Destination Unknown
Council Bluffs
Admiral Biscuit
She found an outbound train by ten, a slow-moving freight that trundled by her hiding spot. A graffitied Railbox with partially-open doors beckoned her, and she flew inside.
Sweetsong had mixed feelings on boxcars. If she stayed away from the doors, she was completely invisible, but her view was limited. That meant less looking at scenery, and things could sneak up on her.
There was also the possibility of doors sliding closed, although these had been jammed in position with track spikes in the lower guide rail, which meant somebody else had been riding the car.
She caught a glimpse of the Boone and Scenic Valley Railroad as they passed by, then the train accelerated into the farmland, still picking up speed as it rumbled onto a cement bridge.
At first, it seemed normal, then she saw how the trees were dropping off on either side and then she was soaring above them, almost like her train had taken flight. She stuck her nose out the side of the boxcar, just to see what they were crossing—she hadn’t seen any wide rivers when she flew over Boone, although she hadn’t looked all that far off in the distance.
The river wasn’t much, just a few hundred feet wide, but the land around it dropped down in a wide flood plain, and that’s what the train was passing over, straight and level so the train didn’t have to descend and then climb back up.
Then the trees came back up, giving her the illusion of landing, and it was back to fields and small towns. Sweetsong settled down on her blanket in the center of the car, where she could look out both sides and not be seen while the train was moving, unfolded her guitar, and started to play.
The acoustics in the boxcar were weird, reflecting the sounds around to where she couldn’t find their source with her ears, although as she got accustomed to them, the echoes let her play in harmony with herself.
Usually she played for an audience but today it was for just her and the boxcar.
The tracks bent to the north and then back south again, paralleling a road, running through undulating wheat fields. In hindsight, the boxcar had been a good choice; she could watch the cars on the road, and they couldn’t see her.
•••
They followed a shallow river for ten miles, finally crossing it on a stubby, low truss bridge that felt completely unnecessary, then ran parallel to another track, oddly separate from her line. Maybe another railroad that wanted to take the same route although that didn’t make a lot of sense for someplace as open as Iowa. Everything she’d seen of it so far suggested that tracks could be put down wherever, with only the occasional river or road crossing to worry about.
She could be more restless in the boxcar, she could even fly in the boxcar, although not very far. It was easier to fly backwards; with her hooves on the floor she got the momentum of the train added to her movement, but in the air she didn’t. Half-remembered lessons about working stormclouds came to mind, practically every pegasus was expected to know how to work weather even if they didn’t make a career of it.
After a few failed attempts, she managed to flare just right to ‘land’ on the trailing end wall of the boxcar, hanging there briefly before she had to flap her wings and reorient herself. Weather classes never mentioned if a pegasus could do the same on the leading edge of a fast-moving stormcloud, although she thought it might work.
She settled back down in her Railbox, far enough away from the doors that the likelihood of being spotted was minimal but where she still had a good view through the doors as the world passed by.
Sweetsong rode through prairie and fields, paralleling the other rail line and a highway, finally stopping in a railyard at the end of a large airport’s runway. It was dark enough to vacate her boxcar without being seen, even though there wasn’t a good hiding spot nearby. Certainly not near enough to jump on a train.
That could be a problem for tomorrow. Judging by the size of the airport she’d glimpsed, she was near a big city. She could fly around in the morning, figure out where she was, and find out if there was a place she could play her guitar and make some money.
Down the tracks, south of the yard, there was a concrete road bridge with weird red and yellow antennas on it. She might get lucky and be able to drop in a hopper or gondola as a train went by underneath.
She set her blanket on the top of an abutment, nestled up between the concrete beams supporting the deck, and drifted off to sleep, the rumble of traffic overhead and the distant clanking of rail cars her lullaby.
•••
Council Bluffs had a rail museum, and while she couldn’t busk inside the building, she toured it anyway, learning about the people and equipment that had built the rail network she took advantage of. They even had a locomotive simulator, although in her opinion it wasn’t as good as the real thing, even if computer screens made it try to feel real.
She probably shouldn’t try to use her newfound knowledge next time she got into a locomotive. She knew how the angle cocks on train cars could be closed to keep the air in the train, and she knew about cut levers and now, if the simulator was accurate, she knew how to make a locomotive go. If she found one idling by itself, she could cut herself off the train and go on her own adventure, at least as far as the switches would allow her.
