//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1: Bridge Over the River Dragon Tooth 
// Story: The Guild of Equestrian Railwaymen: Dual bands of steel through the hills 
// by bucking bronco 1968 
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I walked along the track, kicking at the ballast. It seemed like I made this walk so often now that it was almost a weekly routine. 

It had been a hard week, no thanks to the decision makers upstairs, and I needed to escape everything for a while and clear my head. I had been walking for a while but I finally made it to where I wanted to go. I looked up to see the railway bridge that spanned the Dragon Tooth River.

River was a little bit of an understatement, though, as it was almost 500 feet in width. 

The bridge was just over 675 feet long and 28 feet high. Construction of it had started when my Grandfather, Hotbox, was 21 years old, a bit younger than I was now. The sight of the bridge made me think about the old stallion. It had been such a long time since I had seen him, but there wasn't much I could do about that.

Shaking my head, I did my best to knock that nasty thought from my brain. Hotbox wouldn't want me to pity him, so I thought about better times. The bridge gave me just the times to think about. He had brought me here to this same bridge so many times in years past, that it had become part of my soul. 

He brought me here on days when he was off shift and we would sit down by the river listening as the water rushing over the rocks in front of us, and trains thundering over the bridge above us. It became a place representing, slightly ironically, peace and calm for me over time, a place that I would turn to when I needed to get away from whatever troubles of home were clouding my mind. Not the easiest contemplation area to get to, being at the summit of our line, typically requiring me to hide away in empty boxcars as a train left the yard, to then bail out after passing the last signal box where the summit track began.

My thoughts turned to the many times I had come here to try and clear my mind, and make sense of some serious and or important situation that had occurred in my young life. One that always stuck out, and was the easiest for me mentally to remember, was when I had sat under the bridge for nearly an entire day when one of my best friends was in the hospital on life support with a broken neck, after getting hit hard in hoofball to get the league winning touchdown. 

He did get that touchdown though, and after a few months months in intensive care, lived to tell the tale and become my fire stallion.

And of course there were the multiple times I had come here with my High Schools friends to simply use the deep river below the bridge as our own private swimming pool, the bridge acting as an impromptu high dive. It was an incredibly stupid idea, and ended more times than we would ever admit to our parents with somepony hitting the water wrong and messed themselves up. But that was what me and my friends were like back then, idiotic dare devils who thought we owned the world, impossible to kill.

Carefully trotting down the steep bank, gravel slipping under my hooves, I reminisced on the many times I had climbed down this same gravel with my grandfather. Sitting under the bridge talking about what had went on at the railyard over the last weeks and months, and just bonding on the banks of the river.

Spotting a rather large rock sitting near one of the bridge's thick wooden supports on the river's bank, a smile broke across my face for what felt like the first time that day. That very same rock was the place that beheld many of the cherished conversations I had been able to have with my Grandfather Hotbox. 

Trotting over to it, I pulled myself up onto its surface as I had so many times all those years ago. It had been a long time since I had been able to come up to the bridge in this way, and even longer since I had the privilege to be there with my Hotbox, let alone the chance to see him period. Thinking about the old stallion again and being on our old rock, made me flash back to the last time I had been down there with him, back when I had just barely passed the age of 8 years old.





He had just returned from talking with the princess about the organization himself and the railway's others owners had thought up a few days prior, and I was so excited to hear what she had to say. Having hitched a ride up on a slow freight, and then made the relatively short half mile walk from our bail out point to the bridge without him divulging a word about the Canterlot conversations, I felt just about ready to burst with anticipation. Taking our normal seats atop our rock, the sounds of the river filled the silence for a few minutes longer, until I finally couldn't contain myself anymore. "Well, are you gonna tell me what the princess said?"

Hotbox laughed a little before he turned to me, "Yes yes, of course, I just wanted to 'njoy the river for a moment. Anyway, me and the others were a little worried when we first to the castle and stood in the wait line for meetin' the Princess. Heard all the nobles around us commenting on how she wouldn't want anything to do with dirty commoners. Though, I reck'n that was mostly directed at me, what with still being in my engineer's denims an all."

We both had a good laugh at that. Being a part of the hoofplate crew on a locomotive was and is a dirty job usually involving you getting covered in coal dust, soot, grease, and three different types of oil, as the old saying went. It wasn't uncommon for ponies who weren't from a railway background to stare at us in shock or sometimes disgust if we haven't changed out of our denims. Though many ponies, Hotbox especially, couldn't care less about what these ponies thought of their appearance, facing down their dirty looks and spiteful words with a carefree smile and friendly nod.

