Night Train to New York

by jz1

Into New Jersey

With Celestia at the controls, the GG1 continued its excited charge north. From his window, Charlie watched as the stations at Torresdale and Eddington came and went in quick blurs - his ‘passenger’ was not soft on the throttle or the horn, and he had no doubt that the poor souls waiting on the last trains of the day had the life scared out of them as the G roared by at speed.

Cars on the Delaware Expressway streaked by like they were standing still - the grizzled old engineman estimated that they were probably doing close to double the speed limit of the highway. (And were probably approaching the speed limit on the rails too.) One car, its driver seemingly more interested in speed than safety, did try to keep up - its growling engine just audible over the wind, the horn, and Celestia’s excited laughter. He himself let loose a little chuckle when red and blue lights erupted behind the sporty car. The driver, his car just barely keeping pace with the GG1, looked up to Charlie, waved at him in a gracious ‘well what can you do?’ kind of way, and slowed down to take his ticket. Charlie took the horn pull from Celestia and gave the receding Trans Am a final victorious blast as the track peeled off from the highway towards Neshaminy Creek.

Next came Croydon station, and the last northbound train of the day was boarding on the outside line. It was a train of dilapidated old MP54s that didn’t look like they deserved their fresh-looking white and red paint. SEPTA engineers were always a bit of a pain in the rear on the best of days, and Charlie distinctly remembered a foul-mouthed driver complaining about pulling the midnight shift earlier in the afternoon. An evil idea popped into his head and his hand snuck to the horn pull, only to find Celestia’s hoof reaching for it as well. She stole a brief glance back at him, the manic sparkle in her eyes telling him that they were on the exact same wavelength.

It was a long train for such a late hour - 7 cars - and Charlie waited until they were abreast of the fourth car before he wrenched down on the pull cord with all his strength. It took a few seconds for the horn to begin sounding, and at the speed they were going at, it meant that the GG1 was essentially abreast of the motorman’s cabin when the horn sounded at full volume.

With the engineer’s attention directed towards his own train, and the sound of the GG1’s approach masked by other noises, the unfortunate SEPTA motorman didn’t know that anything was there until the GG1 thundered by, horn blaring just inches from his ear. Charlie couldn’t see what had happened, but he imagined that the guy had just about jumped out of his skin.

“Hey you asshole! Maybe give a guy a bit of warning next time? I like drinking my coffee! Not wearing it!” The engineer of the commuter train shouted into the radio as the GG1 vanished into the night.

Charlie didn’t dignify that with a response, as he was too busy howling in laughter.

Celestia, who was laughing so hard that she was crying, managed to reach up for the horn cord, giving the GG1 a chance to express its own raucous laughter as they roared past a diesel-powered freight going in the opposite direction. The diesel’s confused sounding honk? as it passed the laughing GG1 made Celestia almost fall over

---

They had just begun to calm down as they thundered through Bristol station, once again scaring the living daylights out of passengers waiting for the last SEPTA trains.

Still at the controls, Celestia could feel the GG1’s nervous energy begin to fade as it settled into the high-speed cruise. The engine, no longer bursting with unspent energy, began to calm down, relaxing into what felt like a steady but very fast gallop.

Looking outside the window, Celestia could tell that this was probably the fastest she had ever gone in her very long life, but she could also tell that the GG1 wasn’t even trying. “How fast are we going?” She asked Charlie, bringing her hoof off of the throttle, ready to hand control back to the engine’s real driver.

Peering over at the speed indicator and the ammeter, Charlie’s eyebrows rose slightly. The speedometer was pegged at the far stop, but the ammeter needle had barely moved a quarter of the way up the indicator. He hadn’t expected to get that much performance out of his engine tonight. Clearly the pony princess had the magic touch. “The speedo stops at a hundred, and it’s pegged. I’d say somewhere around one-ten, maybe one-fifteen.” He said, pointing out the appropriate dials to his passenger.

“I’ve never been this fast in my life. And she doesn’t even feel like she’s trying.” Celestia said with no small amount of wonder. If this is what old human technology could do, she had high hopes for what the future could bring.

“It’s a wonderful machine.” Charlie put his hand on the throttle lever, taking control once more. “And it’ll do this under any condition too - 15 car commuter or by itself. It just does the job.”

Even without holding the throttle, Celestia could feel the locomotive’s pride at those words. She patted the cab floor affectionately with one hoof before returning to her seat on the other side of the cab. Now that the engine had calmed down, Celestia was no longer riding the wave of second-hoof adrenaline, and could take in the sights and sensations of a high-speed train ride through an alien world. Sliding her side window open in her magic, she poked her head out - careful to check first for oncoming train traffic - and enjoyed the hundred mile an hour wind rushing through her mane. It honestly felt like flying, and she didn’t even have to leave the ground.

Below her hooves, the GG1 hummed contentedly. Its passenger was happy, its driver was happy, and it was going as fast as it could. What more could an engine want?

