//------------------------------// // The Marvels of Modern Transportation // Story: Last Train to Stirrup Halt // by Packet //------------------------------// The next morning Celestia’s sun raised high and mighty in the equestrian skies, bathing everything its rays touched in pleasant warmth. The Princess herself was already in her throne room addressing matters of concern. Although she’d been informed of the attempted ambush that had taken place near Trottingham the previous night only a few hours ago, she’d already formed a plan in her head, and was now sat in her throne room, communicating with Moneybags in the bank at Trottingham, projecting an image of herself to him and vice versa with her magic. “Do you not see the panic this has caused amongst my employees” Moneybags blustered “Most of them are scared to walk back from work at night, for fear that somepony could ambush them in the streets” “Yes…I realise the predicament it places you in” Celestia almost rolled her eyes in a sarcastic manor, his complaining was starting to get on he nerves. “And just what do you intend to do about it?” “One of my best operatives is, at this very moment, on his way to my throne room” “Well just when on Equestria do you expect him to get there!” Moneybags blustered, waving his forehooves in the air in frustration. “I can assure you, he will be here just as fast as the marvels of modern transportation will allow” The train rocketed through the small country station, bellowing and snorting steam from its boiler. It tore down the middle express track in the three tracked station, smogging three young fillies who were watching it go through from the steel footbridge that joined the two station platforms. The sparkling clean carriages clattered after it rhythmically. Within a few brief seconds the whole spectacle was over, returning the idyllic country station to the state it was in before. Whooves stared out of the railway carriage window, watching the world roll by. Even though he was used to being summoned to Canterlot at a sudden notice due to the position he held, being woken up by a scroll hitting him over the head at five o’clock in the morning telling him to get the next three hour train service to Canterlot wasn’t exactly his idea of fun. Across from him sat Carrot Top, his personal assistant for his work. Initially Whooves had been totally against the idea of having an assistant assigned to him by the princess lodging in his house in Ponyville, but when he found out Carrot Top was a skilled gardener he felt more at ease with her, letting him have the free reign of his garden. Engrossed in the book she was reading, she still wasn’t able to hide the tiredness from her eyes. Being woken up early in the morning by Whooves to go to Canterlot wasn’t her idea of heaven either. “Interesting book, Carrot Top?” Whooves asked, reaching into his mane and pulling out a brass pocket watch. Carrot Top blinked rapidly, obviously coming out of trance. Raising a hoof to her mouth she yawned loudly, stretching her spine before she sank back into her seat “No, It’s awfully dull. It can’t seem to decide whether it’s a romantic, a thriller, a drama or a horror novel” Whooves chuckled at this, finishing winding up his pocket watch as he did so. Passing a signal post at the side of the line, Whooves took a quick glance at the second hand on the watch before looking back out of the window again. When they passed another signal post he looked back at his watch, before doing some rough calculations in his head. Every signal post on the standard gauge Equstrian railway system were placed roughly two miles apart from each other, bar the station approaches, to try and make all the sections an equal length with each other. So all he had to do was divide the distance of two miles by the timespan of two minutes and fifty one seconds. “By my calculations, we’re roughly running at just over Forty Two miles per hour. We’re making excellent progress” “We certainly are” Carrot Top had begun to dose in her seat with her eyes closed, not really paying to much attention to Whooves’ mathematics. “The mind boggles when you remember when the railways were first built ponies believed your head would implode from the G Forces if you went through a tunnel at a speed faster than twenty miles per hour” “Yes Whooves” “And nowadays speeds of forty and even fifty are commonplace” “As you say Whooves” Carrot Top yawned, her eyes still closed “The mind boggles” With a deep blast of its whistle, the train accelerated onwards to Canterlot, rushing into a tunnel in a cloud of steam like a fiery dragon. In her throne room Celestia had successfully calmed Moneybags down and explained her plan to him, ending their rather strenuous conversation on something of a high. Before her mighty throne now stood the grey form of