What would the train dispatchers think about that? The museum said that sensors in the tracks knew where trains and even individual cars or locomotives were, so they’d see that their DPU had gone rogue, although they wouldn’t know why. Out on the highways there were police cars that would chase misbehaving drivers, but the railroad bulls didn’t have locomotives, only SUVs.
It was fun to think about, and maybe the idea would make it into a song one day. She could picture herself with a pastern hooked over the throttle, head out the window, mane whipping in the breeze, thundering along the main in a borrowed locomotive.
Maybe there were places where she could ride on a locomotive and use the controls. Sometimes getting spotted was worth it; one snowy winter day in the mountains of Pennsylvania she’d been less subtle than normal and gotten caught by a yardmaster who’d invited her back to the shack to warm up. He’d offered her coffee and listened to her tales of riding the rails and told his own story about the railroad.
He’d even bought dinner to share, an Altoona style pizza which she flew off and got. It was a strange pizza, made with yellow cheese and cut into squares instead of wedges, almost like an open-faced sandwich.
As his shift drew to a close, he told her about the mixed freight that was due to come through the yard shortly and left the manifest on the table where she could read it and know in advance exactly which car was her best ride.
Sometimes she sent him postcards from places she’d visited.
•••
The next display talked about passenger trains, and she learned about the history of the Overland Limited and the Columbine and the City of Salina and the Portland Rose which honestly sounded like a pony name.
Unlike the silver-chrome Amtraks, these trains were painted in the same Armour Yellow and grey as the Union Pacific’s modern locomotives. She liked the shiny chrome of the Amtraks, but the yellow looked nice, too.
Freight trains were usually a variety of colors, from the typical black of the tank cars, bare aluminum colliers, to the aptly-named boxcar red of boxcars. Dingy grey-white hoppers and yellow Railboxes, the rare blue PanAm car. Everything she saw on display and in museums suggested trains had been more colorful in the past, but they still had variety.
She’d even once seen a repatched Klemme Cooperative Elevator hopper that was almost an exact match for her coat. If it hadn’t been sitting on a siding track in long-term storage—judging by the rust on the wheels and the weeds growing between the rails—she might have jumped at the chance at riding it.
Sometimes visiting a rail museum made her sad; there was just so much she’d missed by coming to Earth at the wrong time. And sometimes it made her hopeful, it was almost a vision of the future back home: the locomotives would be replaced with larger ones, trains would get longer, she wouldn’t get stuck halfway up the mountain because somepony miscalculated the tractive effort of the pusher.
•••
Another display showed pictures of the Golden Spike which joined the rails from the East to the rails from the West and made a transcontinental railroad, and it gave directions to the Golden Spike Monument, which wasn’t very far away.
Council Bluffs seemed like a really weird place to commemorate the joining of the two halves of the United States, especially since the display told her that the actual location of the spike was Promontory Point, Utah and she was in Iowa.
Still, it wasn’t far to travel, and it would be something fun to look at, and maybe there would be enough tourists she could set out her hat and earn some more bits. Or maybe once she was done looking at the displays she could walk across the street and visit the squirrel-cage jail instead.
•••
While the monument was nothing more than a giant, fake golden spike in a park which offered an orbit of concrete, a wooden sign, a bench and wastebasket, and an iron fence to keep tourists from touching the faux spike, it offered a commanding view of a nearby rail line and a few people who were willing to toss her some coins.
One of them asked her about her interest in trains, and she learned that there was another museum she hadn’t discovered yet which had both outdoor displays and a model train, all in and around a historic train station.
She didn’t know much about model trains except that some ponies set them up for Hearth’s Warming and that she couldn’t ride them. Clever crystal-powered locomotives tugged short trains filled with painted-on ponies in an endless loop around various other holiday-themed buildings available from local craftsmares and it seemed every year the sets got cleverer and clever; she’d seen a railroad crossing where the guardpony came out of his shack and lowered the gates when the train arrived, all accomplished with levers and tiny springs.
