Chapter 4
Early in the Morning
Having an excuse to talk and hang out with Jazz was always welcome, and the two had ended up spending the rest of the day together, catching up on things and theorizing how their first day working as “extras” with this ‘Iron’ would go. Jazz had remained her usual hopeful and confident self, thinking Iron would come in equally optimistic; his previous worries quelled by Schlick and Portherd, ready to work. Pacesetter, on the other hoof, secretly wished Iron’s clear desire to not stay would be ultimately granted, and therefore they could skirt having to deal with the troubled pony altogether. After all, the first day of a new assignment usually came with its own troubles, why add more?
Even so, Pacesetter had come into work well rested and confident it was going to be a good day, regardless of the circumstances. She had even shown up early to get their orders for the day, the sun not even over the distant peaks as she made her way up into the “Call Room”. The little room, nestled in the corner of the roundhouse’s second story, is where crews usually meet to talk over how their day is going to go before going to handle their own duties. What normally doesn’t happen is ponies using it for sleeping quarters; yet as Pacesetter reached the top of the stairs, she was met with the sight of her would-be Engineer, softly snoring in a chair, head tilted back, with even a little drool spilling out onto his chest. She stopped, rather amused and considered waking him right then and there, but decided to settle on a quiet chuckle as she walked past. If this pony was desperate enough to sleep sitting up in one of the most uncomfortable chairs in existence, he deserved the next half hour or so before the rest of their crew arrived. She settled in on the soot stained couch a few steps away, deciding to kill time by going through the day’s paperwork, occasionally looking out the window at the quiet railyard. Other than the motions of Ponies through the dirty backlit windows of the shops, the only activity to be seen was a few birds chirping and chasing one another from the frosted rooftops of the rail cars sitting in the yard. In the distance could be heard the faint ringing of a trolley’s bell, likely their first of the day as the city slowly began to wake. Pacesetter quietly sat and took it all in, occasionally amusing herself by trying to time Iron’s snoring with the ticking of the clock that hung next to the stairs. After some time, the sudden thudding in the stairwell announced the arrival of someone coming up from the shops below. The clanking of a canteen hitting metal buttons made it obvious who it was.
“Good mornin’ Jazz!”, Pacesetter called out, deliberately a little loud in an attempt to quickly wake Iron before their Brakepony reached the top. Iron snapped awake with a jolt, eyes wide but unsure where to look, settling on Jazz as she entered the doorway.
“Hey! Uh-“, Jazz now stopped, her smile turning into a look of confusion as she stared back at Iron’s just as confused wide eyes. “…didn’t expect both of you to be here already. Have you been waiting long?”
“Oh no, you’re still somewhat early”, Pacesetter replied, taking Jazz’s gaze as Iron blinked rapidly and shook his head trying to wake up. “I was just going over our papers while ‘sleeping beauty’ here was catchin’ some rest. Ain’t that right?”, she joked as she kicked the chair closest to her, shoving it into Iron’s with a small thud.
Iron gave a big yawn and stretched, “How kind of you to let a pony get some sleep. Though as you can imagine it wasn’t the best...”
“Not the best?” Jazz said with a smirk as she went to sit near Pacesetter, “I could hear you from downstairs! I thought someone was moving chairs around up here with all that racket.”
“Yeah yeah…” Iron quietly said with a yawn, “Well, despite my thoughts about it, it seems we are stuck together after all. Not for my lack of trying…” he trailed off as he yawned again, Pacesetter and Jazz exchanging looks as he did so. “To make an overly long story short, no matter what I proposed, this is what both my boss and your boss think is best. That said, what’s our day look like Ms. Pacesetter?”, he finished looking expectantly at her.
“Uhhh, well…”, she began, looking over the order sheet sitting next to her. “I was gonna wait for whoever our Firepony is to arrive, but I guess I can tell y’all now.” She cleared her throat, “Startin’ off simple, we got a relatively easy trip on a joint low priority freight to Uniton. We’ve been paired with Conductor Daylight’s crew on train 128, so we’ll be doubled up with them until the top of the hill. Once there, we’ll take our cars up the new line to Bent Tree, tie ‘em down, and caboose hop back to Hermansa where there should be some boxcars we’ll bring all the way back here. Dependin’ on “Time and Performance”, we’ll get new orders then. Questions?”
