Night Train story notes

Story Notes!

Prologue

1. I set this story in 1979, mainly because it allowed me to use the GG1 as a story element/character. I got the inspiration for that from The Cab Ride and a Night Train, which is also set in late 1970's New York. It's a good story - you should check it out.
2. Cyrus Vance was the US Secretary of State from 1977-1980. He most notably had a long-running feud with:
3. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. The two had vastly differing takes on how to deal with the Soviet Union (peaceful normalization vs hardline sanctions), and Vance actually resigned his position in protest after Brzezinski went around the state Department and got President Carter to approve Operation Eagle Claw - a move that Vance actually viewed as "evil' - making him at that point one of only three Secretaries of State to ever resign in protest. In this story, Princess Celestia disses Brzezinski for his hawkish attitude, which makes Cyrus very pleased.

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Caged

1. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is the sixth largest city in the United States as of 2020, with a population of 5,717,000. In 1979, it had a population of 4,525,000.

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Flight

1. New York Pizza is the best kind of pizza. Just look at it.
2. A glazing sprig is a small nail used to hold windows in place while the putty is soft. Let Richard Stilgoe tell you more about them.
3. Tokyo is the largest city in the world as of December 2020. Mexico City used to be very high on the list as well, but has since been dethroned by the massive population booms in China and Southeast Asia.
4. The Mayor of New York City in 1979 was the inimitable Ed Koch, who definitely would have told a visiting dignitary that New York Pizza was the only real pizza.
5. Philadelphia 30^th Street Station is the main intercity train station for Philadelphia - served by Amtrak, SEPTA, and NJ Transit. The commuter platforms are on the upper level, with the Amtrak platforms running perpendicular to them on the ground level.

6. 30^th Street Station famously had a Solari Board in the main concourse to display train times. The sign was removed in 2019, but had been in use for decades.

   
7. To quote Admiral Biscuit, Amtrak in the 1970's was funded by change found between the couch cushions. Trains rarely ran in a matched set, and by 1979 they still weren't quite able to get it together.
   This train is actually one of the more visually coherent ones - with only one old baggage car in the line of new Amfleet coaches.
8. The Betsy Ross was one of Amtrak's late night Clocker services. Clocker was an informal name given by the PRR to their New York-Washington Express trains, before finally being named as such by Amtrak in 1981. In 1979, each Clocker still had an individual name - the Betsy Ross was a Sunday only service according to Wikipedia, and according to Amtrak's May 1979 timetable, left Philadelphia at 10:20 PM.

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All Aboard!

1. The GG1 is considered by many American railfans to be one of the best locomotives ever built. 139 were made between 1934-1943, and they served the Northeast Corridor until retirement in 1983 - 16 have survived to preservation.
2. Celestia's ride in this story is Amtrak 4902. By 1979, the engine had been painted in a terrible shade of black by Penn Central, which Amtrak did nothing to fix.
3. PRR Signal lights worked differently than most color-light signals. Vertical lights meant 'all clear'; horizontal lights meant 'stop'; and diagonal lights meant 'slow'.
4. The story of railroading in the Northeastern United States is fascinating, but not relevant here. For story purposes, all you need to know is that in 1968, the Pennsylvania, New Haven, and New York Central Railroads merged to form the Penn Central. Penn Central was a horrible choice for all parties involved, with management styles clashing and money going down the drain. The company went bankrupt less than two years later in what was then the largest corporate bankruptcy in the US, before finally going bust in 1976.
5. As a result of PC (and other railroads around that time) failing so spectacularly, the US Government instituted two new state owned railroads: The Consolidated Rail Corporation - better known as Conrail, and The National Railroad Passenger Corporation - better known as Amtrak.
6. In case it wasn't obvious, Conrail ran freight, and Amtrak handled the passenger rail services in the United States, including the Northeast Corridor.
7. The Northeast Corridor is the busiest passenger rail line in the United States, stretching from Washington D.C. to Boston, along the former PRR and New Haven main lines. Until their retirement, this was the GG1's main stomping ground.
8. The GE E60 was supposed to be the GG1's successor, but was hamstrung by ride issues and other mechanical faults that left it limited to 85 miles an hour. In contrast - GG1's could break 100 even with a heavy train, and had only recently been speed restricted to 85 due to their advanced age. A limited number of E60s were built as a result, and all were retired by 2003.
9. The "new EMD engine" is the EMD AEM-7. Based on the Swedish Rc4, the 'Swedish Meatball' was introduced to service in 1980, and became the true successor to the GG1, running almost every train on the NEC until 2018, when they were retired after almost 40 years of service.
10. Frankford Junction is a now closed SEPTA station on the Northeast Corridor. The curve on which it sat is one of the tightest on the entire NEC, and a fatal accident occurred there in 2015, when an Amtrak train ran into the 50MPH curve at well over 100.

