//------------------------------// // Carelessness // Story: Unstoppable // by The Blue EM2 //------------------------------// Gilda hopped into the cab of 76076 and moved the Reverser to FOR-OFF. She then shifted the Combination Lever to Series. This caused the display to update to FOR-SER. Gilda relaxed and waited for the generators to respond. “What is taking so long?” Upper Crust asked. “It’s a 76, for God’s sake, these things take a while to start,” Gilda replied. The generators began to hum quietly, indicating the transistor banks had woken up. This was especially good as it meant the in-cab heating would now be active. Gilda slowly pulled the throttle toward her. With a clunk and a quiet rumble, the train began to roll forward, the horn echoing across the landscape as it did so. D8 lay just ahead, so there was little need to apply much power. Gilda left it set to R4 and looked out ahead. Meanwhile, 611 rolled toward Cloudsdale. Lightning glanced over to Sunset. “So, what’s your story?” she asked. Sunset shrugged. “It’s rather long,” she admitted. “Hey, we got a long day.” “Let’s just say I’m having some issues in my life, and I thought that railroading would help fix those. What about you? I haven’t seen you around before.” Lightning laughed. “I’m normally allocated to Crystal City depot. And my life story is pretty boring, to be honest.” 611 started the 1-in-70 climb up to Cloudsdale, making a considerable noise as it did so. Lightning continued with her story. “I live in Crystal City, and go to Crystal Prep Academy.” “Crystal Prep?” Sunset asked. “We’re competing against you guys next month!” “Competing is an interesting way of putting it,” Dust sighed. “Winning all the time is just boring. Anyway, my family has worked on the railroad for years, so I thought I should follow in their footsteps.” Sunset waited before asking her next question. “Any other family?” “My mom and dad, obviously. Then there’s my twin sister, Sunny Flare.” Lightning laughed. “We are nothing alike!” “What exciting jobs do they have?” “My dad also works on the railroad here, Mom is a fashion designer. Sunny and me often get roped into her design work.” Sunset resisted the urge to correct Dust’s bad grammar, and let her continue. “Sunny never was so keen on the messy stuff like this, but she’s really good with woodwork. Her spelling could do with some work though.” “What do you mean?” Sunset was confused. “I never knew you could spell ‘rhombus’ so many different ways!” Both girls burst out laughing. The engine rolled around the Cloudsdale curve, strictly limited to 30 miles an hour. This was because it hung straight over a precipice on the line’s ascent to Cloudsdale. Any higher speed would result in a derailment. The engine rolled into a tunnel, but the climb stopped when they rolled into Cloudsdale depot. Lightning stopped the engine and hopped down to speak to the yard foreman. “611, here on boxcar movement. We’ve been authorised to use the turntable.” The foreman waved to her. “This way, please.” 76076 rumbled across the points, all 4 locos rumbling as the train rolled along the line. Upper Crust was radioing instructions to Gilda. “OK, car 25 is clear of the switch, 26 is just rolling through now.” “Good,” Gilda replied. “Preparing to apply Rheostatic Brakes.” Gilda looked ahead of her, and suddenly noticed a yard switch set incorrectly. “What the?” she asked. “Upper Crust, there’s a switch up ahead that’s set wrong.” “Can you stop the train?” “Not without fouling the rear switches with the back of 76081.” “You’re not going to stop,” said a voice to her left. Gilda looked to her left, and saw 3 women had climbed aboard. One moment, she was in the cab, the next, her face smacked into the console. The door was opened and Gilda was flung out, but her hand caught a lever as she was thrown. Gilda hit the gravel with an audible bang. “Oww,” she groaned. But her injuries were the last thing she had to worry about. Suddenly, the locos on the train began to speed up. The motor notes rose in pitch as more power was fed into the system. The noise reached an audible whine, before building up to a crescendo which was a currious mixture of a whine and a growl. “Shit!” Gilda leaped up and ran after the train, which was rapidly gaining speed. Moving up alongside one of the tankers, she grabbed the handrail and attempted to climb aboard. It was a futile effort. The train was simply going too fast, and she lost her footing, tripped, and was dragged about 80 feet before she let go. “Gilda!” Upper Crust ran over to Gilda to see if she was OK. “What the hell happened?” Gilda groaned, before looking up. “Damn hooligans...jumped my train. I’d never seen them before.” “So, somebody nicked one of our trains,” Crust sighed. “Somedays I just love my job. Yardmaster isn’t gonna be pleased.” Meanwhile, 611 was being turned on the turntable. Lightning was in the cab whilst Sunset was operating the turntable. Dust glanced through her diary and saw against today’s date was marked; Mom’s birthday. “Crap! I forgot!” she thought. She pulled out her cell phone, and made the call. In the Dust household, Shimmering Dust, a woman in her late 30s, took her phone out and saw it was her daughter. “You’re late,” she said. “Yeah, look, sorry I forgot,” the voice on the other end said. “But here it is, happy birthday.” “Thanks,” Shimmering replied. “How’s things on the rails?” “Good thanks. For the love of God, what is that racket in the background?” “That racket is your sister playing the piano. It’s a much nicer sound than all that noisemaking you do with your band.” “Right. Look, I gotta go, catch ya later, bye!” The call abruptly