The two brothers made their way onto the main running line outside the yard, only to stop so they could reverse into the station platform with Ormond swapping cab ends from Danwood to Sanworth so he could see ahead. The signalman switched the points, and give Sanworth and Ormond the all clear to head into the station, and Danwood and Sanworth slowly moved in the opposite direction, inching their way into the platform where they stopped beside the main building. The station itself was built to that of Devonshire grey stone construction, the stone having been quarried out from the copper mine who assisted in its construction with a design similar to Buckfastleigh station on the old Ashburton line, having been built during the period when the line was originally built to a board gauge standard and was operated by the South Devon Railway with some extensions added to the station by the GWR in 1923 and 28 respectively.

Another illustration done for TFTTOH chapter 2, this one featuring Danwood and Sanworth pulling into Lightcombe station in preparation for their first run of the day. This one of the more detailed illustrations I had to do, but it was worth it in the end.

Tarmingham Overhead Railway and Characters: © GreatEasternJ69

Finished the first illustration for chapter 2 of TFTTOH the Arrival of the DMU's. This illustration is part of the introduction to our main protagonist's Danwood and Sanworth who are BR Class 101's and their two sisters Angelina and Danielle who are seen here sleeping in their original shed at their original home at Lightcombe on the former Jamston and Lightcombe branch line in Devon, on a cold morning sunrise as the sun is rising over the hills.

Tarmingham Overhead Railway and Characters: © Great Eastern J69

Another illustration for the upcoming chapter 2 of TFTTOH Book 1. Here we see Danwoods and Sanworth's driver Ormond who used to drive them when they worked on their old branch line in Devon, enter the shed where they along with their sister's Angelina and Danielle are sleeping, as the sunrises behind him.

Tarmingham Overhead Railway and Characters: © GreatEasternJ69

Should've posted this here awhile ago. Anyways the second chapter of TFTTOH book 1 is now available to read on FA and you finally get to meet the stories main protagonist th BR Class 101 brothers Danwood and Sanworth, enjoy!:

“You may be happy to see children, you two.” said Angelina who had just woken up after the lights had come on, “But after there off to school it’s just going to be another old boring day of us shuttling backwards and forwards along the line as usual, with no paying passengers riding in us, and the engines on the mainline belittling us on how pointless our lives are on this line, claiming that it’s one that’s dying. All the while we are still facing an uncertain future for our home once the copper mine has winded down production for good, with the line mostly likely to be on BR’s chopping block of branch lines to be closed, and yet I don’t know where we’ll go when that happens, and if we’ll be separated or not.”

Here's a bit of a sneak preview and another illustration done for chapter two of book one of TFTTOH. Angelina here has just woken up after hearing Danwood and Sanworth say how they are looking forward to taking the few children they still have traveling with them to school, with her then after grumbling to them about how after that it was just going to be another boring day with no paying passengers traveling on their line, with the engines on the mainline making fun of them about how pointless their life is for them on a dying branch line, while worrying about what would happen to them after it's closure.

Tarmingham Overhead Railway and Characters: © GreatEasternJ69

Finally I was in time to do something to celebrate Christmas this year, and with my two new favourite 101 boys this who will be starring in the second chapter of book 1 of TFTTOH. Danwood and Sanworth who are here to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

So, Merry Christmas 2023 everyone!

Danwood and Sanworth © GreatEasternJ69

Here is the first in a series of concept art for the first episode of Tale from the Tarmingham Overhead of the one of the scenes that'll be featured in the episode.

 It is January of 1970 and having arrived yesterday from their home in Devon on a five year loan to the Overhead in the city of Tarmingham to help out with the motive power shortage on the railway. Danwood and Sanworth the Class 101 DMU's are soon to be recoupled together ready for a trial run along the Walaceton Line to Walaceton in Suffolk, to see if they would perform well on that service to allow Gareth to be moved on to another service and other duties on the railway.

 While they were being prepared the other engines left to start their work, while the last engine to leave the shed who was a regular guest to the engines of the Overhead, was a Class 37 called Andrew who usually worked the top expresses out of Tarmingham down to London Liverpool Street on the Great Eastern Mainline, along with stopping services between there and Norwich. He was heading out to take an express down to London, when he began brooding to himself about something. Danwood having noticed this asked Andrew if he was alright. Andrew told him rudely that it was none of his business and lied to him that he was fine, to which Danwood didn't take lightly to and told Andrew that he wasn't going to fall for a lie that he used to cover up what was on his mind.

