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// Chapter 4: Crystal Built Rail 
// Story: The Guild of Equestrian Railwaymen: Dual bands of steel through the hills 
// by bucking bronco 1968 
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I yawned and stretched as I picked myself up off the bunk I had spent the night in.

The trip from Vanhoover up to the Crystal Empire had been mostly uneventful, the only problem being the couple of times Fire Box let the boiler pressure drop a little too much. But all in all, it had been a clean run, and we had rolled into the Empire’s main yard at about 1:30 in the morning.

I looked over to the other side of the room to see that the clock read just after 11:00 am. “Well, time to get outta bed.” I said to myself before rolling out of bed and going through my normal morning routine. When we had come in the night before, we had been told that dispatch would scheduled us for another run when something popped up, but not to expect anything before noon.

Even though it was still an hour before they had said a train would be ready for us, I didn't feel like sitting on my flank for that time. In no time at all, I was ready to go, and walked out of the bunk that I had been given for the night.

I walked across the hall and knocked and on the door to the bunk Smoke Box had spent the night in.

“Smoke, you awake in there?”

There was a few seconds of silence before a muffled reply snuck it’s way through the door, “Yep I'm movin. Go ahead and head over to dispatch, that's where I told Fire Box you'd be.”

I was surprised to hear that Fire Box was already awake, but it didn't phase me for long, “Alright, I'll head over there and meet up with him. Catch up with us down there when you're ready.”

“Can do boss” slipped through the door, before I turned and started to make my way toward dispatch.

I got down break room behind the dispatch office quick enough, and ran into Fire Box just after walking in

He looked up and smiled at me, “Oh hey Stokes, was wondering when you'd walk in.”

I smiled when I heard him refer to me by my nickname, the kid had come a long way from the day before when it came to shaking off all the mental gymnastics training Canterlot had tried to beat into him.

“Yeah, I woke up not too long ago, and felt that I should probably do some work today. Smoke Box said he should be down here in a few, so we're just gonna hang out and wait for him.” I said as I walked over and poured myself a cup of coffee.

I grimaced a bit when I saw that there was no sugar or creamer around, forcing me to drink it black. But with no other choice, I just shrugged it off and poured myself a cup. At one point I had hated and all but avoided drinking coffee black, but when it's all you've got in the morning for five years, it grows on you, enough so you could stomach it at least.

It was only a few minutes later that Smoke Box walked into dispatch. “Afternoon Stokes.” He said as he walked over and poured his own cup of coffee

“You ready to get rolling?” I asked as I finished up the last of my cup.

“Just a sec.” He said before he picked up his cup and slammed its contents down his throats in the matter of seconds. “Ahhhh, yup, now I'm good. Let's go grab us an iron horse.”

I just shook my head before motioning to Fire Box, who had been dozing off in a chair, and the three of us walked into the dispatch office proper.

The dispatch office was about the size of our main one back in Tall Tale, but there were more organization boards and other resources devoted to freight than passenger traffic, as freight was the more prevalent traffic out of the Crystal Empire.

What with all their mines and lumber yards and what not.

The dispatcher I had talked to the night before when we had come in had said that they would put our names on the roster, so the roster sheets were out first stop.

The roster sheets were just a massive series of boards with crew names on them, showing what type of train they had, and who to talk to for their orders. We found our names easy enough (last spot on the last board) and saw that we would be in charge of a coal train, and that we had to talk to a dispatcher named Streaking Crystal.

“Does every pony that lives in the Crystal Empire have the word crystal in their name?” Fire Box asked.

“From our experience, yes.” Smoke Box said as we turned and started our hunt for Streaking Crystal.

She wasn't that hard to find, sitting at one of the first few desks we walked by, busy going through orders for rostered and un-rostered trains.

“Excuse me ma’am, but the roster boards said to talk to you about our orders.” I said as we stopped next to her desk.

She looked up, and smiled after looking at me for a second, “ Ah, so you’re Fire Stoker. The fabled driver of Equestria’s Northern Hills. Heard plenty of tales about you up here.”

