An Adventure on Rails and Time

by JimmyHook19


Let's do the Time Warp Again

It was a Saturday, but not in Manteo. No, we are going somewhere else this time altogether!

(Really got you there, didn't I?)

Today, we find ourselves in Canterlot, a wonderful city found on the West Coast of the United States. It was a Saturday indeed, but not a good Saturday. Indeed, it was a boring Saturday in June, though how a Saturday in June could prove to be boring I have no clue. But still, it had proven to be boring, at least to three girls trudging down the streets of Canterlot that day.

Those three girls were the Crusaders: Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Cozy Glow. This is not the usual lineup for the Crusaders, I am aware, but let me explain. For a long time, Cozy had been something of a bad girl at Canterlot High, but the Crusaders had seen who she was in real life; a lonely, sad girl who simply wanted a friend. Her behavior issues were just a way of venting the frustration she felt, and as such Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom had shown her the errors of her ways. Now she was the fourth member of their society, and a close friend of theirs to boot.

But today, they were down one member. Scootaloo was away with her aunts (and not her isn'ts), which was an obvious downer. Normally, they would just go to one of the other's houses. But today that wasn't an option. Rarity was away for Fashion Week in New York, taking on her old rival Suri Polomare. Applejack was away as well, at a reunion in a place called Leadville in Colorado, and Granny Smith and Big Mac probably wouldn't appreciate those three tearing around the fields of Sweet Apple Acres. Finally, and perhaps the most obvious reason, was the fact that it was a Saturday. Canterlot High School was shut, and as such very little was there to do.

I'm not entirely sure I've got Watermelody out of the system yet. Let me try that again.

Canterlot High School was shut, and as such there was very little to do.

Sweetie Belle perfectly summed up how they felt, as she stood on a street corner, not in Winslow, Arizona. "Argh!" she cried. "I'm so bored! There's literally nothing to do today!"

"I'm amazed there was no homework, to be honest," Cozy Glow sighed. She then stepped back when she noticed some pedestrians eyeing her with disgust. Although she had changed, there were many in town who were yet to accept it. Which meant Cozy knew exactly how Sunset had felt after the Fall Formal.

"If only we were in Scotland!" Apple Bloom exclaimed. "We could have caught the Jacobite up ta Mallaig!"

That's an entirely separate story, Apple Bloom, but I'll ignore that for a moment.

She went on, looking about. "If only there were somethin' we could do."

"Shh!" Sweetie Belle said. "Do you hear that?" A strange wheezing and groaning noise could suddenly be heard, as a large blue object suddenly appeared out of nowhere on the opposite street corner, a blue light glowing on the top as it landed. Just then, the door on the other side opened, and a man walked into a wall.

"Not that way round!" he said, shutting the door again. The object suddenly vanished again, before appearing the other way round, and the same man walked out. "Much better!"

"Who are you?" Cozy Glow asked.

"Relax," Apple Bloom said. "It's just Mr. Turner. Ya know, Ditzy and Dinky's pa?"

This Mr. Turner had Caucasian skin, and brown hair complemented with brown eyes. He was currently dressed in his familar blue suit with waistcoat, red tie, brown pants, and a large brown overcoat. "Hello girls!" he called. "How are you?"

"Bored," Sweetie Belle replied. "We could do with something to do."

Mr. Turner smiled. "Well then," he said, his eyes lighting up. "Fancy traveling back in time again?"

"Remember when we went back to 1968?" said Apple Bloom. "Ah'd love to travel back in time again!"

"Gives us something to do," said Cozy Glow. "I'm in."

"Yeah!" Sweetie Belle cried. "Onwards to adventure!"


The three girls stepped through the doors of the TARDIS, and into the massive control room that was bigger on the inside than the outside. It never ceased to take your breath away when you saw it, and the girls quickly crowded around the center console as Dr. Turner got to work.

"One last thing," he said. "Call me the Doctor."

"Doctor... what?" Cozy Glow asked.

The Doctor shook his head. "That's a new one," he said. He then threw some switches, and turned some dials. The control room began to gently hum, and then another strange wheezing and groaning noise started up. The girls ran to look at the scanner, which showed the TARDIS lifting off from the ground and entering the time vortex.

"There's one thing I never asked," Sweetie Belle said.

"Yes?" the Doctor asked, looking up from his console.

"What does TARDIS actually stand for?"

"Time and Relative Dimension in Space. My granddaughter came up with that one." The Doctor chuckled as he stepped around the central console. "Built at the Gallifrey Black Hole shipyards in 1963, by Earth's timeline. I stole her when she was in for repairs, which is why she doesn't always quite work properly." Just then, some sparks flew down from overhead. "Like that. Anyway, I've been flying through space and time ever since." He glanced back at the scanner.

Cozy Glow nudged Apple Bloom. "What's he talking about? Does this make Ditzy and Dinky aliens?"

"It's... complicated," Apple Bloom replied. "Ah'll tell you later."

Suddenly, the scanner beeped, and the Doctor looked closely. "Ah!" he cried. "We're here! June 8th, 1952. Norfolk, Virginia, about 7AM. That's the morning. Let's see. The 1950's are just underway, jazz is still the dominant force it has ever been, and Rocket 88, the very first Rock and Roll single, is in the charts. We have just arrived outside Norfolk Terminal Station, built by the Norfolk and Western in 1912, alongside the Virginian and Norfolk Southern. First things first, you three need to get changed. Your clothes won't fit the time period. At all."

The three girls headed off, but Apple Bloom looked back. "Which way's the wardrobe?"

"Take a left by the swimming pool, turn two rights past the library, then go down a never ending corridor, and take a left into the trapezium, and finally into the wardrobe room!"

"Right," Sweetie Belle said. "Sounds simple enough. Sort of."

A few minutes (or was it a few hours?) the three girls reappeared. Sweetie Belle wore a pink blouse with a blue skirt, and a black bow tie around her waist. She also wore black shoes to complement it.

Apple Bloom had kept her jeans, but had swapped her boots for shoes, and had gained a white shirt with a black bomber jacket.

But Cozy Glow had really gone to town for her outfit. She wore a pink blouse and a green skirt that had a pink underskirt. She had a bow in her hair, a scarf around her neck, and white shoes on her feet, sat on top of a pair of white socks.

The Doctor nodded. "You'll fit right in. Now then, You'll need to leave your phones on the TARDIS, as if allowed into this time they could cause problems with the timeline, resulting in the Blinovitch effect."

"What's the Blinovitch effect?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"I'll explain later," the Doctor replied. "Now then, shall we head outside?"

"If you don't mind me asking," Apple Bloom asked, "but why have ya brought us here?"

"That's a secret," the Doctor smiled. "I'll see you three again tomorrow, but until then, cheerio!"


With that, the three girls stepped out of the TARDIS and into the booking office of Norfolk Terminal Station, nobody noticing the giant blue police box behind them, which suddenly vanished.

"What a hon'!" said a teen sitting nearby, wolf whistling at Sweetie Belle. She just ignored him, and went over to the booking office with her friends to show the tickets they had been given to the guard.

"All is in order," the guard said, punching a hole in them. "Have a nice trip!"

The three girls headed for the platform, and the departure board told them theirs was Train 25, the Powhatan Arrow, pulling away in 25 minutes time. As they stood on the platform, they saw the train pull into the platform, whistle thundering as the engine pulled in. The machine on the head, resplendent in black, red, and gold, was J Class number 611. It rolled to a stop, and the three girls boarded, ready for their journey to start. There's was a high speed train trip, not only at great speed, but through time itself!