---

The train continued northwards, blowing past Levittown, the last SEPTA station before the New Jersey border, and streaked along the side of a large lake that ran alongside the tracks. Celestia could feel the locomotive groan in disappointment as Charlie eased off the throttle, bringing the train down to a slower pace as they neared a large bridge leading into a big city.

“Is that New York?” she asked, looking out over the GG1’s nose at the twinkling lights.

“Nope. That’s Trenton. I gotta slow us down here to at least the speed of sound,” Charlie called sarcastically from his side of the cab. “Otherwise we’re gonna come off in the station turnouts.”

“Trenton?” Celestia wondered. “Where is that?”

“New Jersey!” Charlie said as they rumbled across a large steel bridge. “The river’s the state line! Right here actually - we’re still about forty minutes or so from Sunnyside.”

Celestia sat there for a moment, absolutely stunned. She knew, on an intellectual level, how big the human world was. She had been living in it for two weeks now - she had seen it firsthoof, but it still boggled her mind that there could be so much of it. This journey would take almost two hours, and she hadn’t yet left the city. Except that she had - but each city merely blended into the next like one continuous strip of metal, concrete, and humans. Equestria had nothing like it.

“Hey lookit!” Charlie exclaimed, breaking Celestia out of her reverie. “You made good time there, your highness!”

Celestia followed his pointing finger and saw that the train she had meant to board in Philadelphia was just now pulling into Trenton station. Charlie gave a short blast of the horn as they rolled past the shining silver train, waving over the top of the low slung coaches to the passengers and station crew. The driver of the train, clearly having heard Charlie’s prank on the SEPTA driver over the radio, extended his arm out the cab window in a rude gesture that only brought laughs from inside the GG1’s cab.

“That train didn’t have a locomotive.” Celestia observed as they rolled past the front of the train.

“That’s one of the new Metroliners.” Charlie explained. “They’re multiple units - there’s motors built into the floor of each coach instead of there being a dedicated engine. It’s supposed to be faster and more comfortable than anything else Amtrak’s got.”

“Are they?”

“They are when they work.” Charlie said flatly as the GG1 exited the station tracks. He notched the throttle into a higher setting, causing the GG1 to speed up gleefully. “Which is almost never. I’m surprised that one made it this far but I guess a broken clock is right at least once a day.”

“Twice.”

“What?”

“A broken clock is right twice a day.”

Charlie grinned. “Y’know, I said that to my drill sergeant on my first day at Annapolis - you know what he told me?”

“What?”

“That I was in the Navy now, and they use 24 hour clocks!” He laughed at Celestia’s puzzled expression.

---

After that, the cab fell into a comfortable silence. Charlie had pushed the throttle forwards again, and the GG1 was now whirring happily at a hundred miles an hour while Celestia watched the lightly populated north Trenton suburbs pass by.

“Amtrak 4902 Extra, dispatch.” The warbling voice emerging from the locomotive’s radio eventually broke the silence.

“4902”

“4902 can you confirm your position right now? The board’s acting up over here. Did you receive instructions to meet 186 at Princeton Junction?”

“I did,” Charlie replied. “But we already passed them at Trenton. I’m currently passing by milepost 173.”

“Jesus!” The businesslike tone of the dispatcher faded for one of shock. “What did you do? Go two hundred for a while?”

“I couldn’t begin to say.” Said Charlie with remarkable nonchalance considering the shit-eating grin threatening to split his face in two. “Maybe 186 was slow.”

“Sure thing Charlie.” Retorted the dispatcher disbelievingly. “Just don’t go joining Pan Am on company time, okay? Hey Roy! Cancel that repair order - Charlie’s just fucking insane and managed to pass 186 at Trenton somehow!”

“Roger that.” Charlie said, hanging up the radio. He turned to Celestia. “You really have a way with locomotives, Missy. If this Royalty business doesn’t work out for you, I think there might be an opening out here on the Corridor.”

“Thank you,” Celestia giggled at the mental image of herself dressed like a locomotive engineer. “But I think I’ll stick to government work.”

“So you’ll fit right in! Amtrak’s a government agency just like the post office.”

Celestia snorted. “I guess I’ll have to consider it.”

“I knew you’d come around,” Charlie smirked as they raced through Princeton Junction and headed deeper into New Jersey.

Comments

[Admiral Biscuit]

If Dutch King Willem-Alexander can fly for KLM, there’s no reason a retired princess can’t drive trains.

[Venerable Ro]

Hey, seems trains just like ponies.

[Lurks-no-More]

10584430
Maybe they could do the mail express; Luna handles the post, and Celly drives the train!

[Drake Redwing]

I'm getting Mel Brooks energy off of the driver of the GG1

[WanderingPony]

My Dad back around 79-80 was taking the trains NJ-DC, so this is literally my childhood. With a pony.