I was taken a back, “Yeah I'm Fire Stoker. That other part, I'm not entirely sure about. How do you know me?”

“Oh my cousin works down in Tall Tale, name’s Axle Load. He's told me a thing or two about you and Coal Dust.”

“You're cousins with Axle Load? Wow small world.” Smoke Box said as he walked up next to me on the left, while Fire Box took up a spot on my right.

“It is indeed. But anyways, you're not here for small talk, you're here for your orders.” Streaking Crystal said as she went back to the stacks of papers on her desk, and began to search again.

“Ah, here we are.” She said a few moments later as she pulled out a paper-clipped stack of papers. “Manifest, destination, locomotive, and additional crew. Everything you need.”

I took the order, and began to go through it, with Smoke Box looking over my shoulder. “Alright, seems straightforward. Though the number of the engine escapes me. I know most class number ranges for the railway, but #898 escapes me. Oh well, not important. Thanks a lot Streaking. I'll be sure to tell Axle Load I saw you when I get back to Tall Tale.”

Streaking Crystal smiled, “Thanks. Nice to meet you Fire Stoker, I hope to see you again.”

I just smiled as we turned away, “I'm sure you will.” I said as we began walking towards the door.

Once we got out of earshot of the mare, Smoke and I looked at each other, “This is gonna be a long one” we said in perfect sync. We laughed quick before sighing.

At that comment, Fire Box looked at us, “What's up? Why is this gonna be a long day?”

I didn't say anything, just pointed to a spot on the order, ‘Destination: Canterlot.’

The look that came over his face was one of near terror. “Oh no! Not that place. I thought I would finally be done with that wretched city.”

“That's not the worst of it kid. Canterlot is a nearly two day run from Tall Tale, and we have to go through Tall Tale to get to Canterlot from here. It's probably gonna be a good three days to make the entire run, and we're rostered for the entire trip.”

That made Fire Box look like he was ready to quit. “Well, this is gonna be great.”

“Yep.” Was all that came from Smoke Box, before he turned back to me. “But did you notice something strange about the manifest list?”

“Yeah I did. We don't normally get manifests in number of cars, but 528 coal cars seems a little high for one locomotive.”

“Well I'm sure they know what they're doing.” Was all Smoke Box said. I nodded in agreement as the three of us made our way out the door and into the main yard.

The air was cold, and the snow on the ground crunched underneath us. The one thing that I don't think I’ll ever get used to about the Crystal Empire is that it's always winter outside the dome around the main city.

“So where is our engine?” Fire Box asked as we walked up to the tracks.

“Orders said they'd be pulling it up on outbound 2. We kinda picked up our orders early, and the train is coming in from one of the mines up North.” Smoke Box replied as we approached the twin gauge main line that lead out of the yard.

“Ok I gotta ask, what's with the third rail on some of these tracks?” Fire Box asked as we stood next to the southbound line.

I was all too happy to explain, “Well, not all the locomotives in the Crystal Empire run on standard gauge tracks. They have a few engines built specifically for running on a 6 foot wide gauge of track.”

It looked like Fire Box was about to ask another question when the ground under our hooves began to rumble. As we stood there in shock, we listened as what sorta sounded like many miniature explosions went off in the distance, and slowly began to grow closer.

As the explosive noise grew louder and louder, the ground shook more and more.

“What the hell is going on?!” Fire Box yelled in a panic over the deafening noise.

I looked up the tracks in the direction of the oppressive sound, only to see something coming over the horizon I thought I'd never see.

“No way, is that what I think it is?” Smoke Box asked in astonishment as he too caught sight of the massive object moving towards us.

“No doubt.” Was all I could bring myself to say as I continued to stare in awe at the machine that was lumbering its way toward us.

What we were lying witness to was one of the most impressive, and massive feats of locomotive engineering that had ever been completed.

The Crystal Empire Mammoth class heavy drag freight locomotive.