"So." I said as the laughter died down, "Was she really mean?" 

He just smiled at me, "Not at t'all. She was the picture of kindness to the lot of us. When we told her about our, organization, for lack of a better word, she was quite interested. Couldn't tell you how long we spent talking to her about what we wanted to do, though more the other three over me, since it's really their brain foal after all. By the time we were done, she was quite impressed and said she'd be willing to help once we had gotten the concept more ironed out, and got a few of the nation's other lines onboard wit' the idea. Course, that's when Ditchlight decides to bring up something that I told him I thought was asking a touch too much." 

Tilting me head confused, I asked,  "What do you mean?"

"Well it's not hard ta see that the railway's been struggling a bit as a late. Them old 4-6-0's and 2-8-0's have taken a hard beating running the Grade and they're starting to wear out. We do what we can to keep them running, a'course, still, as it stands, we can't take them out of service to be overhauled like they're really needin' ta be. Line's been growin' faster than any of us ever could'a imagined, need every engine we got out on the iron pulling trains day in and day out to keep up with demands. Line's got enough bits to get a few newer engines sure, but a full revamp of the roster like we really need? Nah, bankrupt us that would, 'ccording to Ditch a'least." 

Even at that young age, I understood what he was getting at. The Tall Tale Mountain Short line had its name for a good reason, our main line crossed the entirety of the Smokey Mountain range. Running from Tall Tale to Vanhoover, the line totaled in at a distance of 132 miles, not counting the original track running down to Hoofington, and the dozens of miles of branches going to local industries and other small settlements. 

The railway hadn't fit the definition of a "short line" in many a years, but the owners of the line who had originally started the company refused to change the name. The way they saw it, that name was as much a part of the line as the steel that made up its rails.

Now, of course it wasn't uncommon for railways to cross mountain ranges, Tall Tale was special however. Coming up from Tall Tale, the grade averaged out at a climb of 1.7%. That meant that for every 100 feet of track, the roadbed rose 1.7 feet, which by most railway standards was already pretty steep. That was nothing in comparison to the Vanhoover side of the mountain, which had an average grade of 2.8%, with a max grade of 3.2%, which is near unheard of for something outside a mining or logging railway. 

The Tall Tale main line was amongst the first proper rail lines to be laid over 30 years prior when the idea of railways began to spread across Equestria, leading to the line had earning the nickname, The Olde Grade. The Olde Grade dealt out a beating on the engines that ran it, fighting against the trains climbing up, and threating them with gravity on the ride down. This lead to many a train being behind time once they reached the summit, especially those coming up out of Vanhoover. 

The summit however, gave the engineers and fireponies a moment to catch their breath. The track at the top of the main was a flat, straight span stretching for nearly 15 miles that engineers often ignored bent speed limit on to make up for a little lost time they might have racked up on the grueling climb up, before having to make the careful and precise decent down the other side of the mountain.

As if on cue, a train rushed over the bridge above us, shaking the whole wooden structure as it thundered past over our heads.

I shook my head a bit to bring myself back into the moment, "So wait, what did Ditchlight do?"

"Ditchlight went and brought up how the railway was having a rough go at keeping up with traffic, and how we could use some new motive power if we were to keep things on the up and up."

I could hardly even imagine that. Ditchlight, one of the railway's three owner, and very proud of building himself and then the railway up to what it was without asking anypony for a hoof out. To have him of all ponies, asking the very ruler of our land, for something like help in keeping the railway alive would be seen as a joke if it came from anypony other than Hotbox. At the time, I severely underestimated the depths of the princess's kindness, but I was 8 and Princess Celestia was, well, Princess freaking Celestia. "What did she say?"

Hotbox turned and his familiar soft smile split his face, "She said ta us that she couldn't have the leaders of what could be, the biggest transportation revolution in decades, and operators of a major hub for raw materials need for a growing nation nation fail at their goals. So she penned up a letter and sent it to the Canterlot Locomotive Company right there on the spot, said to think of it as a royal investment into the company. Placed an order for a host of new freight and passenger engines to our request."

To say I was a bit dumbstruck would be an understatement, "How many did she order?"

My grandfather's smile couldn't have been wider, "Just over fifty, enough to replace the entire mainline fleet, exactly what we need abouts now. They should start showing up in by the end of the summer."





