Introduction

The Eight by Four Railway is more than sleepers, track and rolling stock — it is a living line with its own characters, mishaps, quiet triumphs and the occasional raised eyebrow from the Prodigious Controller.

These short stories are set along the platforms, in the yards and beneath the watchful shadow of Mynydd Ddraig, the mountain that towers above the village. Here, small tank engines take on big responsibilities, coal wagons grumble their way up the long climb, and life in Ddraig Goch unfolds at the steady rhythm of steam.

Some tales focus on the engines themselves; others wander into the village, the halt, the coaling yard or more industrial corners of the line. All are part of the same railway — a place where milk trains run at dawn, freight rumbles over the Great Abyss, and progress waits patiently in the form of a certain green diesel — though we don’t really want to talk about that just yet.

The stories may be short, but the railway is very much alive.

From time to time, the Prodigious Controller may intervene. Entirely for operational reasons, of course.