The eleven member Mammoth class still held the Equis wide record as the largest set of locomotives ever built in any way, shape, or form. The locomotives were gargantuan, having a 4-10-10-10-8 wheel arrangement, being the only set of locomotives to have three drive sets underneath their boilers.

The locomotives had been built when the Crystal Empire realized that it was quickly turning into a hotbed of bulk freight. From coal and ore to miles of logs, most of Equestria’s raw materials now came from the Crystal Empire.

Originally the only way to get these materials from to Empire into the big cities was through Vanhoover, and by extension us. This was because the original track that ran up to the frozen north originated in Vanhoover.

Yet even before the mines and logging camps were running at full force, it was obvious that the original line couldn’t handle the amount of traffic being sent across it. From bridges that were constantly being closed for inspection and repair, to tracks that were literally sinking into the ground from abused ties giving out, the line just could not cope.

So the decision was made rather quickly to have a newer, more modern main line constructed between the main terminal outside the Crystal Empire and the terminal in Canterlot. This was mainly to be used for freight traffic, with an express passenger train destined for and departing from the heart of the Empire twice a day. It was during the planning of this new line that the Empire was approached by a legend among rail ponies.

His name was Steam Punk, a locomotive designer well known for his massively powerful freight haulers. He single hoofedly designed such engines as the 2-6-6-6 Alleghenys, 2-8-8-4 Yellowstones, 2-8-8-2 Y6a’s and Y6b’s, and the 4-12-2 9000 class, as well as various others that had been implemented on one railway or another.

Heck, it was him and his team who designed the HG-10.

He approached the empire with his craziest idea yet. It defied most logic, but still ended up being considered one of his greatest. His plan was to build a twin gauge main line all the way to Canterlot, with the two gauges being the standard Equestrian gauge, and a six foot broad gauge.

At first, ponies thought he had gone mad. Why make a railway have to run two completely different sets of rolling stock? They couldn’t understand it, until he explained the method to his madness. It was mostly based around the construction of one class of engine. An engine class of such magnitude and power that they could haul half a dozen miles worth of fully loaded coal cars out of the mines and then go all the way to Canterlot single headed.

After some compromises and alterations were made to the engine’s design, the end result was the Mammoth class steam locomotive. Once the prototype was built and its capabilities were displayed, the Crystal Empire was completely on board with the plan, and the rest was history.

The Mammoth class locomotive measured a total of 244ft long from the tip of the front running boards to the end of the locomotive’s water tender. Just like the HG-10, TT-8, and many of Steam Punk’s later designs, the engine permanently had two tenders, which gave it the range to run from even the deepest mines to Canterlot, only having to stop and refuel three times.

Those refuels may take nearly three hours, but that’s almost to be expected considering the size of the tenders. The two tenders measured 57 feet long, nearly 16 feet wide, and just over 18 feet tall. This gave the two a maximum capacity of 118,000 gallons of water, and 410 tons of coal respectfully.

The cylinders that powered the beast were the largest ever made for any engine class ever, 48 inches by 39 inches each. And if that wasn’t crazy enough, there were nine of them.

Powering these cylinders was a giant 108 foot long boiler running at a working pressure of 500 psi, only achievable by using building techniques invented solely for the construction of the Mammoth class. The boiler was specially built out of a rare heavy duty metal found only in the mines of the Empire. The rarity of this metal was the reason why only eleven members of the class had been built. Along with this, just to feed the enormous boiler, a unique, and frankly crazy system of two twenty foot long and eight foot wide self contained fireboxes was created requiring that the engine was run by two fire ponies running two completely separate water and coal feeds.

All of this heavy weight situated at the rear of the locomotive meant that a trailing truck of eight, 44 inch in diameter wheels was needed to hold up the 16 foot wide by 7 foot long cab and fire boxes. On top of all of this, to allow the locomotives to actually navigate curves with its massive boiler, the boiler was built in two pieces, connected by a one of a kind three foot long hinge. How they got that to work still escapes me to this day.