Just then I heard the sound of an immensely powerful engine pounding its way up the line behind me. Scrambling my way back up the gravel bank, I rushed to the top, trying catch sight of the train before it flew across the bridge.

I popped my head over the top of the hill to see a marvel of railway engineering racing toward me. It had been nearly twenty years since Princess Celestia had done the railway the favor of ordering a new set of engines. At the time, 4-6-2's and 4-8-2's had been seen as the pinnacle of locomotive technology.

That of course had been twenty years ago, and demand leads to innovation, and the demand on railways all across the nation had only increased in that time. So 8 drivers had turned to 10, and for bigger engines 10 turned to multiple sets of 6 or 8. For one class of engine however, 10 went to 12. One of those engine was now flying towards me at nearly 50mph.

The Canterlot Pacific 9000 class 4-12-2.

Personally I preferred the locomotive the 9000 class replaced, and kinda stole their design from, but the twenty-four wheeled monsters were an impressive piece of engineering in their own regard none the less. They were easily capable of taking a mile long train over The Olde Grade on their own, and make it almost the entire way to Vanhoover or Tall Tale without having to stop for a top up on coal or water.

The one flying down the track toward me was one of the first members of the class, #9007, delivered just over a year earlier. Yet, despite the fact that she, along with her seven sisters that had been designated to Tall Tale had been delivered within the last 10 months, they looked as if they had been around for five years. Ever since those stupid noble ponies in Canterlot took over the railway, everything had gone down hill. The freight engines across our entire roster were being left in terrible shape, absolutely run into the ground ever since the "Extended critical maintenance" policy went into place. Now, the only time freight engines went into the shops for proper repairs was when they were on the verge of blowing up. 

My anger for the railway's owner's died in the back of my head when I heard the engine's whistle blast. In a very specific way.

It was something that very few of us used anymore out of fear. But some of us were stubborn enough to still use it. It was the whistle of the Railwaymen, somewhat of an identifier between guild members.

As the engine drew closer, I looked to the cab. There were only a few ponies I knew on the railway that still dared to use the Guild whistle, and I knew them all.

As the front truck grew within 100 feet of me, I saw a grey head pop out of the cab, and smile when it caught sight me. "Heeeeeey Stokeeeeeey!" I barely heard it call over the sound of the engine.

I smiled as I was able to make out who it was just as they flew past. It was my good friend Crankshaft, a fire pony and one of my old high school friends. I knew that if he was firing the engine, that over on the right side driving the beast was another one of my high school friends, Blastpipe. Though Blastpipe was the designated engineer for a different fire pony on the line, he had been working with Crackshaft for the last week or so as Ash Pan, his normal fire pony, had been stuck on yard shunter training duties.

As they blasted across the bridge, I noticed something. As the engine ran over the center section of the bridge, 120 feet from the bank, the engine rocked to left slightly. But more than normal.

Once the train was over the bridge, I walked out onto it to the bridge to check figure out what was going on. When I got out to where I had seen the train rock, and was shocked by what I saw. The left rail had slightly sunk into the beams of the bridge, which were starting to rot out. 

I then heard the bark of an engine coming up behind me, another train that must have been waiting on the Vanhoover side of The Grade for #9007 to pass. I could just see off in the distance the headlight of the locomotive. It might have still been miles away, but on the straight flats of the summit, trains could be heard at the opposite hill crest.

I quickly made my way off the bridge and waited for the train at the track side. The engine was an older 4-8-2 heavy freight engine that leaked steam and creaked in places that it really shouldn't have been as it past by me.

I stood at the track side as the train slowly rumbled past me, waiting to see of there was an open boxcar for me to hitch a ride back in. As the middle of the train trundled past me, I heard a load whistle behind me over the sound of the train axles. 

I turned to see a pony leaning out of the open door of a box car waving to me. I smiled as I recognized who the stallion was, it was my fire stallion, Coal Dust.

The train was still going under 15 mph when the box car passed me, so I grabbed Coal Dust's outstretched hoof and swung myself into the box car.

"What's going Dusty?"

The dark blue and dirty grey stallion smiled at me, "Oh just coming back from meeting up with some friends on the Vanhoover side. I take it you were enjoying your day off at the bridge?"

I nodded at him, "Yeah. It's been a while since I've been able to get out here, so I took advantage of it." 

Coal Dust just smiled as we sat back and enjoyed our ride back to Tall Tale, listening to the distant sound of the locomotive as it pulled us home.