Octavia, carefully holding a brown paper envelope that Celestia had given her as the princess explained her plan. Although Octavia also secretly worked for the royals, she had never really had the chance to take part in any large scale operations, instead she was mainly used as a distraction to enable the larger operations to take wing, such as the time she was ordered to take a pill given to her by Celestia outside the entrance to the Canterlot Castle Armoury, sending her into a deep sleep which caused all the guards to think she was dying, creating a long enough distraction for Whooves to sneak in and find a suspected traitor amongst the ranks, but not that Celestia told her she’d only been used as a distraction anyway. Octavia’s enthusiasm for working for the royals definitely shone through, but there were times when Celestia thought she could be a little to eager. “Now Octavia, I want you to take that envelope and go to the Canterlot Railway Station” Celestia explained. “And then?” Octavia asked, interrupting her without realising it. “And then deliver it to the manager’s office. He’ll be expecting it” “And then” Octavia was leaning slightly more forward, pressing for more information from her. “Then you go home, Octavia” Celestia ended bluntly. “Home?” Octavia felt a slight ping of sadness at having such a short and basic assignment. “But I need you here early tomorrow morning” Celestia continued, noticing Octavia was hardly able to contain a smile as she said it “I’ll need you here at seven o’clock, with a map from the Canterlot archives that shows in detail the area between here and Trottingham” “Yes Princess, I’ll do that” The heavy doors at the end of the throne room opened, emitting Whooves and Carrot Top into the room. “You may go now, Octavia” Celestia said. Octavia slipped the envelope into her saddlebag, gave a quick curtsey and trotted out of the throne room, casually smiling at Whooves and Carrot Top as she passed them. The heavy throne room doors closed behind her with a satisfying thud. Celestia let out a small sigh of relief after Octavia left the room, silently praying that Octavia never found out that she was simply delivering a notice of overdue taxes to the station manager. She composed herself once more as Whooves and Carrot Top walked towards her. “Ah, Whooves and Carrot Top. Please do come in. Feel free to help yourself to tea and cake” Celestia made a complete tea set on a small table and cake trolley magic into existence. Not one to miss an opportunity to drink copious amounts of tea and eat an equal amount of cake, Whooves almost darted straight for the tea set, nearly forgetting all his manners in the process, but after how groggy he was from being woken up early he’d already decided that this tea and cake would be his ‘victory prize’ for making it to Canterlot as quickly as he could. “I hate to spoil an all too infrequent visit with a sense of urgency” Celestia continued “But we must get down to the job in hand immediately” Whooves had just shoved an iced bun into his mouth, swallowing it whole and gulped down some of the tea currently in his cup. He’d just finished drinking it and was about to reach for another cake when a loud and suggestive cough from next to him diverted his attention to Carrot Top, who was now giving him the angry look of ‘Have you forgotten where in Equestria you are?’ as she poured a cup of tea in a much more respectable fashion for herself. Seeing this expression Whooves turned back to Celestia “Pray go on, Princess” He reached out for another cake, but got his hoof slapped by Carrot Top before he could even lay a hoof on the cream horn he had his eye on. “Well, last night, an unsuccessful attempt was made to hijack a shipment for the Royal Bank of Equestria” “What exactly were the contents of the shipment” Carrot Top asked, sipping her tea. “Two million bits worth of gold bullion, en route to Canterlot” Whooves pondered on this “Two million bits, that’s quite a veritable fortune” he neglected to say he was thinking of some of the pleasures he could indulge himself in if he had that kind of money. Celestia’s voice brought him out of his dream as she continued “The bullion is at present in a vault in Trottingham, but we must ship it to Canterlot tomorrow” “By cart?” asked Carrot Top inquisitively. “No, by train – non stop express. And as I feel certain that the hijackers will try again, I’d like you, Doctor Whooves, to be on that train” Whooves was about to chomp into a fairy cake, but stopped himself when it suddenly struck him that Celestia was looking at him. “Erm…what about me?” Carrot Top asked, resting her cup down on the small table in front of her. “As for you, dear Carrot Top, you’ll be in your case” she smiled a knowing smile, obviously showing that she already had a cunning plan thought out. Carrot Top’s