In the end, all of this was used to turn the sets of thirty, 67 inch diameter drive wheels, which lead to the locomotive having a final, mind melting tractive effort rating of just over 2.6 million newtons. These eleven locomotives were the most impressive feat of engineering ever accomplished by pony kind full stop. And now, I was being put in the engineer’s seat of one.

The monstrous piece of rolling metal came to a stop in front of us with a mighty hiss of steam and air, and creak of metal. The three of us could only stand there in the slush next to outbound 1, staring. I had been told many a story of these engines and their impressive shows of strength, but I had never actually seen one up close.

But now, I was not only seeing one, I was getting to actually drive one. Inside the mush that was now my brain, that little colt that we all have was going absolutely nuts. We only began to walk over when we started to see the engine’s original crew stepping down from cab.

I walked up to the one dressed in an engineer’s uniform, the middle aged unicorn smiled when he cause sight of me, “Ah, the one and only Fire Stoker, nice to get the chance to meet you, name’s Dusted Quartz” the other stallion said, outstretching his hoof. I shook it, but couldn’t help but ask, “I’m a one and only now? I don’t think I’m that famous yet.” Dusted Quartz laughed, “Oh don’t down sell yourself Fire Stoker, many ponies have heard about the feats you’ve pulled off on in the hills of the South Smokey’s. Taking a six mile train through those hills as a double header, after only being an engineer for a year, that takes guts and skills. Plus putting up with all that stupid stuff that those nobles have been throwing at you lately, you and those other ponies down in the Smokey’s have a lot of fellow railpoines watching your back.”

He then turned to #898, “Take care of the old girl for us, and don’t stress to much about driving her. She’s basically just a big HG-10, with a much longer stopping distance. Just keep an eye on your speed and the side-rail boards, and you’ll do fine.” With that, Dusted Quartz and his two fire ponies began to walk away. Just as they were about to enter the dispatch building, Dusted turned back towards us, “Have a good run fellas!” He yelled over, before quickly making his way out of the worsening cold.

I turned to the two ponies next to me with a smile on my face, “Gentlecolts, I believe that we have an engine to run.”

With that said, the three of us ran towards the massive engine like we were young colts running to the tree on Hearts Warming. One long climb later, we were in the cab of the beast, looking over the odd set up of three control stations. Smoke Box, having fired an HG-10 before, immediately recognized the control set up, “Hey he was right, it’s just an HG-10. This should be fun.”

Fire Box on the other hoof, looked overwhelmed, “Are you sure this is a good idea? Up until yesterday, I hadn’t fired anything larger than a yard shunter.” Smoke Box turned to him with a smile, “Don’t worry kid, HG-10’s aren’t the hardest thing to fire. I’ll run you through everything quick.” As the two fire ponies took their seats, Smoke Box on the far left and Fire Box in the middle, I took my seat on the right in the engineer’s seat. About then, the CB radio that I had just noticed cracked to life, “Head end, this is Shattered Crystal in the caboose, ready to move out when you are. How copy?”

I picked up the CB’s radio, “Caboose this is head end, we copy you loud and clear. We’ll be ready to roll in just a minute here. We’ll radio you when we’re about to set off.” “Roger that head end, waiting on your call” Shattered Crystal’s voice replied.

We sat up in the cab of #898 for a couple minutes, going over all the controls as we readied ourselves. Soon enough, Smoke gave me the nod that signaled that they were ready to go. I acknowledge him with a nod of my own, before picking up the CB again, “Caboose this is head end, we are ready to roll, call in with confirmation that the whole train is moving.” There was a few seconds before, “Roger that head end, will radio you when train is in full motion.”

With that, I nodded again as I reached up for the locomotive’s whistle, giving out two long blasts to signal that we were heading out. With the loud blast of the locomotive’s deep whistle set out across the barren landscape of the frozen north, I reached for the regulator. With one last deep calming breath, I cracked the regulator open ever so slightly. The locomotive jerked as its massive wheels began to turn, the even bigger cylinders filling with steam. Not long after, the deep loud roar of the engine’s bark began to fill the air.

