Chapter 4
I was the first firestallion to qualify on the new line to Baltimare.
It was something to see, that new line. It was free of most of the tight curves and heavy grades of the Old Main. The line cut through the land, showing off the power of the Baltimare & Ohayo Railroad Company with every freshly hewn tunnel, deep rock cut, and sweeping stretch of straight track.
I wasn’t too fond of it.
Oh, it was certainly an easier bit of railroad to fire an engine over—that was true enough. “What do you think of your new railroad, colt?” Crosshead asked me. I took a moment to ponder my words as we arrived in the station in Baltimare, Coltden Terminal. I looked out behind us, watching the string of passenger cars ease into the station. It was the first time I had run The Alydar down the new line, if I recall correctly.
“I suppose it’s mighty fine,” I said, noting the presence of company officials nearby. The proper ponies all looked quite happy with themselves. In truth, it was a real achievement, something for everypony to be proud of. But, to me at least, it seemed sterile. It cut across the land as though it was trying to beat it into submission. The Old Main flowed with the land, streams, and rivers that it followed; the new Baltimare District seemed to be angry at the very idea.
To me, it was just something to get used to.
To me, it was proof that Highball was gone.
Oh, he was still on the property. He had been given a desk job in the office, a place where he could still wind down the days until he knew that he had to retire…
…a place where he could be safe if another of the seizures struck him.
“Seems he wanted to get away from engines and trains and the whole like,” Fusee told me as we marked off after another long day. “I wonder why he did that?”
My head swung towards the back shop.
“I have a feeling that I know why,” I answered, nodding towards the side of the austere building.
Number 3803 had caused more problems for herself. Even being assigned to maintenance-of-way trains hadn’t been degrading enough for such a troublesome engine. Now she sat beside the back shop, a grimy pipe reaching out from her cylinders to the interior of the building. She could still hold a fire and make steam, and as such her boiler was put to work powering the machinery inside the shops, keeping other locomotives running even as the life dripped out of her. Once a day, the rusted wreck would be trusted to go only as far as the coal dock and watering tower. There she would take her rations before being returned to her new place of dishonor.
It was a death sentence. No more repairs or work would be done to the engine, and she’d serve as such until she failed once more. Once that happened, all that remained for the locomotive was a date with the scrapper’s torch.
“Damn it all,” Fusee said as he looked back at the sad sight. He swung his head from side to side, and his ears went down as though he’d been told that a loved one was dying. “Damn it all,” he repeated.
I’d used much more colorful language.
It had been the intention of the Baltimare & Ohayo Railroad Company management, in their divine infallibility, to scrap the Old Main and get some of their bits back in selling off the steel. The communities on the line had other ideas. They were already upset that the Baltimare District had bypassed most of the tiny villages in favor of the larger communities, but the idea of losing rail service altogether had set them foaming at the mouth.
Letters flooded the offices of the Ministers of Parliament, and the fate of the line became a matter of public discourse. The management of the railroad was caught with their stalls open—they simply didn’t know what to do. They gave us form letters to sign stating that we’d like to see the Old Main ripped up. But in a spate of job protection, any pony that had a union card made sure that these all ended up adding to the fires of our engines. I spent an entire run scooping one shovelful of coal and another of the damn letters.
In the end, the B&O agreed to leave the rails in place to serve what few industries and stations remained, but the line was downgraded. All that spring, weeds poked up through the ballast of what had once been the greatest achievement of Equestrian railroading. A smattering of local freights and bobbing, swaying local passenger trains now plodded up and down rails that had once held the great passenger limiteds and express trains of all descriptions and types.
This was the scene that met me as I began my sixth year in the employ of the Baltimare & Ohayo, which was my third as a firestallion. I was still bright in my mark—the song of the steel still spoke to me every time I danced the deck of an engine.
As much as I enjoyed my work, a cloud hung over everything that I did. I couldn’t get the image of what had occurred to Highball out of my head. Our marks… they make us who we are. The Seal of the Sister Sovereigns sits upon every pony, promising them that they have a purpose—that they are needed, wanted.
But I wondered, what about Highball? What about any pony who was too old or too sick to fulfill their mark?
“That’s something above what needs to be pondered, colt,” Crosshead told me one day. “It’s the sort of thing that we don’t need to worry about today.”
I, however, had always been the pondering sort, and as that first spring after the opening of the Baltimare District came and went, that question lingered in my mind.