Iron’s eyes narrowed in slight confusion, “Aside from not knowing where any of this is, you consider doubling trains as simple? I expected more of a point to point run with no stops, but I’m all for a challenge I guess.”
Pacesetter lifted the papers and pointed to the area of writing she had quoted from, “Mr. Fellowers himself wrote it out in the notes. He thinks it will be a good chance to not only test the engine, but allow you to learn the line without havin’ to assign a pilot engineer to ride with us. When there ain’t another engine, he specifically wants me in the cab after Uniton, so I can tell y’all where everythin’ is.”
Iron had begun to mutter something of the blind leading the blind when they were interrupted by the sound of yet more hoofsteps clodding up the stairs. He and the other two looked over to see a tan colored pony coming up, eyes barely open from exhaustion. His face seemed a little damp, likely from a hurried wash in the sink downstairs, though he had missed some soot and oil marks that were as dark black as his mane and tail. He seemed to glare at Iron for a moment as he reached the top of the stairs, but quickly looked to Pacesetter and Jazz.
“Morning everyone”, he said with a yawn. “Sorry if I’m late, I must've gotten the wrong time…”
“Sander?”, Jazz asked with a cough, nearly choking on the danish she was now nibbling on from her bag. “Are they making you fire for us after your overnight shop shift??”
“Well…that’s what I was told.”, he said as he sat between Iron and Pacesetter. He looked to the latter and saw the concerned look she was giving him. “Oh, heh, don’t worry. I’ve only been on the clock since just before dawn, I just haven’t had my coffee yet. I was expecting to do my regular switching duties after my quick morning downstairs, but when old Minturn…requested to get me out of the yard for once, well…you know I couldn’t say no.”
Pacesetter sighed, “Well, I’m glad to hear y’all ain’t firing again after another all nighter in the shops. Don’t need you fallin’ asleep coming downhill or anything. Like I was just tellin’ everypony else-.” She paused as she motioned behind him, “Oh! Sander, in case y’all haven’t met, this here is Iron Horse, he-“
“-is the one who got left behind with us…”, Sander jeered as he half turned towards Iron. “Yeah, we’ve already met.”
The room became awkwardly quiet with this sudden outburst. After what felt like minutes of exchanging looks between them, Iron moved first. “Well-”, he said with a sigh as he stood up from his chair, “...I already know what the plan is.” He looked past Sander to a somewhat concerned Pacesetter, “I’ll fill him in on the engine. See you trackside?”
Pacesetter blinked a few times trying to form a response. “Uhhh…sure. Sounds…good?”
Seemingly satisfied, Iron quickly headed for the stairs, Sander begrudgingly getting up to follow. As the latter reached the stairs, he turned back and saw the now fully confused and concerned look on the other two’s faces. He gave a little snort, rolled his eyes and said in a low voice, “I’ll tell you later”. With that, he quickly joined Iron at the bottom of the stairs.
The two mares left in the room didn’t quite know what to make of what had just happened. Sure Sander was usually quick to upset, but Iron’s seeming indifference to it all seemed near baffling to them. Jazz tried to make a quick joke about how maybe Sander was upset that Iron had taken “his'' chair in the call room, but otherwise she was stumped as to why the two of them already hated each other. With some hesitation, Pacesetter decided to let it go and see how things played out. After all, they still seemed willing to work together; and the last thing she wanted on her first real day as Conductor was to annul her train due to her engine crew coming to blows. To her, there was a good chance this was some minor early morning spat between two bull headed ponies, and she didn’t want to make it worse if she didn’t have to.
With that set aside for now, the two grabbed their things and headed downstairs into the suddenly deafening pounding of the roundhouse floor below. At the bottom of the steps it became apparent why, as the locomotive nearest to them was busy being the target of some shop pony’s latest aggression; or at least it’s how it looked, as they were busy hammering away at some unseen part. Pacesetter and Jazz headed down the walkway towards the locker rooms, grabbed their things, and headed out the side door into the rail yard.