Now, I had said on many occasions that the best sound in the world is an HG-10 at full steam pounding through the hills of the Smokey's. But, the sound that came blasting out of the #898’s twin stacks as it slowly pulled its long train into motion and barely breaking a sweat while at it, came very close to topping that.

I barely had to move the throttle as I pulled the slack out of the train, the engine just not seeming to care about the immense weight behind it. A few minutes after we started, the CB crackled to life, “Head end, whole train is rolling.” I reached for the mic, “Roger that caboose, going us to yard speed.” I lifted the regulator again slightly, and soon enough, we were going ten miles an hour, making our way towards the main line proper.

Again, I grabbed the CB’s mic, “Caboose, we have reached yard limit, confirm when whole train has left the yard.” “Roger that head end.” I sat back and looked over to my two fire ponies, “You ready for this guys?” Smoke Box cracked a smile, “More than ready. Let’s do this.” Fire Box just gave a quick. With that, I just sat back and waited for Shattered Crystal. Not long after, I got what I was waiting for, “Head end, whole train is out of the yard, clear to accelerate to main line speed.” “Roger that.” Again I reached for the regulator and notched back the reverser.

It didn’t take to long for me to bring the engine up the the line’s speed of 35 mph. The line was built for fast freight and express passenger trains, but due to how heavy the linkage and other components of the mammoth class were, it was limited to 35 on all its runs to preserve the tracks. Which is completely understandable, given the fact that the linkage itself was 7 inches wide on either side, 3.5 per connecting rod, and the rest of the locomotive weighed something like 2,000,000 pounds.

I didn’t mind however, it just meant that I had more time to enjoy driving this engineering marvel. As we past by the track that lead into the empire itself for passenger services, I couldn’t help but grab the whistle and let out another long blast, sending out the engine’s impressive sound across the frozen lands once more.

As we continued on, we watched the landscape slowly begin to change, getting less and less snow covered as we traveled. We passed by one of the passenger services heading to the Crystal Empire not long after, whistles were traded as we passed. I couldn't help but smile, this run was getting better and better with every passing minutes, and I still had hours to go with the beautiful machine I was driving.

Six hours later, we were still traveling along perfectly as we had been for hours. #898 was an absolute dream to drive, as she pounded down the rails without a care in the world about the weight following behind her. We were just about three hours away from our first refueling stop.

This was about two fifths of the way to Canterlot, as the run between the Crystal Empire and Canterlot was much shorter than the one I thought I was going to have to take down through Tall Tale, cutting the trip time from 64 hours down to just around 22 hours, not including the time it took to refuel.

Thankfully for us, the mine that #898 had been coming from wasn’t that deep into the mountain ranges that the mines were found in. This meant that we had enough coal and water on board to cut the number of refuel stops down from three to two. In total, the entire run was going to take around 30 hours, under half of what the old route used to take. Of course that meant that we would be running the train for over a day, we had two three hour windows to grab a nap in if we decided to do so. I had worked with much less before, so I knew at least I'd be fine.

I looked over to the two boxes that occupied the cab with me with a smile, “How you two holding up?” I shouted over the engine’s impressive sound. “Hanging in there. I think the colt here is getting the hang of this” Smoke box hollered back. I directed my gaze to Fire Box, “Oh are you now?”

The young colt smiled, “Yeah, it’s not as bad as I had thought it was going to be. Still a bit overwhelming but I can manage. Kinda helps that I only have to turn levers and dials to fuel the fire box” I smiled, “Good to hear kid, just keep everything in check and we’ll have smooth sailing all the way to Canterlot.”

At just after 9:30 in the evening, we pulled into the Lower Crystal Rail Yard, the furthest south railyard that the Crystal Empire personally owned, and it was the location of our first fuel stop. With the skill that came from years of driving trains, even though I had never driven a Mammoth class engine, I pulled in and stopped the coal tender perfectly under the coal hopper shoot.