Humans had gone one step further; if she put her eyes as close as she was allowed to the edge of the layout, everything looked real, and the locomotives even rumbled like real ones. They didn’t shake her hooves as they went by, but that was a minor complaint.
The operator even let her try her hoof at driving a train which went okay—it stayed on the rails and didn’t crash into any other ones, and she made a full loop of the railroad before relinquishing the not-hoof-friendly controls.
It was more fun watching them instead of driving them.
The operator, who was named Tony, knew a lot about railroad operating rules, and in turn she suggested that they ought to include a hobo riding one of their trains, and pointed out which cars were best for that.
He also told her that while she was in town, she should visit the Big Boy and Century which were across the river in Omaha, and she should also plan on staying a second day if she could.
She could; she had no set schedule and she wanted to ask why but sometimes it was more fun to be surprised.
•••
Dinner was Nashville Hot Bites and a fish sandwich at Southside Jonsey’s Taco House, followed by a quick dip in the pool at the nearby water park, then she flew off to the UP’s railyard and spread out her army blanket on the flat roof of their offices.
Will she ever ride the rails up to Canada?
11039596
If she was found out, RR police would likely remove her. Crews, especially the conductor are hit and miss. Train ridding is dangerous though, there's plenty of other methods she could try. If she does alter or destroy any car component, better not get caught.
Another fun chapter of nostalgia for me. I do have a friend working for Union Pacific. He operates and maintains ATC for the railroad. Once lived in St. Louis, but UP consolidated all their offices to Omaha, and he was given the choice to move or find new work. He now visits his family every weekend.
The worktop model railwy steam locomotives with actual smoke emmision are one thing, but theres fully working model steam locomotives? Think they might only use it for the exhaust, think motor current vaping units, but from 30 plus years ago?
I couldn't help but notice it says "Atloona" instead of "Altoona"
11046870
Probably not; border patrol doesn’t like riders (for obvious reasons) and checks more thoroughly than the normal rail bulls.
11046954
If she was found out, RR police would likely remove her.
Yeah, it’s my understanding that if the railroad officials find out (RR police, normal police, etc.), the train will be stopped and she’ll be removed and maybe charged with trespassing.
Agreed, a lot of it depends on how much they actually care if there’s somebody riding their train. Not that Sweetsong would know, but there’s every chance that at least one crew has seen her in the locomotive mirror and not worried too much about it. And IRL train crews will sometimes give food or bottled water to hobos, even yard crews (Sweetsong’s experience with the yardmaster is loosely based on an experience Hobo Shoestring had). Also, a good hobo, one who follows the hobo code, will report anything wrong with the train that the crew might not know about, and will help the train crew if needed.
It is very dangerous, and that’s more of a reason not to do it than the illegality. Still, for some, that’s their passion. . . .
Sweetsong knows not to damage any equipment or cargo; if she does they will be interested in finding her and prosecuting her.
11047050
Thank you!
I considered getting a railroad job, but never did do it. I think if I had it would have been one of those things I would have both loved and hated.
That’s not ideal IMHO, but some people can do it. I wish him luck!
11047089
There are, and more than 30 years ago, too. I don’t know of any small-scale coal-fired steam locomotives, but when you get into larger scales that’s been done. Some years ago (80s?) someone offered a brass steam-powered Stevenson Rocket which was cool, but apparently got really hot and would just race ahead as fast as it could go until it fell off the tracks. No way of controlling it.
With liquid fuels, and modern computer controls, you can probably do a HO/OO live steam locomotive if you want to. I know back in the 50s someone scratchbuilt an O-scale live-steam locomotive that operated on dry ice and apparently was a beast when it came to pulling power. The only problem was unreliability; the valves would frequently freeze.
11047140
Oops . . . correction made; thank you!
Boxcar: "Thanks!"
Dispatcher: *storming into the office* "Boss! Boss! We have a problem!"
Boss: "What is it this time? Don't tell me it is something involving those technicolor horses again."
Dispatcher: "Uhm, in that case I have nothing to tell..."
It seems this yardmaster from Pennsylvania knows exactly how to deal with ponies.
"followed by a quick dip in the pool at the nearby water park"
...I'm just imagining the water park guests and staff suddenly seeing a pegasus dive from the sky into the pool, arc back up underwater, and then shoot back off into the air and away again without stopping or offering any explanation. :D
11047375
Ah, thanks.