“So which one is our’s ‘Set?”, Jazz asked as the pair headed towards the diverse collection of cabooses next to the carshop. At one time, each and every Conductor, no matter how new, had their own individual caboose assigned to them and only them, similar to how engineers had their own engines. Everything from paint color to design elements were up for personalization, so long as it didn’t impact the performance of the car. This of course resulted in no two looking alike, but over time had turned into a nightmare for the railroad for one big reason. If the car wasn’t ready to work, neither would the crew. In the early days when traffic was light, it wasn’t that big of a deal, but as the number of trains increased and schedules got tighter, the problem only became worse and worse. Years prior, Manehatten had been the first to change, implementing a Caboose “Pool” instead of dedicated cars to crews. Now a crew would simply be assigned whatever car was first available at train time, thus reducing crew down time. All the existing cabooses were standardized with a coat of bright red paint, and newer cars of standard design were ordered. Vanhoover, true to form, had only just implemented a small caboose pool of their own. For now, they were content to leave their existing cabooses untouched with their respective senior conductors, but everyone newer got assigned to the ‘Pool’. Despite the intention, this small collection was far from the standardized ideals of back east. Case in point was the recently arrived #0300, so recently in fact it hadn’t even spent its first winter on Equestria’s western slopes! With its heavy iron under frame and purpose built wheelsets, some claimed it rode better than the finest parlor cars, though this of course had yet to have been officially proven.
On the other end of the pool spectrum was the little ‘059’, practically hidden from view behind the looming ‘0300’ it sat coupled up to. To call this car a shack on wheels would be almost giving it too much credit. It was battered, beaten, in desperate need of a complete overhaul, and rode so rough some crews swore they’d rather walk than work in it. It was so disliked in fact, that the ‘059’ had almost met its end recently, when it was spared an untimely plunge off the then open dockside swing bridge by a rookie Brakie jumping on and applying the brakes at the last moment. No one could quite figure out how the car had not only managed to get loose, but then proceed to roll up the long incline to the bridge to its near doom with no way of gaining momentum on the level track. Certainly the switch crew and their engine who were working nearby had nothing to do with it, or at least if they did, no one ever officially came forward. The Brakepony’s reward for her heroic action was a transfer away from her home and down to the hot sands of Las Pegasus. As luck would have it, this was the car assigned to Pacesetter and her crew.
She took the first step aboard, the springs groaning and the car actually tilting as she put her weight upon it. Jazz would’ve chuckled about her friend needing to lay off the pastries had she herself not still been in slight denial.
“How…how did we get this thing?”, Jazz finally asked as Pacesetter opened the rear door. “I thought it would still be in the shop for-“
“The broken brake riggin’?”, Pacesetter finished for her. “Yea, I thought so too, but-“ she gestured towards the bottom of the car, “-take a look for yourself.”
Jazz leaned down and peered at the underside. Sure enough, the freshly painted parts stood out among their battered surroundings. “…so if you knew why didn’t you say anything to me earlier??”, Jazz demanded.
“What, and miss this reaction?” Pacesetter chuckled back. “Honestly? I was hopin’ it was a typo and we could take somethin’ else, but, as you can see-“, she tapped a hoof on the caboose wall nearest her and a smattering of red paint flakes fell off, “-we get the joy of bein’ cozy and shaken to death today.”
Jazz gave a disgruntled huff and pulled herself aboard. Inside, while not as sooty and stained as the exterior, was still more than dirty enough to sneeze at. “You’d think if they were putting this back in service they would at least clean it first…”, she half mumbled as she tossed her work bag up into the cupola.
Pacesetter, as she set her own paperwork and bag down at the conductor’s desk said, “Look, I ain’t happy either, but it’s what we gotta use. Why don’t you go ahead to the engine lead and help Iron get that engine of his in position, alright? I’ll…try to clean up a little and get this set up before we leave town.” Jazz’s reply was a quick chuckle and a wish of good luck as she headed off to collect their engine. The last thing Jazz heard as she walked away was a clatter and a yelp of surprise, most likely from Pacesetter trying to wrangle a broom out of the onboard tool closet.