With everything set, the three of us sat back as we waited for the tender to fill up. A long hour later, the coal tender was filled to the brim, and I pulled us forward to start the even longer two hour process of filling up the water tender. “Uh, I do not want to sit here for another two hours and do nothing.”Fire box groaned as he adjusted himself in his seat. 

Smoke Box stretched and yawned as he got up from his seat, “Well I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna get a power nap in. Let me know when we’re heading out.” With that said, he sat down at the back of the cab leaning up against the tender, and within seconds, he was out cold.

Fire Box stared at the snoozing body of Smoke Box in disbelief, “How the hell did he just fall asleep like that.” I laughed from me spot in the engineer’s chair, “That is an important skill that you’ll hopefully pick up one day being a hoof plate worker. Being able to fall asleep anywhere at anytime. Trust me, it comes in handy.”

“Speaking of important skills, I have to ask, how are you so good at handling this massive thing? You said this was the first time you’ve ever driven one.” I chuckled, “That may be, but the ponies who build this engine built it off the basis of the HG10. As we said when we first laid eyes on the cab layout, it’s just an HG10 made bigger. That serves me well because the beginning of my engineer career was spent behind the controls of an HG10, #9366 to be exact. So I honed my skills at the controls of this engine’s little sister, and it turns out those skills transfer over quite well, especially those that come with taking six mile trains.”

Fire Box stared at me when I said that, “You mean to tell me that you actually have experience pulling trains of this size?” The smile on my face grew, “That I do, well if taking one train one time counts as experience, but it’s a hell of a story.” Fire Box was all too happy to sit and listen as I told him the story of climbing over the hills of Vanhoover with #9366 and #9329. By the time I was finishing up the tale, I was informed that the water tender was finished being filled, and we were good to go.

I nodded to the yard pony who had told me, before I turned back to Fire Box, “Hey kid, pass me that piece of coal by your hoof.” I said, pointing to a chunk of coal that had bounced out of the coal tender when it was being filled. Fire Box nodded, confused, and paced me the coal chunk. I was then all too happy to turn and toss it at Smoke Box, who woke with a jolt as the lump of coal bumped him on the top of the head. “Wake up sleeping beauty, it’s time to go.”

Smoke Box, unlike Coal Dust who would have gotten up and cussed me out before taking his seat, simply laughed and tossed the piece of coal back at me before he sat down in the far fire-pony seat. With a few quick blasts of the whistle and a notch of the regulator, we were rolling once more and on our way towards Canterlot.

We continued on into the coming night, and the next day. The next fuel up went just as smooth as the first, and in record time we were back on the rails to finish the last of our run, after being woken up from our nap.

The rest of the run was just as uneventful, but the long run was finally starting to take its toll on us. So it was with great relief to our sleep needy bodies that just before 8 in the evening the night after the run started, we pulled the ever expansive train into the main freight processing yard at the bottom of Canterlot Mountain.

As I brought #898 to a stop of receiving track 3, I was almost sad that my time with the Mammoth locomotive had come to an end. After everything was sorted out, we took the engine over to the roundhouse, parking her for the night next to two of her sisters. One of which was being steamed up for the return journey back to the Crystal Empire with a set of empty hoppers, while the other was having its smoke box cleaned out and boiler serviced.

Once the fire of #898 had been dumped and we had handed her over to the roundhouse crew to fully put her to sleep, the three of us made our way over to the employee housing to do the same for ourselves. With barely a word said to each other as we made our way to our rooms, and a rather weak goodnight was said, we opened the doors, and proceeded to fall asleep the second the doors swung close behind us.

The next day when we got in to receive our orders, we found that we hadn't been set up with a load heading back to Tall Tale, instead being given a load of empty log flats heading to Dodge Junction. “Looks like we don't get to go home just yet.” I said to Smoke Box as I read over the orders sheet. He just smiled, “Fine by me, I don't get to head out over the rest of the network that much. This should be fun.”