Equus, though, kept right on spinning. Celestia moved the sun a little earlier each day, bringing summer into Equestria. But Equestria, it seemed, had better things to worry about than some colt shoveling coal on the Canterlot Division.
Better things to worry about indeed…
I remember waking up to the sound of somepony frantically pounding on my door.
I tumbled out of bed, my legs waving through the air, and fought my way through my few small rooms. My head swam, a fog of tiredness sat inside my mind as I went to answer the door. The pounding continued, and my imagination began to grant me images of doing unmentionable things with my coal scoop to whatever crew caller was at my home at this Celestia-damned hour.
The second I opened the door, the humid air of a summer’s night came pouring in. The look on the face of the crew caller stole out every trace of wrath in mine.
“We’re calling every railway pony in,” he blurted out, not waiting for me to speak. “Every railway pony has to get to the yard right now. Get your denims on, and get there as quick as you can.”
He was already trotting back down the sidewalk before his words settled into my drowsy mind.
“W-what’s going on?!” I called out.
The crew caller spun about, trotting backwards a few steps as he tried to answer me and keep on with his task. I can still see the shock and worry in his face as he took a few sharp breaths.
“We’re at war,” he said. “Equestria’s at war.”
He then turned around and pelted off down the street towards the next home of a railway pony. In mere moments, I was wearing the old, sweaty denims I had worn the day before, and was galloping down the cobblestone streets towards the railyard. I remember the stink of my breath hanging around me, and the first rays of my sovereign’s sun beginning to paint the summer sky in hues of pink and orange, signalling the start of a day of confusion and fear.
I turned down Sutler Street. I looked up and down the mainline, panting, careful even in my excitement not to get splattered at the crossing. I missed a step as I realized that every block indication as far as I could see in either direction was red, and trains filled the passing sidings and sat on the main.
Above me, the switchstallion in SBG tower ran his hoof through his mane, looking hard pressed and excited in the first rays of the dawning day. As I turned towards the roundhouse, I caught sight of something that I will never forget.
The early morning sun glinted off of armor, and every available space that wasn’t filled with railcars was filled with soldiers. My jaw came open. Archers, pikeponies, heavy infantry, light infantry, pegasus scouts… every type of soldier I’d ever read about sat in small groups or in line formation. Worried railway ponies shouldered their way through, racing to get to the trains that sat idling in the yard.
“Damnation, colt, ain’t it somethin’?”
I felt Bullpen pull at me, and in a moment we were standing off to the side, just beside the open bays of the roundhouse.
“W-what’s going on?” I asked again, repeating the same question I had asked of the crew caller.
“There’s a fleet moving against Baltimare,” answered a pony to my side. I looked up to see a large stallion in the full, grey steel of the regular army looking down at me. “Reports are that they fired on one of our airships.”
“Damnation,” I said. “Is that a fact?”
“Best as we know, yes. Now if you railway ponies can get yourself in order, we’d very much like to get to Baltimare,” he said, painting dire need into the words.
“We are working on that presently,” Bullpen answered. Together we shoved our way through the crowd as a sense of worry and unease grew.
Together we looked out over the yard from atop the roof of the roundhouse. It was filled with trains and ponies. There were engine classes that I hadn’t seen often in Saddleburg, even 4-4-0’s that only seemed to serve out west.
Amid them moved the soldiers of the Aspen Corps of the Tan Army Group. Some fifty thousand ponies jostled their armor and arranged their weapons as they tried to find their way into passenger cars, boxcars, refrigerated cars, gondolas, and even fell haphazardly into open-top hopper cars.
And there they sat. There simply weren’t enough engines to deal with it all.
I lifted my head towards the mainline, looking towards SDG tower, the spot where the Baltimare District left the yard. As soon as the block turned yellow, another series of whistle blasts erupted into the dawning sky and another engine would heave and strain to get a troop train underway.
It wasn’t enough.
Bullpen and I looked at one another, and then made our way cautiously back down to the ground.
“Where ya from, soldier?” I asked one of the armored ponies.
“Vanhoover,” answered a very distracted young stallion. I had been about to question him some more when Bullpen pulled me aside. A group of official looking ponies swept past us, and with one look between us, we followed behind, hoping to hear something that could lend light to the situation.
In a mere moment, I realized whom we were following. The mare was Dividend, the president of the Baltimare & Ohayo. The stallion was Fancypants, the Vice Chancellor of the Royal Parliament. Even though they could not see me, I doffed my striped cap in respect.
