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Diesel's Steel Gang is the second episode of Railside Tales.

It was first released as a direct-to-video episode on Adventures on the Railroad before debuting on YouTube as apart of Crotoonia's Railside Weekend.

Plot[]

Thomas and Tracy have been helping Pheobe and Ralph at the Bluthsburg Steeleworks. However, despite their help, orders keep increasing by the minute, meaning more work and deliveries must be done. Thus, Diesel, 'Arry and Bert are brought in to assist with the workload. They give a poor first impression on their arrival with Arry mocking Thomas and calling him a "teapot on rails", followed by Bert calling Ralph "a rusty matchbox on wheels for a boss" when he tries to cease the mocking and get them moving. Pheobe finally simmers down the situation and assigns the three diesels their jobs: Diesel will be making deliveries to the harbours, and Arry and Bert will shunt on the pier.

Sadly, things don't improve as the trio cause chaos and bully the engines further. Fed up with the diesels mistreating her friends and co-workers, Pheobe decides to get back at them with giving the diesels a taste of their own medicine; cars Arry rams into her turn out to be a delivery, Bert gets soaked when trying to soak her at the water tower, and Diesel battered by his own force when Pheobe has her brakes locked hard on. This riles up Diesel and his cronies, and are now determined to pay her out.

Next morning, Pheobe and Thomas leave for the Celgreb City Freight Yards with a heavy delivery for Pennsylvania due for the afternoon. Seeing his chance for proving his superiority, Diesel orders the yard manager to give him and the Ironworks twins the next train through Bluthsburg West. A 12:00 express freight is assigned, but they ignore warnings of the rush hour period....as well as some fed up Troublesome Trucks in the pier yard.

As they hurry along into the yards of the junction, they fail to give the "four hoots" warning for the signalmen in the control tower. Finally seeing a chance for payback, the freight cars shove them into the junction, resulting in several near hits. Diesel assumes they're in the clear after nearly ramming Douglas tender-first, but is quickly proven wrong; Alayah is shunting a train of empties for Grofflen Harbour, and (due to lack of warning) collides into Diesel, derailing all three diesels and some of the little shunting engine's freight cars. Seeing that the entrance into the junction is now blocked, Alayah quickly rushes away to fetch the breakdown gang.

As Pheobe and Thomas return from their goods run, she's amused over what's happened; Diesel, Arry and Bert have been loaded onto flatbed trucks to go to the works by road, and breakdown cranes clearing up the mess. After seeing the diesels have finally seen the results of going too far with their mocking and teasing, Pheobe and Thomas agree to haul their cars down to Fausten.

After the accident, all three are swiftly repaired, and are far more cautious about steel cars.

Characters[]

Locations[]

Music Used[]

Pink Panther ___

Trivia[]

  • Originally, the episode would have been part of an anthology release entitled Metldown at the Steelworks; when the episode went into production as a "sneak peek episode" of the release, a decision was eventually made to redevelop the Meltdown special as a focus on the more copyright-friendly/original characters.
  • This Marks the First Speaking Roles of Pheobe, Ralph, Diesel, Arry, Bert, and Alayah in the Franchise.
  • If you listen closely when Bert gets soaked at the water tower, the coughing sound is the same coughing sound from "The Reluctant Dragon."
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