One might think it was a fairly typical Tuesday morning. He’d gone to work, and gotten on the rails.
The difference being, he normally drove dinky little trains with only single locomotives and so little mass they could accelerate almost as fast as a passenger train; such is the nature of empties.
Today, though, he’ll be in command of a truly enormous train. This monster boasts a whopping six locomotives, a caboose, a couple trainmen, and over three miles of tank cars topped off with diesel fuel. Nevermind the dozens of gasoline tankers, the six standard box cars filled with plumbing supplies, the eight tri-level autoracks loaded with dozens of brand-new cars of various makes and models, the dozens of flatcars loaded with tanks- military tanks- and the crane.
They’ll be taking this load all the way across the country, to a yard someplace in California. Once there, their locomotives will be switched to another train of similar size for the return journey, right back here to New York. They’ll have to make several service stops along the way; there is no way these locomotives have the endurance for that kind of distance on a single tank. Not with this much mass, at any rate.
Good thing he doesn’t have to pay that gas bill.
He waits patiently as his engineer stretches out the slack, crawling the bulk of the locomotives forwards, before giving them any significant throttle. This might also be because the air brakes haven’t yet finished pumping up- even with six locomotives working on it, it is taking absolutely forever.
Even so, his train is beginning to move. They haven’t yet begun accelerating- and the lead locomotive has already moved at least half its own length.
His engineer had not been impressed when she learned that they simply could not allow the trailing cars to roll downhill- backwards- really any at all. The shunters had assembled the train far too close to the back of their siding for either of their liking- but even three of those old shunters would be out-pulled by a single one of his road locomotives. He’s not quite sure how long they’d spent preparing this ginormous train.
This brings a smile to his face. While it would have taken fifteen shunters to even crawl this massive load up the hill, they’ve just received report that most of the train is moving forwards- and his engineer hasn’t even touched the majority of his locomotives’ power. Take that!
He glances up once again, out the windshield of his lead locomotive, at the green signal giving them the go-ahead. Finally, the locomotive begins to accelerate, without any adjustment to the throttle.
He shares a look with his engineer. That means the whole train is moving- though she won’t be increasing the power until the air brakes finish pumping up. This they eventually do- and the near-instant response is an increase in engine noise.
He smiles at his engineer, who flashes her beautiful smile back at him, turning quickly back to her controls to adjust the throttle again. He almost can’t wait to be on the mainline again- especially for so long. Perhaps the NX- oh, what was it again? He glances back down at his notes. Perhaps the NX-7327 could battle its way past Kronos and negotiate a treaty with Romulus before they reach their destination, the… Oh, he doesn’t know. It’ll be fun devising their course- and corresponding story- with his engineer over the coming week or two.
Naturally, pretending their lead locomotive is the starship Enterprise with a new hull number only goes so far. This ranges from matters as simple as the locomotive’s lack of a warp drive to matters as complex as its possession of air horns. The latter of the two is the bother right now; they’re approaching a grade crossing at full speed ahead. The crossing itself is still little more than a speck in the distance, but his engineer is already pulling the cord for the air horns, sounding the warning signal.
He raises his binoculars, peering forwards at the crossing. There’s no gates on this one, nor even lights, that he can see- only the basic signs. Makes sense, for such a rural road; according to his maps, this road is a dead-end, serving some half-dozen houses to their left, across the three-track mainline from the rest of the town to their right. He lowers the binoculars.
“And so the Enterprise passed the moons of-!”
He blinks. He’d risen his binoculars again- and been greeted with a view of a single-track mainline stretching ahead of them, complete with a sign-free crossing with a dirt road. He lowers them- three-track mainline. Raises. One track. Lowers. Three tracks. “What…?”
His engineer glances up at him. “What is it?”
He puts his binoculars to his eyes another three or four times. “It’s… We’re on a three-track mainline, right? Approaching a crossing with a paved road?” She nods, and he continues. “Whenever I look through my binoculars, it becomes a single track, approaching an unmarked crossing with a dirt road.”
She scans the tracks ahead of them. “I don’t get it,” she mutters, shaking her head.
He offers her the binoculars, and she takes them. She lifts them to her eyes, then lowers them again, shaking her head. “Nope, still three tracks both ways,” she mutters- and hands them back.
He accepts his tool once again, lifting them to his eyes for one last look.
The moment the lenses line up with the distant crossing, however, the floor of the locomotive seems to fall out from under him, sucking him instantly into the darkness.
She hands the binoculars back to her conductor. If it wouldn’t have gotten one- or both- of them fired, they’d be husband and wife right now. Even as he accepts the tool back, she scans the tracks ahead. They’re on a long straightaway, the lead locomotive having just blown past the grade crossing. The tracks ahead are completely clear, as expected.
As he raises the tool back to his eyes, she opens her mouth to ask how clear his single track line is.
She never gets to ask. Instead, her entire world turns upside-down, plunging into darkness.
She might have thought the chair had fallen out from under her. As a matter of fact, she wonders if it has; she doesn’t feel the seat under her. In addition, she’s gone deaf, and her control panel has disappeared; she’d had a hand resting on it. She tries moving her hand downwards, to meet the control panel, but the muscles don’t respond.
So she takes comfort in the pressure against her back: The back of her seat, transmitting the constant rumble of the locomotive to her. Wherever she is, she’s still in the train- and her conductor is probably still standing next to her. So long as she has him, she can handle anything.
