The firepony of the City of Ponyville crossed to the right side of the cab and looked down on the station platform. He was a grizzled pony of about thirty years old with white fur, a blue tail, and a scar on her cheek. His eyes were a piercing blue, but Spark sensed an inner kindness to him. His cutie mark was a shield with a purple star in the center and three stars arranged in a pyramid above it. In his beret he wore the badge of a regiment in the Royal Guards. He looked at Spark, who had the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineer's badge in his beret, and at his uniform, which was wet and smeared with grime.
In that moment when their eyes met, Spark correctly guessed that this was the real leader, and that Will o' the Whistle, the engineer's nickname, was a useful code sign.
"Come on up and ride the locomotive," he said. "I'm Shining Armor, and I've been expecting you ever since you came through the Big Hole. By Big Hole, he meant the Horseshoe Tunnel.
Spark climbed up into the cab and exchanged a handshake with Shining. He guessed that his guide through the tunnel, an engineer named Hooves, had flashed the news of his journey ahead. A great deal was going on behind the backs of the Griffon invaders.
Big Macintosh and Wrench climbed into the passenger car, and the conductor, a tall pony with broad shoulders, raised his arms in the signal that everypony as aboard.
Shining, who had observed Spark's amazement, pointed down the line to a rusty semaphore that was down.
"If there were Griffons around, the signal would be at danger," he said. "There's no risk of a wreck because this is the only train running, but we use the signals as a warning if there are Griffons nearby."
Regulator Trotterson, a wrinkled engineer with more than thirty years experience, pulled the cord that blew the whistle.
Spark jumped. "Surely that's dangerous! You're going to draw attention to yourselves!"
"The first time a Griffon battalion heard the whistle through the fog, they broke in panic," Shining chuckled grimly. "Apparently, it reminds them of the "Demon Owl" that haunts their sacred mountain at home. Later, we heard that when the battalion was recalled to Herdiff, General Fang, their leader, gave them permission to commit suicide, while the non-commissioned officers and the men were marched into Hardiff Arms Park and put to death."
Spark could believe this tale, because the Griffon society was one of ruthlessness, to themselves as well as the societies that they enslaved.
But for the moment, he became engrossed in watching Trotterson. Spark knew a great deal about electronics, but nothing about steam. It belonged in the past.
Armor also appeared to notice, because Trotterson was lecturing him gruffly on what he was doing.
"We've been standing on the grade, so I take the brake off, see?" he said gruffly, as he moved a small handle. A hiss of air accompanied this action. "Now, I'm going to move the Johnson bar into the forward notch, to set the valves in the piston to route the steam for forward motion. Think of it as shifting gears on a car." He moved a lever that was sticking up from the floor. "Now, I'm opening the throttle, which allows steam into the cylinders." As he said this, he moved a long, horizontal lever set high in the boiler, and, with a soft chuff from the stack, the locomotive started to move. "You can be starting the injector as I showed you before."
"What does the injector do?" Spark inquired.
"It feeds water into the boiler," Trotterson answered. "See that glass? That's the water gauge. That shows how much water is in the boiler."
The train moved slowly along a mist filled cut. As Spark stared ahead into the haze, his feeling of surprise at finding any railroad still running, let alone a steam railroad, did not lessen.
Shining opened the firebox door, and, as the blast of heat hit his face, he moved back a step. He watched as Shining dug a shovel into the coal and stoked the fire. "Hot work!" he exclaimed when Armor closed the firebox. Shining nodded.
Trotterson let out a laugh. "You young 'uns don't know what hard work is!" he scoffed. "When I was a firepony working on the South Whales Expresses, I'd shovel three tons of coal into the firebox between Herdiff and Canterlot and think nothing of it, my goodness, no!"
Spark turned to Shining. "Can I ask where you're going?" he inquired.
Shining nodded and stood close to him as the engine jolted along. He explained that, as punishment for some small breach of the regulations, General Fang had ordered that the ponies of Abermare should receive no rations for two weeks.
"There are large food and munition dumps hidden in the hills, Spark," Shining went on. "And our railroad runs close to them. We have filled two forty foot boxcars with food for Abermare, and if things run smoothly, it will be smuggled into town."
Another signal loomed out of the mist. "Good, the line ahead is clear of Griffons!" Trotterson exclaimed. "Now we can make a run at the hill. The exhaust changed from a slow, steady beat to a harsh bark as he pushed the Johnson Bar forward and opened the throttle wider.
There were many steep grades on the WJR, and were typical of the railroad lines that were built across the mountains. The grade City of Ponyville was tackling was three miles long and full of steep climbs and tight curves. When coal drags of twenty hoppers filled with fifty five tons of coal used the line, it was not uncommon for three locomotives to be needed, with one in front, one in the middle of the train, and one pushing behind the caboose.
On one side of the tracks, a cliff soared into the mist. On the other, there was a sheer drop to the valley floor, two hundred feet below. On clear days, one could see the rusty carcasses of ancient locomotives and cars strewn about the valley floor.
"We seem to be making an awful noise," Spark noted after Shining had fed the locomotive more coal.
"You'd be surprised at how well the hill muffle it," Shining stated. "and it's a risk we have to take. We can't use the roads because they are watched and patrolled regularly. Our only way of moving things in bulk is the railroad, which the Griffon's think is abandoned."
The train entered a tunnel, and soon the cab was filled with choking clouds of smoke and steam. Trotterson didn't seem to be affected, but Spark and Shining had red eyes and were coughing when the train exited the tunnel.
To give Shining a break, because he continued to cough in an alarming manner, Spark opened the firebox doors and shoved the scoop under the coal. As he turned to deposit the load of coal in the firebox, the cab lurched and threw him off balance. The coal scoop hit the corner of the opening, and the coal scattered all over the cab floor. As he swept the coal into the fire, Trotterson chuckled.
"You were standing flat-footed," he said through the din. "You have to balance yourself of the balls of your feet." Spark nodded and tried again, this time doing as advised. He found that not only was he able to keep his balance, but that he was able to control the swing of the shovel. Trotterson nodded his approval. "We'll make a railroader out of you in no time!"
A few minutes later, the train passed through a shorter tunnel that marked the summit. Trotterson closed the throttle and stopped the train in a cut.
Spark recieved a tap on the shoulder from Shining. "This is where we have to close a gap in the bridge before we can get across," the stallion explained.