I recall you mentioning the cost, at least; I'm glad that you found it pretty convenient too. :)
11047140
Sounds like what Equestrian-mirror would be named.
11048744
That thought did cross my mind. Or perhaps "Atluna"
i got a chance to see big boy when it was being re-built back in the early 2000ends.
trust me this photo does not even give a idea of how big this engine is.
up.com/cs/groups/public/@uprr/documents/digitalmedia/img_up_january_steam_update.jpg
a grate chapter for a grate story.
"with her hooves on the floor she got the momentum of the train added to her movement, but in the air she didn’t"
If she's in a closed car (meaning, the wind isn't blowing in her face at about the speed of the train) and the train is moving at a constant speed, shouldn't Sweetsong be able to fly just as well as she would be able to do it in a closed room of the same size?
11047708
That is the way to do it. Make a new friend, be a good human, and bend some of the rules just a little bit.
11048268
Oh, man, I hadn’t even imagined it that way but wouldn’t that be glorious? Like a cormorant or something . . . pegasus goals right there.
Yeah, it was nice, even with my luggage there was no problem.
11048744
The lunar diarch is in equal parts honored and offended.
11049872
It’s hard to get a sense of scale on things like that. You’ve got to know, you’ve got to have seen it with your own eyes.
Thank you!
11054191
If it were completely closed, yes, since the air would be moving at the same speed as the car. However, the door is open, which makes things tricky. From what I understand, if you’re riding in a box car, you want to jam the door open, because if it closes all the way, odds are good you’re going to be stuck in that car until someone outside opens it up, and that could be a while. I don’t know how exactly, but there’s a way to use a track spike to jam the door so it can’t slide shut.
11054736
11054191
You 2 discuss Galilean Relativity. Einstein expanded on it later. Interestingly enough, flat-earthers deny Galilean relativity and claim that if one throws up an object, it should land far to the west because the Earth should turn beneath it. ¡They deny momentum! One can use momentum to show that the Earth rotates:
Objects on the surface of the Earth move faster to east than objects closer to the center of the Earth. If one finds a deep mineshaft, one can drop an object and it will seem to veer to the east and hit the east-side of the mineshaft.
11221827
So the question is, in a boxcar with open doors, how much effect does the wind have when Sweetsong is flying in that boxcar? And how does pegasus flight magic effect that?
11224029
The open door would cause a vortex with extreme turbulence on top of it (it would be a fractal pattern with vortexes in vortexes, but only the secondary vortexes would be powerful enough to concern her). As to Pegasi Magic, ¿who knows?
11224047
It’s fractal vortexes all the way down!
I figure that would give her some help, although we see in show that strong winds can affect pegasi.
I forgot to reply in-chapter:
11225022
Also, her high mass (she is more massive than any flying bird with only pterosaurs having higher masses of flying Earth-Animals) would help her resist buffeting from turbulence. Turbulence is still poorly understood:
11225081
Also, her high mass (she is more massive than any flying bird with only pterosaurs having higher masses of flying Earth-Animals) would help her resist buffeting from turbulence.
The joys of momentum . . . I suppose the same principles regarding why a 747 can fly through wake turbulence with little effect, whereas a little Cessna flying through the same wake turbulence is gonna have big problems.
I suppose in some part it’s because it’s such a complex system. AFAIK the big stuff is pretty well-known, but as you start to get to smaller and smaller levels, it’s way more chaotic. And I think (could be wrong) in terms of long-term weather forecasting, that’s one of the problems. A few days out, the little stuff doesn’t typically make a big difference in what’s going to happen, but the further out you go, the more the little, unpredictable things add up.
11225889
The vortices shed from a butterfly in Brazil flapping its wings can cause tornadoes in Texas. If one tries to predict the weather a fortnight out from the present, the prediction is no better than historical data for that day of the year.
11225911
Yes.
I think that they’re a little better than historical data, since there are some large effects that can be taken into account (the jetstream, El Nino, etc.), but of course it’s just an educated guess.
Just taking the locomotive for a joyride, no big deal.
11362422
Right? How could a plan like that ever go wrong?