The Fog, Chapter 1
#1 of John Otterbear Steampunk
A piece i've decided to start writing. I've been writing a trilogy on my old laptop with the same ideas. I will get these uploaded when I get a floppy disk.
All the places described are real places, all i've done is steampunk everything and turn back time slightly. Hope you enjoy.
It was early December and a thick fog had covered most of the county of Norfolk. At Norwich Thorpe station the gas lamps on the platforms tried valliantly to penetrate the fog. Sitting quietly in platform 6 was a lone engine. It was a small 4 wheeled steam shunter. It's round boiler was topped by its water tank giving the whole engine a square appearance. A brass nameplate on the side of the tank read: GLADSTONE She had no cab and standing on the footplate keeping close to the warm firebox were her driver and his wife. The drivers name was John Otterbear, he was an Otter/Grizzly bear hybrid. He wore his usual loose off-white shirt, tweed waistcoat, goggles (which he kept above his eyes), light brown trousers and no shoes. His wife, Bethany, also wore the loose shirt (hers was whiter), light brown trousers and no shoes on her paws. She was a Siberian Husky and her thick fur kept her warm. Both of them liked to feel the surface they were walking on, even if it was the cold steel of Gladstones footplate. They were waiting to take a small freight train. Normally Gladstone would be occasionally run up and down John's private line near Redbridge where he and Beth lived. However, John was good friends with the owner of the railway company and occasionally took one of his engines onto the mainline to haul a special. Gladstone had been sat in the rarely used platform 6 to wait for a freight from London. Normally waiting engines would sit in the yard opposit the platforms. However the owner of the railway preferred to sit unusual engines in a platform for trainspotters to admire. Gladstone was unusual because she was built for shunting trams. John had saved her and the oldest tram from scrap. John pulled out a pocket watch from his waistcoat. It was an old watch that John had found and repaired, but it kept time well. Adjusting it so he could read it using the gas lamp nearby that had managed to penetrate the fog. "Should be here any moment now." He smiled at Beth.