“I can only consider this a massive failing on the part of the Baltimare & Ohayo, Miss Dividend,” the parliamentarian answered. “Why did your company not take the offer of the government to build a second mainline track when the rail line was being constructed?”
“It is not the policy of the Baltimare & Ohayo to build for momentary emergencies, Vice Chancellor,” she replied, stopping to sign some papers that were thrown into her hooves and bark orders at the division superintendent—a rotund fellow that I never particularly liked. “Especially,” she added, “when we were not provided tax breaks to do so.”
“Ah, I see. So a body count is required instead,” Fancypants answered, venom dripping in his words. “This is what your railroad looks like at capacity? If only you had kept the older route in service, we could use that one as well.”
“The rails are in place,” Dividend answered with a sigh, smiling at soldiers and railway ponies alike as they pushed through the crowd. “After more than six months of being inactive, the Old Main to Baltimare could have any sort of problem. Celestia alone knows who could guess what condition it is in.”
In the corner of my eye, I noticed a ghost, one who slipped away from the assembly of ponies and into the dawning light of the day beyond.
I went into the yard office to find File Cabinet. Army officers had taken over his desk, and the stallion worked at his crew board while pikes, lances, and halberds of all shapes and types of unfriendly disposition hovered around him.
“I’ve got every pony on the railroad hovering around here, colt,” he said, looking at me over the top of his glasses, “but what I don’t have is space of the Baltimare District mainline, if the tower has anything to say about it. The telegraph wires are red-hot with dispatcher reports. The trains are stacked on top of one another.”
It was sobering news. Even at full capacity, and using freight cars of all types in place of passenger cars, there were still thousands of troops sitting in the yard awaiting transport to the city of Baltimare to meet whatever threat the ships represented.
I wandered back out into the yard. By some odd quirk of fate, I found myself not only among more soldiers, but also among Vice Chancellor Fancypants, railroad president Dividend, and their retinue once again.
“Is there no hope of using the older line to Baltimare?” Fancypants asked again, concern, worry, and exhaustion hanging in his tone.
“I can not guarantee the safety of the Old Main, Vice Chancellor,” she answered in a withdrawn sigh. “I would risk it if I knew of some way to know for sure if it was passable.”
I hung my head.
There had once been an engineer who knew that line like the back of his hooves. There had once been an engine that had plied her way up and down that line with a sure-hoofed grace. The three of them had been a perfect trinity, each one as comfortable with each other as a leg and a familiar, old denim jacket.
Now, when it seemed that they were needed the most, the trinity lay broken and defeated. My ears fell forward as I remembered those days on the Old Main. Something inside of me cried out for them once more.
It was as though I could see him in that engineer’s seat, the seat of his engine, with the Old Main opening up before him. His hoof sat on the throttle, and the three shared their secrets once more. It was as though I could hear her whistle once again.
My ears shot up.
I could hear her whistle… I could hear #3803.
My eyes panned down the yard tracks past the roundhouse. There, amid a parting sea of soldiers, came a ghost—an apparition from within the shafts of the dawning sun.
She appeared around the outside wall of the roundhouse, a cloud of steam emerging from her cylinders. She wobbled along the old, uneven rails of the yard lead, looking for the entire world like she was shaking off all of the rust and wear of her year of inequity.
“It can’t be,” said a familiar voice. I looked around to find Fusee at my side. “It just can’t be.”
I looked back up, afraid to even whisper the insane hope that was growing in my throat, forming a pool of acid in my guts. Down at the roundhouse, I could see Bullpen. His eyes went wide, but in an instant he gave a great big “Whoopee!” and spun around, kicking like a wild horse.
“It just can’t be,” Fusee whispered once again, his words catching in the ears of the politician and the executive nearby.
“Gentlecolts?” President Dividend asked, following our gaze down the length of the yard, joining us as we watched a familiar headlight grow nearer. “What on Equus is going on?”
“Ghosts, ma’am,” I answered. “Two of them.”
Number 3803 rolled to a stop just in front of the assembly. I winced, and then lifted my head up to face the cab, hoping and praying all the while that it could be true.
I opened my eyes. Highball smiled back down at me.
“Ma’am?” the old stallion said, more life in his voice than I’d heard from him since the accident. “I’ve been denied my mark, you see; I’m not supposed to run trains anymore. But, ma’am, you’ve got nopony on your railroad who knows the Old Main better, and you’ve got the best brakepony and firestallion standing there beside you. If there was ever a time to bend the rules a touch, I would say that it is now.”
