severely damaged the track. Harry’s wheels squelched through the underwater mud before he came to a sudden stop, settling helplessly up to his boiler in water. Harry tried to whistle for help, but his fire and been washed out by the water. His engineer and stoker when for help leaving Harry cold, wet and alone.
It seemed like an eternity before Baldwin arrived with a crane to help Harry back onto the track. First, Baldwin took the cars to a siding then came back to help Harry. Before long, Harry was back on the rails and Baldwin took him back the roundhouse. It was a long cold night for Baldwin, and he was careful never to play around in puddles again.