Chapter 12
Summer struck Equestria like a rather fierce sword blow. Ponies were traveling more than ever before and the crews were feeling the strains! Trains were running every hour, on the hour and the stresses were taking their tolls. Jordon managed to get his hand caught between two carriage buffers, Dangersignal broke his rear left leg when he jumped onto a moving train and everyone’s tempers were on hair triggers.
However, they were grateful when a rather calmed down Lightning Dust signed on, as a way to make up for her egotistical mistakes that could have caused Rainbow Dash’s friends their lives. It was also a way for the two to bury old bodies and wash themselves of the past. Once that was done, the two worked so well, that Dangersignal admitted that they could easily give him a run for his money on express passenger trains!
The worst affected by the sudden summer rush was the fleet of locomotives. Even with volunteers taking driving and firing lessons, the 119 locomotives were pressed into service, with the crews having to work harder than anything.
“We can’t keep straining everything,” Dragonstorm huffed. “If things get any worse, then we’ll have to either cancel services or force crews to take more trains than we had intended them to take.”
“Let’s go for doing what we can,” Dangersignal said. “We can only do what we can.”
Dragonstorm growled at his older brother, who was telling him to sit on his tail. Deciding against a fight during this stressful time, Dragonstorm trudged off to bed. In the morning, there came a deep roar that rattled the windows!
“What in the name of moonlights!” Dragonstorm cried.
Dangersignal and Rainbow Das were flying towards the sounds, both believing that some hideous monster had come to ruin all the fun. Glancing down, Dangersignal was struck by a cloud of…steam? Rainbow Dash looked down and managed to get over to her fiancée, and after clearing the steam cloud from his front, she told him that she noticed another steam engine.
“That can’t be!” he said. “There are no other steam engines that our human friends have stored away! They’re all here!”
“Well, there’s another engine working on the railway,” she replied.
The two dropped to get a better view, but instead were finding it hard to keep pace with the bucketing train and eventually the brake coach plunged into the tunnel leading towards Canterlot station. Dangersignal looked at Rainbow Dash and was about to say something when a streak of silver, black, orange and fiery red blasted out of the tunnel and headed towards Baltimare.
“Okay, either we’re both crazy, or that was another train,” Dangersignal said.
“That was most certainly another train,” Rainbow Dash said.
The two were now bewildered, but they soon heard a clanking noise. Both turned to see the same “sunset” coming back towards them. On the tender stood a person that the two recognized well.
“Jordon!” they cried.
“You likey?” he asked as the engine drew to a stop.
“Mind explaining all the random trains running at odd hours?” Dangersignal and Rainbow Dash asked, both now thoroughly confused and ticked.
“I wrote my American friends, who had a smaller fleet of engines, fifteen to be precise. They wanted to aide us in this venture and provide a fact to all the Equestrians that a railway is a team effort,” the human explained.
“Ah, that explains a lot,” Dangersignal said.
“Right, now we have plenty to do,” Jordon said. “You two are needed for weather duties. We can handle ourselves. Evidently, the weather manager wants you two to take care of a slight rainstorm outside Horseshoe Bay. He asked for Dangersignal, seeing as he can help with weather control, being a Pegasus.”
The clanking resumed and the train was soon plunging into the darkness, with the red lamps glowing for a few minutes, then disappearing as well. The two could only look at each other, bewildered.
“But Alicorns can’t control the weather!” Rainbow Dash protested. “It’s not their duties!”
“Well, I guess I could prove my versatility,” came the reply.
Rainbow Dash shrugged and the two flew off. At the cloud storage facilities, the manager was waiting for the two, impatiently and was ready to chew them out, but when he realized that one of them was an Alicorn, he lost his insults in his stomach. He had only expected two pegasi, but that was soon shot down.
“Sorry we’re late,” Dangersignal said. “We got tied up with some other affairs that needed tending to. Now, I take it you want us to go and handle the rainstorm at Horseshoe Bay?” Dangersignal asked.
“Yes,” he said.
The two took several clouds and hurried away. It would be great practice for the Alicorn to get used to doing other tasks around Equestria, as well as working on the railway. However, the Alicorn seemed to be of two minds, as Rainbow Dash noted.
“Something up?” she asked.
“Huh? Oh, nothing’s up, except us,” he returned.
However, she wasn’t convinced. She wanted to get to the bottom of this mystery.