[1938] Locations: Port St Mary Railway Station

The Port St Mary Railway Station is currently under control of the BUF invaders. The station, an imposing two-story brick structure, is along Station Road between Port St Mary and the Four Roads crossroads.

Platoons 1 and 2, Company B, of the BUF Solway Legion are in charge of security, with Platoon 1 in the station itself and Platoon 2 supporting the Station Road.

Platoon 1 has a half-dozen sandbag positions around the station and on the platform, connected with trenches to each other. The second story of the station building has three machine gun nests, one each, covering the approaches from the Four Roads to the north, the field towards the Castletown Road to the east, and the rail line to Port Erin to the west (where the Isle of Man Railway terminus is located).

Along the Station Road, Platoon 2 has dug several half-trenches, lined with sandbags, logs and whatever else the soldiers could find. An up-armored truck brings supplies to the platoons every day at the same time.

There is a broken-down steam locomotive, called the Old 97, just outside the station, about 80 yards, pointing towards Port Erin. The train is not battle damaged and seems to be ignored by local Manx forces. Though it is nominally in no-mans land, on most days the BUF has a squad occupying it to prevent being snuck-up on from that direction but they abandon it at night. Sometimes, they start the fire up to keep warm.

The repair on the train wouldn't take too long but they could be noisy. It would take some research to find out what happened to it - from asking around to find the last engineer to drive it (John "Steve" Browdie, currently in Port Erin), to getting the parts together to repair it, and to finding someone (or training them) to drive it. It still has enough water and fuel to start up. Stoking the fire to get enough steam would be about a half-hour, forty-five minutes, or an hour at the most.

So the Manx commanders want the train. It's vital to get it away from the BUF because they may get around to fixing it themselves and use it to invade the rest of the island. You've got a week or so to do the job. And you can expect that the BUF are going to fight to keep it.