 Knowing that he wasn't going to hide his thoughts with a lie to one of the engines who worked for the same operator as him. Andrew give in as soon as the turntable stopped moving. In a grouchy tone, he told him and Sanworth that after what the other engines told them about the current state of the Overhead and how they believed that the railway was probably in it's final day's of existence. He stated that life was not simple or an idealist utopia that their kind was led to believe in the first place, and believed that BR and the humans in charge, had failed to prevent the discrimination brought upon them by their steam breathing predecessors and that their modernisation plan had been nothing but a costly failure, that was only done for the sack of the government tax payers to continue running BR into the ground, and that Alistair was no different to BR's management. Seeing as he was once a CEO of an American road construction firm, which was so happened to be working with him and through manipulation sent the Overhead into the state it found itself in for fourteen years.

 Andrew started by expressing his distrust for steam engines, as he believed that they brought discrimination against him and other diesels because they feared them and let their belief that steam traction was still superior than diesel power blind them to the point of extremism and near oppression of their kind. Which was a huge shocker for Danwood and Sanworth having worked with a steam engine themselves on their branch line back home before he was withdrawn and scrapped, and wasn't like the ones Andrew had described. Andrew told them that he was one of the few who didn't side with his prejudice peers, seeing those who were like him as the only ones whoever seemed to got along with diesels. Despite this he believed it still didn't justify their peers actions that were brought against them and they did nothing to prevent their suffering.

 This hate was made even more so by the organisation who fought for steam to remain the dominate motive power on the railways, the British Steam Locomotive Liberation Front, who under the leadership a manipulative human being lead a futile campaign in an attempt to prevent diesel's and electrics from replacing steam locomotives in their entirety in favour of some unachievable aim to have steam turbine engines be the next phase of locomotive traction. Through strike action outside stations and small damaging accidents that disrupted the system, they committed to more discriminatory actions towards their successors to that of hate crimes committed towards people of colour.

 This treatment by steam engines eventually reached a boiling point where the Liberation abandoned their role of fighting for the rights of steam locomotives and the members including several engines turned into steam power extremists hell-bent on resorting to violent acts in an attempt to destroy their species to extinction and to force BR into ending the dieselisation program. Andrew then said that the steam locomotives and their terror group eventually got their comeuppance by the end of their time on the railways two years back, when those who were members were finally arrested for their crimes. But because of the abuse that he experienced during that period with some engines and because of what they did, Andrew treated all steam locomotives with deep distrust and suspicion, and was lead to cynicism that they only cared about themselves than the lives of other motive power round them, and that view would probably never change for him.

 He took this further in his next point, and that they were also responsible for the death of his favourite sister Olivia. Who was brutally murdered along with some other engines in a horrific shed explosion in 1965 at the hands of the liberation parking fuel tankers in the shed and setting them alight. He was of course there at the time outside the shed and he had to watch in horror and helplessness as he tearfully watched his sister burn to death right before his very eyes. Even to that day Andrew could still see that gruesome image flying around in his mind of his sisters death, and it was a scar he believed would never heal. Therefore he blamed the steam engines involved in the incident and the liberation for taking Olivia away from him, and he also stated that he also blamed BR for doing nothing to prevent her and the other diesels from being burned to death at the hands of them. Feeling his loss Danwood and Sanworth could only symphysis with him, but said nothing as Andrew continued. He also felt that other diesels who had lost siblings to the liberation had also been let down by BR and had to deal with years of loss a deep never-ending one.

 Finally Andrew brought up the leader of the Diesel and Electric locomotives and the assistant to BR's management himself, Lord Edward. Who Andrew saw as an ideological, capitalistic, patronising and deceitful liar who only cared about fulling their kinds minds with nothing but lies about how BR's modernisation was a success and that dieselisation was the way of the future. When he failed to see that BR was not this private company that run for the sack of improving services through profit, and was instead a government funded enterprise that rallied on tax payer money from the public in order to survive. Something that he believed the government had been downplaying for years, as Lord Edward was actually running the services and the modernisation program into the ground to where Andrew saw it as a massive failure, as the network was now in a trouble state outside the mainline and London routes as most of the rural lines had simply been left to rot with most of their services having been cut and the trains were running late, tracks deteriorated, and rolling stock being old and outdated. To where the public saw the system as being more of a joke now, than one that Lord Edward could show off in that stuck up brain of lies of his.