Suddenly, she can move again, first indicated by landing back on the seat. Only, she feels… different. She can’t quite put a finger on it- though, as she catches herself in the darkness on the edge of the control panel, her attention is drawn- momentarily- to the distinctive lack of feel in her fingers.
Her attention is next drawn to her hearing; she is no longer deaf, though she feels something shifting on the top of her head, to better hear her conductor’s breathing, presumably lying on the floor next to her.
She then scrambles one hand… Fingerless hand? Whatever it is, she scrambles it across the control panel to find the lights. They should have already been on- and they had been. She hopes she’s not blind.
She finds the switch. Moments later, the lights on the front of the locomotive come back on, fighting against the darkness. The control panel backlight comes on at the same moment, though the interior lighting remains off.
But these lights go largely unnoticed, battling against the sun that also decided to switch on at the same moment.
It seems she must have shrunk slightly- but she can still see out the front windows, to the track in front of her. Her locomotive is barrelling down this single track at full speed ahead, and climbing… Climbing dangerously. It’s a downhill slope. She zeroes the throttle.
Her ears twitch as the massive engines die down to idle. She’s fairly certain human ears don’t do that.
A quick check of her control panel shows her train seems to have stopped accelerating. It’s still moving too fast, and doesn’t seem to be decelerating, so she draws the throttle back slightly, dropping it into regenerative braking territory and compressing the slack throughout the train. She gives this some time to complete before drawing it further back for her reward: Her train is slowing back down to safe velocities.
She’s almost down to her desired speed when it crosses her mind that her conductor hasn’t done anything since the… Event. Her memory immediately replays the hard thump she’d heard as soon as the lights came back on… He must have collapsed onto the ground.
She’s about halfway through turning to look at him when her ears draw her attention with a second inhuman feat. They perk upwards and forwards, catching what sounds like a train whistle from up ahead. Her gaze locks back onto the tracks in front of her, having caught only a momentary glimpse of something brown on the decking next to her.
She focuses on the signal. It sounds unfamiliar, though- and with her conductor probably out cold, she can’t exactly ask him. She scowls, and reaches for her air horns once again. She tries- unsuccessfully- to ignore her ears flattening against her head in an attempt to block out the noise.
“I just knew this was going to happen,” he grumbles, sticking his head out the right side window in an attempt to assess the damage before his train even comes to a stop. His attempt is at least partially successful; it’s not very hard to miss that damage. He draws back in, turning to his firepony. “Cylinder is shot,” he reports.
The firepony scowls. “Is it something we can fix?” He asks.
The engineer shakes his head. “Looks like the whole side blew off- then the piston got involved, and I’m pretty sure the rod is bent. I told them that thing needed reinforcing.”
He cusses. “That ain’t going back together very quickly. We’re gonna have to pull it.”
Nod. “We don’t have enough ponies aboard to pull it, though,” he scowls. “I guess we’ll have to hope we’re close enough to someplace… and that the whistle still works.” He reaches for the cord, blasting out the appropriate signal.
Pause. “Here’s hoping somepony-!”
A response comes thundering in from behind. Even so, it sounds distant- so much so it must be simply deafening at its source, like a hundred foghorns. Both stallions listen to the signal… Four short bursts of noise.
The engineer looks to his companion. “Four short?” he asks.
Frown. “Isn’t that the ‘what was that’ signal?”
Nod. “Yep, I think so. I don’t think it’s ever been used, though.” He reaches for his whistle to repeat their signal.
The firepony waits until the signalling is complete. “I wonder who made a foghorn that loud…?”
The strange signal repeats. She’s certain she caught the entire signal this time- but it’s still unfamiliar.
It sounds closer, though. Like it’s not too far around that corner up ahead.
She leaves the regenerative braking on maximum, resting a hand on the air brakes.
Which reminds her. As much as she can’t feel her fingers, like they don’t exist, she can still grip and manipulate things with them. She raises her other arm- the one not standing ready to apply the brakes- in front of her for a quick visual inspection, without breaking line-of-sight with the tracks in front of her. After all, her locomotive is equipped with an anti-climber… But most steam trains aren’t- and any train pulled by steam is most certainly lighter than hers.
She allows her focus to shift to her arm as her train decelerates towards the curve.
It’s blue. That’s the first thing she notices- her arm is blue. Sky blue, to be exact, not the bright, untanned peach-ish color of her skin. She never did tan very well.
The next thing she observes is the complete lack of any fingers. Her hand seems to have been replaced by something large and very solid. She twists it in midair… Yes, it looks much like a hoof of some sort.
So, how had she grasped things with a hoof? A momentary glance at her other limb- which she can feel has a firm grip on the brake handle- shows a hoof resting against it, not wrapped around it or anything.
After checking the tracks ahead once more, she turns her attention back to her free arm… hoof.
It’s not just sky blue; it’s covered in sky blue fur. Why she- or anything, for that matter- would have fur of that color, she hasn’t a clue. A quick check downwards shows her legs are similar- with hooves, and blue fur. So, four legs, then?
She also notices she’s now completely naked. For some reason, she’s not all that worried about it- after all, she is completely covered in fur.
She examines the tracks again. Her locomotive is just starting into the corner by now; she keeps her eyes on the tracks. This is made difficult by her discovery of three separate appendages she didn’t know she had- two on her back, below her shoulders, and one all the way down, where a tail would be. She resists the urge to look; someone’s life could be at stake if she makes a mistake. Her ears- most certainly not human ears- stay pointed forwards, hunting for possible signals. They flatten momentarily as she gives the air horns a brief tug.