Will & Won't is the fourth episode of the first series of The Dark Railway Series.
Plot[]
Owen and Ryan are excited to be assisting a temporary manager whilst Mr. Dark is away. The two diesels think about their upcoming responsibilities as the sun shines over the shed whilst they wait for the new manager to arrive. Three hours pass, and the manager does not arrive. Curious, the two diesels head to Merecombe station to find him.
At the station, the station master, Mr. Walton, informs the engines that the temporary manager has been severely injured in a traffic accident, and therefore cannot come to the railway. Mr Walton asks the two diesels if they are up to the responsibility of running the line, leading Owen to decide that they can.
Mr Walton hands them the day's work orders, which includes shunting jobs that the two diesels would usually do. However, Owen is overcome with power, and immediately declares that himself and Ryan shall have a rest, and they will reassign another engine to do their jobs. Ryan is skeptical of all of this, saying that they can do the shunting, but Owen has other ideas and heads back to the station.
They find Raymond resting in a siding, who is tired, having just returned to the line with a passenger train. Owen sidles up and informs Raymond that he is to do shunting at the Industrial Estate, rather than take the next goods train. Raymond does not like the sound of this, but Owen assures him that his other work will be re-assigned.
Raymond heads to the industrial estate to shunt the trucks, which immediately make fun of him. Raymond's driver, who rarely does shunting work, forgets to take the trucks' handbrakes off, making them hard to move. Raymond looses patience, and accidentally pushes the trucks off the line, where they laugh even more.
In the meantime, Owen has found Sir Eustace in the sheds, and gives him Raymond's original job of pulling a goods train, despite Eustace needing to haul an express shortly. Eustace retaliates, claiming he will not pull a goods train, but Owen is adamant, and manages to shout Eustace down! He trundles off to find someone else to do Eustace's next job.
He finds Theo and Otto shunting at the Gasworks, informing them that they are to take the next passenger train from Merecombe. Theo informs Owen that they are too small to haul a fast passenger train, but Owen reminds them that he and Ryan did it once. Theo gets angry, but Owen again shouts over him before running away.
Problems quickly arise. First, Raymond refuses to do any more work until Mr. Dark comes back, due to the incident with the wagons. Theo and Otto fail whilst pulling the train, forcing Eustace to abandon his train and take the passenger service instead so that the twins can return to Merecombe. Brian then takes the goods train, opting to stay away from the line that night to avoid any more issues. Meanwhile, Ryan is trying to fix the problems Owen is causing.
Dave has seemingly disappeared, but Brian finds him the next day at Colhapper, hiding in the goods shed. Dave claims to have been away in Newport, and has now been hiding at Colhapper due to hearing about Owen's poor management of the engines. The two engines head back to Merecombe to find all the engines in the sheds, shying away from Owen.
After a short discussion, Dave decides to overthrow Owen by the simple means of ignoring him. The other engines agree, and Ryan and Mr. Walton recover the work orders to give the engines their proper jobs. Owen corners Ryan, shrieking at him for being a traitor, but Ryan simply goes off to complete Owen's actual shunting jobs. The other engines get back to their real jobs, whilst Owen sulks at the Junction.
Mr. Dark returns the following Monday, to a chorus of whistles and toots from his engines. Eustace informs Mr. Dark that it's been a nightmare whilst he has been away, and when he asks why, the other engines give him the whole story. Mr. Dark is very disappointed with Owen, who takes full responsibility for his actions when Mr. Dark tries to lay blame on Ryan. Instead of being brutally punished, Mr. Dark tells Owen not to do any more work that week, so he can think about what he has done. Dave forces Owen to promise not to try and take over again!
Owen and Ryan apologise to each other, and Owen realises that he should stick to shunting, rather than taking charge!
Characters[]
- Dave
- Brian
- Raymond
- Theo
- Sir Eustace Missenden
- Owen
- Ryan
- Mr. Dark
- Mr. Walton
- Otto (does not speak)
- 257 Squadron (cameo)
Locations[]
Trivia[]
- This is the only episode of the series to be separated into two videos.
- It is unknown why Mr Dark would entrust Owen and Ryan with running the railway, when clearly, it would have made more sense to assign Mr Walton with the task. However, Mr Dark is known to be fond of his engines, so it may be that he trusted them more than he trusted Mr Walton.
- Mr Walton should have tried to arrange for a different temporary manager to attend, but did not, instead allowing Owen to take charge.
- Dave claims to have been hiding out "At Newport all night". This is a reference to "Gary the Steam Engine" which was partly set in Newport, Wales. It is known that Dave and the main character of that series, "Gary", are good friends, hence the visit.
- This is the first time that we see 257 Squadron in the series, in an unnamed and uncredited cameo at Colhapper.
Goofs[]
- Several jump cuts are used throughout the episode, for instance, when Raymond is shunting.
- The scene in which the wagons jump into the air and off the rails was a glitch, as the wagons were supposed to just fall off the rails.
- The narrator says that Owen cornered Ryan in a storage siding. However, he actually corners him at Merecombe Sheds.
Gallery[]