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Interlude - Holmesburg Junction

1. Holmesburg Junction is a depressing little SEPTA station to the North of Philadelphia.
2. Secret Service Agent Johnson is portrayed by Grand L. Bush, whom you might know from his role as FBI Agent Johnson (no, the other one) in Die Hard. He's much more competent here - and therefore much less likely to get blown up by Hans Gruber.
   

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Into New Jersey

1. The PRR MP54 was a multiple unit railcar built from 1908-1937 for suburban commuter service on the Northeast Corridor. The cars were old and outdated by the 1930's, but nevertheless soldiered on until the 1980's in service with Penn Central, SEPTA, New Jersey Transit, and even Conrail - who had inherited several commuter lines from PC.
2. Created in 1965, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority - better known as SEPTA - is Philadelphia's primary transit agency, operating rail, bus, and trolley services throughout the Delaware Valley.
3. No matter how bad the E60 was, the Budd Metroliner was worse. Introduced in 1967 by the PRR just before it's merger into Penn Central, the multiple unit trains had a litany of mechanical problems that were exacerbated by the lack of maintenance received from the cash-strapped PC. This meant the trains rarely worked, and many of the fastest speeds achieved by the Metroliners occurred while they were being towed by GG1s. Amtrak began a rebuilding program on the cars by 1971, and the entire fleet was slowly rebuilt during the 1970's and into the 80's. This still didn't fix the many problems that popped up, and the trains were removed from service in 1988. The train's only positive note was that it's body shell design inspired the much more successful Amfleet coach, of which Amtrak bought 600. Most surviving Metroliner cars have now had their traction motors removed, and are used as cab cars on push-pull trains on the NEC.

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Newark

1. Newark Penn Station is a busy transfer station in the New York metro area, being served by NJ Transit, PATH, Amtrak, and numerous bus lines.
2. Secret Service Agent Louis DeCiccio is portrayed by everyone's favorite TV asshole, Wayne Knight.
3. It's 87 miles by car between Philadelphia 30^th Street and Newark Penn Station
4. The Director of the Secret Service in 1979 was H. Stuart Knight. I do not believe he has any relationship to Wayne Knight.
5. Amtrak does in fact have a police force - it was created by Congress as part of the Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970.

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New York, New York

1. Portal Bridge is a swing bridge over the Hackensack River in New Jersey. Located near the NJ side of the North River tunnels, the bridge is the busiest railroad bridge in the Western Hemisphere, seeing 450 trains a day in 2020. In 1979 it was not yet at capacity, but in 2020 (well maybe not 2020 - but both in 2019 and in the future when we can go out again), the bridge is a major chokepoint, with a heavily limited track speed of 60 mph - when it's not being actively worked on. Considering that it's a century old swing bridge, maintenance is often occurring. To make things even worse, it's still an active swing bridge! The bridge deck is so close to the water line that it opens several times each month to allow boat traffic on the Hackensack River. (Amusingly, the vast majority of the openings have been to allow one barge to go back and forth between a Sewage Treatment Plant in Newark and a Bergen County sewage outflow center. That's right New Yorkers - your commute may have been delayed by sewage sludge.

2. New York Penn Station is the busiest rail station in the United States. Built in 1910, by the PRR, the station was an architectural wonder that brought tears to the eyes of commuters with its beauty.
   Before

   Naturally, the PRR tore it down in 1963 and replaced the whole thing with Madison Square Garden.
   
   
   After

3. The station is serviced by the North and East River tunnels, which take the Northeast Corridor directly through the station.
4. On the Queens end of the East River Tunnels is Sunnyside Yard - one of the largest coach yards in the world when built by the PRR in 1910. Although it has shrunk slightly since, it's still enormous.
   
   Here's Amtrak 4902 pulling a baggage car through the yard in July of 1980.