Dividend stood there, staring at the stallion with the greyed mane and beard. She looked along the length of the rusted old engine that still held the lines of a fine racer. She looked back behind her and ran her eyes over Fusee and myself.
“How well does he know the Old Main?” she asked, looking us each in the eyes.
“He wrote the book on it, ma’am,” answered Fusee.
“They were made for each other, ma’am, the Old Main, the engine, and that stallion,” I said, painting certainty into my tones.
There was a slight pause, and then the words “very well” left her lips.
“Thank you kindly, ma’am,” Highball said. “Come along then, colt. I can’t keep this fire up myself.”
I handed him my coal scoop, and with that I lifted myself into the familiar confines of the cab of TW3a #3803. I removed my hat and bowed to the backhead as I did, greeting the lady once more.
Fusee lined the switches and we headed out into the yard, and three blasts of #3803’s whistle told all around that she had called for orders. She heaved and sighed a little more than I liked; it was clear that her time since the wreck had not been kind to her. Still, there seemed to be a special magic at work, and she held her fire like a mare as we waited for the signals.
I smiled to myself, imagining the faces of the dispatcher in SDB tower as he looked towards the ready track and saw 3803 simmering there. He must have almost dropped his binoculars, and seeing Highball at the throttle once again, I imagine his jaw dropped.
Soon we were lined up for a yard track. Highball leaned far out the window as we backed down to the waiting train. I gulped slightly as I saw what type of cars our train was made of. It was a line of white reefer cars, the exact same type as we had shattered in the wreck.
I looked to Highball, but I saw only the faintest hint of remembrance go across his face. It didn’t last long, and as we coupled to the train, it was as smooth as any I had remembered him making with any of the fast passenger limiteds we had hauled in his better days.
“You alright, colt?” Highball asked as he lifted his pocket watch out of his denim jacket. His tie and vest sat underneath. They looked almost too large for him now. His body had shriveled over the long year since the wreck. Still, he was smiling, and as the sunlight streamed through the cab he looked… happy.
“Yessir,” I answered as I wiped the back of my hoof across my eyes. “Yessir.”
The conductor was Brains, the one I had worked with back when I had earned my first demerits. The look in his eyes when he realized who was in the cab could have earned me a million bits in a photo contest. The two exchanged happy greetings, and then set about the work of professional railway ponies.
There was always time for polite considerations later.
There was always later.
Fusee finished hooking up the brake line. With our air check complete, he took his spot on the coal load, his lantern at his side. I worked the fire up. It was harder than I had remembered #3803’s fire to be, and the engine coughed and sputtered when I injected water.
There was definitely something wrong, something broken down deep, but at that moment I would not have had any other engine in the world. I would not have been with any other engineer.
The stub signal at the end of the yard lead switched from red to green, and the ancient semaphore signal that guarded the entrance to the Old Main swung up high, allowing us to return to its forgotten pathways.
Highball reached for the whistle and gave it a pull. Her tone sounded out over the yard as Highball set his hoof on the throttle and pulled it back gently.
Our hearts went into our throats as her drivers slipped, making the engine cab rock back and forth.
We stared at Highball as he closed his eyes. The engine was lesser now, and had not been serviced as it had when it had been his fine lady. The slip wasn’t his fault, but in that fine tradition of all the great engineers, he did not blame his tool.
“Darlin’?” he said. “It’s me. I’m terribly sorry about what happened. I’m powerful sorry. If you’ll have me back, I promise to be good to you once more. Do you forgive me?”
Highball ran his hoof up and down the throttle bar, and his other hoof found the power reverser. There was a little sand, a little steam, and with that, #3803 took the load of the train, and we began to depart the yard.
He gave me a nod and a wink. “Just got to treat her like a mare, is all.”
A cheer went up from the troops in the reefer cars behind us as the slack came in and the train began to move. Soon troops in the rail yard joined in as well, if only as a way to release some of their jangled nerves. Highball leaned out the window again, and as he saw Brains wave his lantern, he knew what it meant…
… it was the highball: the motion that had given him his name. ‘Make all possible speed,’ it said, and he answered it in full.
We were already making more steam as we passed SDG tower at the north end of the yard, and the dispatcher and towerpony both waved to Highball. He answered as I looked back behind the train. In the yard, other trains were being lined for the Old Main as well.
We were the pilot. They would match our speed. We were the litmus test—the canaries in the coalmine.