 Andrew then went onto what he considered the worse thing about Lord Edward, his constant lies towards diesels that they were the future of locomotive traction on the railways. Which he blamed for further incinerating the violence brought upon them by the steam engines and the liberation. As it was the enforcement of this belief that lead to his followers and other diesels to be aggressive towards steam locomotives that lead them to have massive resentment towards them. Andrew told the two DMU's that he saw it as propaganda to create unrest and ingrain supremacist views towards steam engines into their minds without considering the fact that maybe one day they too would be seen as obsolete as their predecessors, due to him having seen diesels of failed designs being scrapped, which helped him realise that in truth they weren't superior as Lord Edward had lead most to believe. Andrew also saw with his own eyes that as Edwards followers continued to believe his lies and show supremacy towards steam locomotives, their discontent with them continued to rise, to when the liberation would eventually turn to extremism and commit many of the acts that he mentioned earlier. Many who had come to fear them thought that Lord Edward and BR themselves would be their saviours who would protect them from the threats of the liberation.

 However even that was a lie that he could see, as what did Lord Edward do when the threat arise. Andrew told Danwood and Sanworth that Lord Edward and BR did absolutely nothing to prevent further suffering of those he was meant to represent, as he and the management spent most of that time focusing on their pointless modernisation plan and Edward focusing mostly on making BR profitable, increasing dieselisation and reducing services despite the safety of passengers, stuff and engines being at risk from the liberations threats being aimed at him and BR. Proving that Lord Edward was an engine who didn't care about the safety of others around him when it came to crimes being committed by the liberation, and was lying to make himself look good in front of his followers so that they wouldn't acknowledge what was happening behind their cabs. While BR eventually did realise the situation in the end and got the British Transport Police involved in the end to take the liberation down. The loss of innocent lives and the discrimination from steam engines though Lord Edwards incompetence of not being there for his fellow diesels including Olivia to Andrew was unforgivable and BR was no better as far as he was concerned. He told Danwood and Sanworth that since then he showed a strong resentment towards Lord Edward and the displeasure of working under a publicly run railway system who couldn't careless about modernising and improving standards, showing safety to their engines in times of crisis and were responsible for the downfall the entire British Railway network in not only his eyes, but also the publics eyes who saw them as being a no good unreliable service to the British people.

 After expressing his long discontent with the state of BR, the abuse he received from the steam engines, his loss and distrust of them and Lord Edward to Danwood and Sanworth in his harsh terms. Andrew told the two that even the Overhead wouldn't survive for much longer and that their time on it would probably be short lived, as Mr Ruleton himself was hopeless of the situation his railway was in with Alistair in charge as mayor, and that it would be Alistair's fault for why the railway fell. If even they somehow manage to vote him out, the railway would never be able to bounce back from it's financial crisis and would be forced into receivership, as the damage would've already have been done. Him finally saying "No publicly owned railway is ever the best." before heading off to take his train, little knowing the two DMU brothers would soon prove him wrong about the Overheads survival.

 Danwood, Sanworth, Andrew, Tarmingham Overhead and other characters © Great Eastern J69

In the push to switch to cleaner energy sources for her railways locomotives. Agatha Ruleton started an upgrade program to retro fit the Tarmingham Overhead Railways fleet of diesel locomotives and railcars to run on hydrogen fuel, which meant giving them a complete engine overhaul. The railways flagship DMU's Danwood and Sanworth the Class 101 would be the first two to receive this upgrade, as the railway needed to experiment if the upgrade to hydrogen was a worthy investment and their flagship engines were the right candidate for the task with a hydrogen engine designed for them being commissioned from Hydrocell Power, Inc. Arriving a week later with Danwood and Sanworth being brought to the railways locomotive works to begin the overhaul, and Danwood was a amazed when the engine pulled into the yard on a lorry and couldn't wait to have it fitted to both him and Sanworth. Agatha Ruleton and her luxury car a 'Polls-Boyce Banshee' Samantha there for Agatha to oversee the unloading process, and for a curious Samantha to see the engine for herself.

If you want to know what Samantha's base is, it's the Rolls-Royce Phantom. I didn't use the real life car and brand name for this, as I'm moving away from using real life car brands to describe the basis's of motor vehicle characters, and I will be replacing them with parodies of those same brands with the car models also being given different names to their real live counterparts.

Danwood Sanworth, Agatha Ruleton and Samantha © Great Eastern J69