brow suddenly dropped, showing her disapproval at what she was certain the princess had planned. Out in the open Equestrian countryside was the tiny hamlet of Stirrup. Set amongst the ever changing gradient of the rolling hills it was once a thriving industrial community, but now was just home to the odd few cottages, one of which was converted from the old railway station. The station itself had closed ten years previously due to declining exports from the hamlet, as families from the area began to move out of the country into the towns, and in doing so took their personal trades with them. The final nail in the coffin for the station being used by the public was when the National Equestrian Railway Company released their yearly report, indicating that the branch that Stirrup Halt station was on had been running at a loss for several years. The main problem was that the company itself was also in financial difficulty so the station; the railway lines were simply never used again and left to become overgrown with tall grass and the buildings to crumble away. In this time of decay though, the station found itself serving a new purpose. No sooner had the Railway Company boarded up the windows of the station and left when one of the locals who used to drive engines on the line seized his chance. His name was Porter, and dissatisfied with the amount of space in his tiny cottage he broke through the padlock locking the station’s waiting room doors and moved all his furniture into the building under the cover of darkness, setting up his new home. No one dared challenge him about this due to how much of a reputation he’d gained for being rather crabby and uptight, and the railway company couldn’t care less about the stations fate just as long as they had nothing to do with it, so there he lived. It was a rather peaceful night at Stirrup station. The hanging baskets that had been put up from the crossbeams underneath the station canopy swayed gently in the breeze, as did the tall grass that had grown up in between the rails and ballast of the line. Porter was sat in his battered high backed leather armchair in the old waiting room as he did almost every night, reading the day’s edition of the ‘Equestria Daily’ newspaper. “Equestria today!” he grumbled to himself as he read an article about a cream earth ponies’ thoughts on living with a mint green unicorn with an obsession for her imaginary creatures called ‘humans’ “What’s it coming to!” His thoughts were interrupted as quite clearly he heard the sound of the rickety wooden gate that led on to the station platform outside slam shut. He let out a heavy sigh “Now who could that be at this time of night?” Outside three ponies walked onto the platform. Two earth ponies, one a pale blue mare with flowing brown mane and the other a yellow stallion with shorter ochre hair, and a cream coloured Pegasi stallion with a very untidy crop of golden hair. All three were wearing outfits that gave them a sense of grandeur and authority, the stallions choosing suits whilst the mare chose a rather formal business dress. The yellow stallion turned to the others as they stood outside the waiting room door “Just leave the talking to me. And for Celestia’s sake Cutler, make your hair look presentable, we’re supposed to be in authority, remember?” Cutler, the Pegasi, quickly began to try and style the front of his mane into a comb over with his forehooves as the yellow Stallion raised a hoof and knocked on the door. “Who is it?” Porter called from his armchair, refusing to move. When no reply came he turned his attention back to his newspaper, searching for another aspect of modern Equestria to moan about. No sooner had he found an article when the sound of knocking on the door came once more. Realising the visitors weren’t going to go away he threw down his paper at the side of his chair and headed for the door. “Alright, alright. I’m coming!” Outside, all three ponies could see Porter approaching the door through the two think frosted glass panels that had been very amateurishly added to it. “Who is it?” he called out again, sounding more grouchy than usual. “My names Fenman” the yellow stallion called back through the door “I’m from the railways board. Open up!” With a heavy clunk Porter slid back the heavy bolt that locked the door, opening it up to come face to face with the three visitors. “Clumsy Porter?” Fenman asked. “That’s right” Porter replied, still weary of the ponies on his doorstep. Fenman exchanged a quick smile with the others at having found the right pony, then turned back to Porter “I am authorised to inform you this station is to be re-opened” If Porter’s jaw had been capable of it, it would have dropped so far it would’ve hit the floor. Fenman continued “The first train will arrive here at 0900 hours tomorrow morning”