I looked at Highball. He looked like a million bits.
The Old Main was pockmarked with venturesome weeds, and the shoulder of ballast had come off in a number of places. In the morning sun, we could see paint already starting to peel off of the stations that we roared past; crossing shanties sat quiet with nopony to come out and guard the roads from our thundering presence.
The line had been downgraded, that was for certain, but the trinity had been restored. Highball kept his eyes ahead, and that same sense of amazement that I had felt when I used to watch him ply these rails settled into a warm spot in my recollections.
“How is she steaming, colt?” I heard him ask from across the cab.
I didn’t want to lie to him, but the truth was that 3803 was working harder than I ever imagined she would. Still, she was alive. She was doing what she had been designed to do.
“Just fine, sir,” I said with a nod. “Just fine.”
There was steam coming from places where it should’t be, and the pitting and rusting of her gear showed itself clearly. Still, right now, the engine was working, and there would be time to take care of those things later.
There was always later.
The day had bloomed around us as we raced north. The sun was fully in the sky now, and as we approached the little villages like Steeplechase, more and more ponies were gathering at trackside.
It was only afterward that I learned that they had not just come to support the soldiers. The wires overhead were buzzing with the news of the grand old engineer’s return, and ponies came down to see Highball and #3803 as we whipped along. Station agents emerged at each of the villages, waving us on. Some of them even took the time to hoop up order forms that were filled with glad tidings.
Still, there was a deathly seriousness to what was transpiring. These soldiers were racing forward to face a threat to Equestria—to meet an unknown foe. I looked out of my window on a curve, holding my striped hat against my head with my hoof. There I saw the soldiers leaning as far out of the reefer’s door as they dared, each one searching the horizon for some hint of the threat that awaited them. A grim look hovered in each of their faces, uncertainty and doubt hanging in their expressions. I returned to my work, shovelling that much faster.
The scope of the undertaking made itself clear as we reached Harpist Ferry. There, in a narrow stretch of the river, I could see trains behind us on the Old Main as close as the block signals would allow. My eyes panned the river below us and my jaw fell open.
The new line, the Baltimare District, was also alive with trains. Their headlights probed the valley floor where the sun had not yet reached. Across the river, our rival, the Western Mareland Railway, also was doing its part. Its main was covered in a blanket of steam and soot. An entire Equestrian Army Group was on the move, and the railroads were answering the call.
The railway ponies were at work, and we raced forward, fighting against time itself.
I only ever winced when we approached tunnels. I knew that if the line had suffered from deferred maintenance, then boulders and rock falls inside the tunnels was where we’d catch it.
The ghost of Moonville Tunnel seemed to be on our side that day, and as we came through that tunnel we had no problems.
That was, of course, until Highball hit the air brakes hard.
The train slid along the rails, and a spray of sparks erupted from where the wheels and the rails suddenly found themselves in disagreement. I bounced against the backhead, and the handle of my coal scoop speared me in my chest, driving the breath out of me.
When I was able to pull myself together, I looked out the window. The train had slowed, but it had not stopped. Behind me, I could hear the snap-hiss of Fusee lighting one of the devices that shared his name. The bright purple-red light of it filled the cab, and as he tossed it out the side of the engine, I could see why he had.
The tracks dipped to one side. Six months of low maintenance had done its job on the Old Main, and now the roadbed itself had paid the price.
“Ain’t that something?” Fusee said as he watched for the caboose to throw a flare of its own, warning the following trains to slow down. “They’ll have to fix that later.”
There was always later.
My eyes went to Highball. Once again, the way that he could “feel” the rails on this line had saved us. He had known, I told myself. He sensed it before we came up to it. He knew…”
Highball. Number 3803. The Old Main. It was something to see, and until the end of my days, I’ll always remember watching him work his magic across that river of steel. I’ll remember how his engine sang in tune with his gentle guidance.
He was a true Wabash artist, and as he guided the troop train down the last few gentle hills before Baltimare, I watched him conduct his little symphony. He and his engine sang their song of steel, and I simply kept the tempo up with my fire.
He leaned back, one hoof came up to rest on the backhead. His foreleg rested across it, his hoof placed in its prescribed place on the throttle. There was a small smile on his face. His grey eyes looked far out ahead, clear and bright as the railroad opened up before him.
His mark was alive inside him again. That made me very happy.