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End of the Line

1. NJDOT 4883 maintained its PRR livery until the end of its service life, and was the only remaining example of the 'broad stripe' PRR paint scheme by 1979. (Most GG1's were painted with 5 gold pinstripes by the PRR, but some were repainted in the 1950's. All of the GG1's that had been cosmetically restored were brought back to the 5 stripes, as opposed to the broad stripe.)
2. The PRR E44 was an electric freight locomotive. Following their Penn Central service, most units went to Conrail, but some were sold to Amtrak and New Jersey Transit, who used them primarily for switching duties.
3. The New York Central T and S motors were electric locomotives used by the NYC to run trains into Grand Central Terminal.
4. The EMD SW1 is a switcher engine. Amtrak inherited these units from Penn Central.
5. New Jersey Transit is the state-run commuter rail/transit agency for the state of New Jersey. The agency bought several GG1s from Amtrak and Conrail, and was the last operator of the type, retiring them in 1983. The NJT Gs ran from New York Penn Station to South Amboy Station in Middlesex County.

Comments

[bailey_chap]

Thanks for the trivia! What happened to 4902 though?

[jz1]

5416829
4902 and 4883 both were scrapped by 1985 - I don’t have exact dates. It's unfortunate, but I picked locomotives that would be positively influenced by meeting Celestia.

[iisaw]

Being a Western sort of person, I'd never heard of the GG1. What a beautiful machine!

[M4Tiger4014]

5416851
Unsurprised, since statistically they’d have a slim chance of being saved, but nevertheless a damn shame.

And thanks for this! Really cool background info.

[M4Tiger4014]

New York Penn Station is the busiest rail station in the United States. Built in 1910, by the PRR, the station was an architectural wonder that brought tears to the eyes of commuters with its beauty.

And just when I thought Grand Central was the prettiest NYC had to offer!

[Cerulean Blue]

Fantastic story - well researched and well written.

[Lurks-no-More]

For some reason, ponies and trains go really well together in stories.

[MrZJunior]

Nineteen seventy nine, so Cold War wise Detente is in its final year, though its been dying a slow death for the last half decade or so. Tensions are be rising and both the US and USSR are building up their conventional and nuclear arsenals.

Edit: I forgot, the US and Mainland China have just normalized relations, so the Soviets are felling very hemmed in and nervous. What that will mean for Celestia's state visit to Moscow I can't say.

Edit #2: This would also probably fall within the Soviet "Era of Stagnation" under Brezhnev. I have to admit that Soviet history, much less Soviet economic history, is not my strong suit. Again, I'm not sure how this would affect Equestrian relations with the Soviets. For one thing, it would crimp any potential development aid the Soviets might have provided.

I'm guessing the Soviets haven't invaded Afghanistan yet. That was December and the story doesn't mention anything about cold weather.

[Reese]

Thanks for the additional information!

By the way, I do feel sorry for New Penn Station, you know. I mean, yes, she doesn't have the grandeur of Old Penn Station, but she's not without charms; they're just different ones! And people hate her so much.

5416890
And Grand Central now only serves commuter trains for the Metro-North Railroad, too; all the National Network (long distance) and Northeast Corridor trains are at New York Penn.

5417234
"I'm guessing the Soviets haven't invaded Afghanistan yet. That was December and the story doesn't mention anything about cold weather."
The story's explicitly set in June, if you missed that, if it helps?

[MrZJunior]

5417341
I did miss that, thank you. The invasion kicks off in very late December, which seems like a terrible time to invade a mountainous country, but what do I know.

[Reese]

5417345
You're welcome. :)
And yeah. I mean, "Let's invade the Graveyard of Empires; I'm sure we'll manage to pull it off!" seems like a questionable plan to begin with, nevermind adding "In bad weather!" on, but, hey, I'm not a military planner either. [shrugs]

[M4Tiger4014]

5417462
That’s a very accurate name for Afghanistan.

[Reese]

5417957
It does seem to be, from what I know of its history.
(The phrase is far from my coining, though, just so you know, if this happens to be the first time you've encountered it. I'm not sure how old it actually is.)

[Penguifyer]

1. I set this story in 1979, mainly because it allowed me to use the GG1 as a story element/character. I got the inspiration for that from The Cab Ride and a Night Train, which is also set in late 1970's New York. It's a good story - you should check it out.

I thought that title looked a tad familiar.