concluded. Shimmering Dust shook her head. “That girl is impossible,” she groaned. Meanwhile, Sunset was operating the turntable controls when suddenly, she saw her demonic alter-ego in the reflection on 611’s tender. “Hello Sunset,” it said. “How? How can you be here?” Sunset asked, worried. Were her dreams spilling over into real life? “I can appear anywhere I please,” the demon smiled. “After all, I am simply you.” “You are not me!” Sunset answered. “I’ve changed! I’m a good person now!” “Even good people have a few skeletons in their closet,” the demon replied. “You can’t hold me back forever. I’ll return some day.” “Shut up!” “You can’t silence the truth, Sunny,” it laughed, before it vanished, Sunset was aware of her radio buzzing. “Yeah?” “Care to explain why the engine is oriented the wrong way?” Sunset looked around her, and noticed the engine’s nose was pointed toward the marshalling yard. “Oops.” “This engine cannot run safely at high speeds backwards. It needs the tender facing TOWARD the boxcars.” Sunset pulled the lever and felt the turntable begin to move again. Once the procedure was complete, Lightning began backing the engine slowly toward the boxcars. “If there’s anything you don’t understand, just ask me,” she explained. “Is that OK?” Sunset sighed. “As I said, I’ve got a lot on my mind. And the whole ‘let-the-new-girl-prove-herself' bullshit really isn’t helping.” Dust glanced over. “Well, neither is getting canned. Some higher-ups aren’t so keen on us older drivers. Older in the sense that we’ve been driving longest.” Sunset spoke up. “I wouldn’t want to take your job away.” Dust smirked. “Just saying it as it is, that’s all.” She brought the engine to a stop. “I’ll need you to call me back onto the boxcars. Get it right this time.” Sunset hopped out of the cab and walked toward the waiting cars. Meanwhile, another goods train blasted out of San Fernando yard as a pickup truck pulled up in the parking lot. A man hopped out, and picked up 4 boxes of doughnuts from the back seat. He was an older man, with light blue skin and greying hair. As was suitable for the cold, he wore a grey bomber jacket and pants, combined with a pair of brown boots that crunched in the snow. He also had a scarf on, though whether he wore it loose around his neck or in a Windsor Knot depended on the weather. Today, it was definitely the latter. His phone buzzed as he stepped through the door. He put the boxes down on a table and took it out. “Hi, this is Wind Rider,” he answered. “I’ve just got in. Yeah, I’ve got the doughnuts for when the kids get here.” He stopped. “A what?” he asked. Just then, Gilda and Upper Crust appeared behind him. He swung around, ending the call. He was not pleased. “How the hell did this happen?” he asked. “I got jumped,” Gilda answered. “Jumped?” Wind Rider could not believe what he was hearing. “Gilda, you were in the cab of an engine, not walking into an ambush in a school gym!” “Some hooligans jumped into the cab and pushed her out,” Crust added. “CCTV caught them running off, but the train is still rolling.” “Great.” Wind Rider was going to have a fun day. “Are the brakes tied on?” “Yes.” Gilda nodded. “Right, get after it in one of the 77s. GO!” The two girls scuttled away, not wanting to face Wind Rider’s wrath any longer. He took out his phone as he walked into the control room. “We’ve got a coaster on the mainline,” he said. “Set as many signals to red as you can, and try to clear the mainline of any traffic. Hopefully those two can stop the damn thing before long.” He put in a number and hit call. “But it never hurts to have a backup.” Meanwhile, in a Diner just outside LA, a man was sitting eating his breakfast. He had a long, grey face and red eyes with yellow eyeballs. He had white hair sticking up at strange angles no matter what he did with it, and he wore a mismatched array of colours. At the moment he was listening to the small talk of the waitress, who had a frustrating habit of inserting comparatives into her sentences where they were not needed. “So,” she said, “I was like, ‘I need, like, a red-carpet glitz-and-glamour gown that’s also causal, but, like, still artsy and a total head turner’. She then, like, gave some stuff I didn’t understand so I didn’t, like, care about it.” “Very interesting,” the man said. “But then, like, her assistant came in with a totally smashing ensemble. I literally bought it then and there and I’m, like, the talk of the town.” The man simmered quietly, not least because of the constant errors in grammar, but because she wouldn’t stop talking. Thankfully his phone went, which he answered. “This is Discord, how can I help you?” “Hey, Discord,” said the voice at the other end. "We need your help on the rails.” “Well, it is my job, you know!” he replied. “I’ve got to go,” he whispered. “We’ve got an unmanned train rolling down the line. We need you to drive to the Castaic Junction Loop and throw the switch.” “Do you want me to climb aboard?” “No, there’s no need. We’ve got a loco crew following from San Fernando.” The speaker paused. "Where are you?” “I’m just on my way onto the road now.” “You sure? Last time you said that to me you had to hook Jimmy out of a computer screen. Something about talking pastel ponies.” “That was a one off!” Discord protested. “I’m on my way there now.” He ended the call, and got up. “I’ll be back tomorrow!” he said. “Like, have a totally smashing day,” the waitress replied. “Valley Glamour!” shouted a voice. “Get back to work!” Discord pulled his helmet on, and started his motorbike’s engine. With a rattle and a roar, he pulled out of the parking lot, and raced onto the highway.