I shovelled some more coal into the firebox, checked my water levels, and then stoked up the trim some more. She wasn’t keeping her fire well, not as she had. I attempted to ponder this all, but I put it aside. This would be the end of #3803, no matter what. She was already coming to an end, and no amount of wishful thinking could solve that. She was broken deep inside, but that was something to worry about later.
There was always later.
“Damnation!” Fusee hissed. My head came up, and my eyes instantly flew across my gauges. Nothing seemed wrong, so I turned to face the brakepony. He took one look at me from atop his perch on the coal pile, and then pointed down the length of #3803’s boiler to the city beyond.
“Drag me to the Well,” I whispered.
The steeples and towers of Baltimare stood out on the horizon, and the great bastion of Fortress Longshanks stood at the gates of the harbor as it always had, a huge Equestrian flag flying from its flagpole. But in the distance beyond, amid the blue of the ocean, was something that stole out our breaths.
A vast fleet of ships stood at the horizon. Terrible black sails erupted from the waterline, and on them were markings of a type I’ve never seen before and hope never to see again.
“Celestia preserve us,” Fusee said.
“Now, ladssss, don’t you pay too much attention to that,” Highball answered. “Let’ssss just get the train down the hill and into the cccccity asss sssooon ass possss…”
A painful silence filled the cab, and all of the beautiful hopes that had come with seeing Highball back in the right-hoof seat drifted away on the summer breeze, flying away as so much ash and soot from 3803’s stack.
Fusee and I stood there, motionless, gazing at Highball.
The old stallion wiped his hoof across his face a few times. He looked out the window to where nothing but the cut of the grade met his eyes. We watched as the stallion took deep breaths, and before we could even move, he began to slump forward in his chair.
“Colt?” he whispered. “Colt!” he called in a stronger tone, fear welling in his voice.
My coal scoop fell to the deck of the cab, and at once I was holding him up.
“Colt,” he whimpered. “Am I ssslurring my worrdsss?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Oh dearrr,” he said, leaning forward. I sat down beside him, and his chest fell across my shoulder. “Oh dearrr. Dearr, dearrr.”
The malady that had driven itself deep inside of him was returning, draining the life out of him again. I did my best to support him as whatever light had found its way inside of him that day dripped away. The sharp edges of a railroader came out of his eyes, leaving only a dull grey. His frame seemed to collapse upon itself once more, just like he had in his chair at Ms. Pillow’s boarding house.
He looked beyond old. He looked beyond saving.
“Fusee,” I called over the sounds of the cab. “Keep an eye on the fire.”
Fusee rolled off the coal load, his hooves clattering across the steel of the deck. I watched him as his eyes went across the gauges. He swallowed slightly, acknowledging the fact that he was in unfamiliar territory.
I sat there, at the right-hoof seat, as Highball continued to wane. His breathing became rough, and he opened and closed his eyes over and over, as though hoping that they would somehow reset themselves.
But no clarity came, and whatever sickness had planted itself within him, be it magical, mental, or physical, strengthened its grip.
“Colt?” Highball asked, his voice hovering in a shadow, barely audible above the sounds of the engine around us. “Colt, did I ever let you rrrun her? In the time you sssserved with me, did I everrr let you rrrun herrr?”
“No,” I answered.
His head wobbled back and forth, and I pulled him up tighter, afraid that he had lost consciousness. His eyes came open, still fixed on the mainline ahead like a proper railroad pony at his post. “I think it besssst that you take the thrrrottle, colt, it’sss bessst…”
“Finish your run, Highball,” I said. “The company only pays three-quarter time for split runs.”
My hoof came up. I placed it over his, and 3803 guided the troop train into the suburbs of Baltimare. I held his hoof to the throttle, helped him find the whistle cord for the ample grade crossings that filled the city.
As we passed towers and section houses, railroad ponies that had been listening to the telegraph came out to see us, cheering for Highball as we roared by. Tears filled my eyes as I realized that they were unaware of what was happening in the cab.
The ancient covered roundhouse passed by on our right as we slowed for the yards, but to our surprise, the semaphores all read “approach caution,” and Fusee leaned far out the cab to catch orders that told us to head down Prance Street, the old trackage built right into the very paving stones of a busy city thoroughfare that brought trains into the very heart of Baltimare.
The yard tracks were already filled with trains; Coltden Station had every passenger track stacked two-deep with trains. Soldiers streamed out of yard and station alike, falling into the long lines of their regiments. Flags flew in the hooves of color sergeants, and military music filled the air as we slowed to make our way up the tracks that lay flush with the cobblestones of the street.