So, for the next few days, we were bounced around the western end of the network as we slowly made our way back up to Tall Tale. This included making stops first in Dodge Junction and then Hoofington, before finally ending up in Tall Tale’s yard once more, five days later.

Once I had put my engine for the day to bed, an aging 4-6-2 that I was pretty sure had a collapsing fire box arch, I made a beeline for Coal Dust’s bunk. It only took me about half an hour to get to his bunk house, and soon enough I was knocking on his door. “Hey Dusty! You in there!” I called as knocked on the door.

I stood there for a moment, and just as I was about to walk away, the door swung open, exposing the dark blue and grey earth pony that I knew all too well. The second his eyes caught sight of me, he broke into a smile, “Stokes! Good to see you again. Was starting to wonder if Canterlot had decided to keep you. Or forced you to stay.”

I laughed as I walked into the bunk, “You’re funny Coal. It would take a lot to keep me from coming back to Tall Tale. But enough about that, how are you holding up? Not too battered?”

Coal Dust waved his hoof with a smile, “Nah, I’m holding up pretty good. They let me out of the hospital three days ago. Thankfully I only had a mild concussion and only needed to get nine stitches.” He said as he lifted up his mane, exposing the line of stitches that sat at the top of his forehead. “Yeesh, that looks rough.” I said as I looked over the closed up wound.

Coal Dust laughed, “It looks worse than it actually is. In fact, the railway even let me come back to work yesterday.” “Well that’s good, the last thing we need is for you to spend too much time laying around on your flank.” Coal Dust rolled his eyes at me, “Oh ha ha, very funny Stokes. But seriously, I talked with Files when I clocked out today, and he said that the two of us will be taking a train over The Grade tomorrow. Back to the old grind eh.”

I smiled as I got up to leave, but first walked over to Dusty with an outstretched hoof, “Wouldn’t have it any other way Dusty.” The recovering earth pony smiled before bumping my hoof, "You know it." He said before waving as I made my way out of the bunk, “See you tomorrow Stokes.” “Later Dusty.” I said with a wave of my own as I walked out of the bunk and closed the door behind me.

It didn’t take me too long to get back over to my bunk, and I didn’t stay up too much longer before calling it quits for the night and hitting the hay. The next morning I woke up at 5:00 a.m. again, slowly falling back into my normal routine as I got up and made my way over to Reefer’s coffee house. I walked in, smiling as I looked around the already bustling caffeine palace, and called to the old stallion behind the counter, “Hey Wood Reefer!”

Wood Reefer turned to me and smiled, “Ah Fire Stoker, good to see you again. It’s been a bit hasn’t it?” I laughed as I walked up to the counter, “Yeah, I kinda got thrown around for a little bit after that whole fiasco on The Grade.” Wood Reefer laughed, “So I guessed. I know how it goes all too well. Now let me guess, a cup of the usual?” “You know me too well Reefer.” "I would hope so. you've been ordering the same thing ever morning for the last seven years."

The old stallion laughed as he went about making my coffee. Just as I was turning to go have a seat, I heard the doors burst open. I turned to find a frantic looking Coal Dust, “Stokes, thank Celestia I found you!” He yelled as he ran over to me. “Whoa, easy there Dusty, what’s the problem?”

With that Coal Dust produced a copy of The Canterlot Observer that had been tucked under his foreleg, and pointed to the front page. I looked at the title and felt my eyes pop at what I read, Railway Engineer Destroys Locomotive and Nearly Takes Life of Coworker Due to Incompetence. Fire Stoker, and engineer in the Smokey Mountain district of the Canterlot Pacific Railroad, endangered the life of a fellow employee when his improper handling of and engine lead to said engine’s destruction. Underneath that was a picture of #3800 in her damaged state sitting outside the Tall Tale locomotive shop.

It took me a while of staring to actually register what I was looking at, but once I did, I couldn’t help but mutter one word. “Shit.”