“Colt?” Highball whispered. “Colt, I can’t find the brakesss. Help me find the brakes, colt…”
I lifted his other hoof and placed it gently across the air brake lever. He patted at it a few times, and as he did, I told him how close we were to the end of the line. The light had come out of his eyes, and his little glasses fell from his face, the wire frames getting tangled in his beard.
“I can’t see, colt,” he stated, passion absent from the words. “I can’t sssee…”
“About fourteen car lengths… seven, six… three, two…” I said.
Highball brought his train to a stop at the very edge of the Inner Harbor, having no farther to go unless the company didn’t mind fishing cars out of the water. At once troops began toppling out of the reefer cars behind us. In the noonday light, I could see the Sun and Moon Pendant, the flag of Equestria, flying high above Fortress Longshanks in the distance.
It was a massive flag, perhaps the largest I’ve ever seen. I didn’t think on it much at the moment though, for I had other concerns.
The soldiers formed into their regiment, and sharp cries filled the air as pegasi wheeled through the sky seeking out commanders and delivering orders. The calls of officers bounced off the buildings of the Inner Harbor. Behind us came more trains, mixing their staccato chants of steam and steel into the cacophony.
But there in the cab of that engine, all had fallen into silence. The military bands that were lifting their martial airs around us may well have been playing on the moon. In the heat and steam of that cab, all that existed was the trembling, heaving form of the old stallion that I held against my chest.
“Well, look at that! Look who decided to bring a train…” called Crosshead as he bounded into 3803’s cab. His eyes fell over us, over the heaving form of the old engineer and myself, and he, too, went silent. Brains, the conductor, and a few other railway ponies from the Baltimare Terminal had come pelting down the street after us as well, hoping to congratulate Highball.
Instead, they joined us in the coal-strewn cab as Highball's breathing became more struggled, as the light of his mark faded from him.
“Somepony get a doctor, damn it!” called a young brakepony. “Damn it, call a doctor!”
“There’sss no call for that…”
Highball’s voice, though timid and retreating, filled the cab with his meaning.
“There’sss no call for that,” he repeated. “Colt? Colt, I can’t sssee… I can’t breathe.”
“I know,” I said, holding him a little closer. “I have you.”
The assembly looked on, each one coming as close as they dared. Muffled voices passed news down to an assembly of gathered railway ponies that stood below the right-hoof window.
We lingered like this for a few moments until a rending sound cracked through the air. At once, the cab bucked and kicked, and the light of the fire disappeared. Hot coals went tripping down the ash pan and into the cobblestone street below, making the ponies who stood there dance their hooves in alarm.
The sounds of steel groaning and twisting continued for a moment, and it felt for all the world as though she had stiffened, held herself high in pride and dignity… and then collapsed to the cobblestones in a heap. With one last pant—one hidden, ladylike gasp—number 3803 dropped her fire and fell into ruins on the streets of Baltimare.
It was obvious now, in hindsight, what had happened. Her frame had been split deep, and the way it had shifted and buckled back and forth on itself in the months since the accident had caused all of her ailments. Like a lady, she had hidden her age and faults. Only now that her groom was leaving her did she bare all and finally collapse upon herself, spilling out her life across the cobblestones, dying hard.
The cab was slightly tilted now, and the firebox stood at an odd angle. Her back was broken. She’d never run again.
“Colt?”
“She’s gone, Highball. I’m sorry… she’s gone.”
He was trembling, shaking. His hoof came up and waved through the air. I tried to grasp for it, but soon realized that it wasn’t me Highball was searching for. Through his dimming senses, there was only one thing he sought.
Fusee realized it too. There was a harsh metallic ring, and at once the lynchpin that held the throttle to the backhead went pinging to the steel deck. He lowered my coal scoop, now slightly dented, and gave a powerful grunt.
The eyes of all in the cab followed Fusee as he handed me the shorn length of steel. I pressed it into Highball’s grasp.
“Here’s her throttle bar, Highball,” I said, leaning down close to his ear. “Here it is.”
His body spasmed with tremors… and then his breathing relaxed a little. He held the bar close, cradling it to his chest. I felt him tense, shudder, and then became almost unnaturally light. I watched him close his eyes, taking the cool grey of his sharp gaze out of the world.
“Thank you, colt,” he whispered. “Thank you.”
Two more breaths.
“Proud of you, colt…”
I held him for a few moments longer, there on the dusty, coal-strewn cab deck of his engine. I held the greatest railroader I had ever known as wisps of smoke and steam hovered amid the ruins of the cab. I held him as he faded away.
I removed my striped cap and placed it over my heart. The other railway ponies did the same.
The streets around us filled with soldiers, and brass bands played their songs, unaware of the drama that had just transpired nearby. Overhead the great, vast flag stood defiantly on a lifting breeze, one that carried the last few curls of steam and smoke away from the engine and far into the bright blue sky on intangible currents.
Life moved on.
Whatever race it was that manned those black ships with their black sails thought better of any notion of invading Baltimare. No doubt the sudden appearance of three army corps dissuaded them from any tomfoolery. The railroads had done their part, and as such had proven their importance once again.
At the heart of it all were the railway ponies, those who had run the trains up and down the Baltimare District and the Old Main… and, yes, the tracks of our rivals the Western Mareland, too.
Business picked up in Baltimare over the following year, and as such the Old Main came back into service as a mainline, working in tandem with the newer route. The stories weren’t done being told, and the line would play its part in the tales of my career as it unfolded.
I wasn’t done doing dumb things and seeing good railway ponies die, if the sad truth is known.
I fired engines up and down the Canterlot Division for years after that, and even made enough seniority to train for engineer. I was furloughed at certain points when traffic fell off and became a bummer, working railroads across Equestria. I even took a spell as a hobo, once, hopping freights all over Equestria. But railroading was in my blood, and I always came home to the Canterlot Division.
As I guided trains up and down the Old Main, I couldn’t help but stop and think about how I had first experienced this line and the old stallion who had shown me what it meant to be a railway pony. I think I developed a sense of the rails of my own, and I’m at peace with the lessons he taught me.
Number 3803 didn’t last long. She was cut up within a few days after the emergency. She’s gone, as are many of the engines of that era. Newer, bigger engines serve the Baltimare & Ohayo now, but some day they too will be so much scrap.
We treat steam engines as living things, and it is right to do so. We know that they are just things, and as such they will wear out and meet an end. Still, with the way they heave, sigh, breathe, and ‘speak,’ we can’t help but think kindly of them, and to this day, whenever I hold a new razor blade, I can’t help but wonder if there is some steel of that grand lady in my hoof.
Not all of her went to the heap, though.
Her throttle rests with Highball.
I’ve always been the pondering sort, and as most good earth ponies do, I believe that there is a Well of Souls where all ponies go when our runs here on Equus come to an end.
Still, I’d like to think that it’s more pliable than the traditional vision of it, you see.
I’d like to imagine that there is a Happy Valley Railroad. I’d like to think that somewhere in that ‘ever after’ a young stallion pilots a TW3a class passenger engine down an immaculate right-of-way. I like to think that her bright work is all shiny again, and that as he races towards an unknown station, that engineer leans back against his seat, his cool, grey eyes settling across an endless horizon.
Heh… it’s nice to think about, anyway.
For the railway ponies that work the more mortal and physically substantial railroads of Equestria, life goes on.
Names fade from call boards, and union meetings are faithfully recorded and instantly forgotten. We lift ourselves into the cabooses and cabs of engines. We lift our hammers and coal scoops. We hand in our reports and wipe the grime of coal dust from our denims… and then Celestia lifts the sun once more, and we do it all again.
As we do, the land grows fat with produce to harvest, businesses thrum with prosperity, and ponies travel home to the welcome embraces of their loved ones. The railways and the railroaders who work them make it so.
I have always thought that if there was ever a stallion and a steam engine that were made for one another, then it was old Highball and his longtime partner, #3803.
They were made of the same stuff, and any railway pony that laid eyes across the engineer as he tended to his locomotive would soon come to see it. They were made to serve together, to be together, and as fate saw fit… die together.
I guess it was for the best, that they had both lived to see one last bright moment… that he had filled his mark one last time. I think that was the answer to my question: You never outlive your mark. It burns bright until the last moment. What railroader could ask for more?
I’m older now… smarter, wiser, greyer. My legs still pain me on humid days. A litany of new scars, scrapes, and pains have joined them, but I’m still here—still dancing the steel deck of engine cabs, just like I knew I always would…
… just like Highball.
For us railway ponies, life goes on. We sling trains up and down the mainlines. We lift trains up and down the grades and send headlights searching through the night as passengers dream in the sleeping cars.
The rails call to us, and we sing their song of steel.
End.