4460 and the Equestrian Magic Railroad

by stallionlocomotive4412


Chapter 3: Meeting Royalty

While Twilight was waiting for the arrival of the princess, she and the other ponies stood around the locomotive still bewildered. Word began to get around quickly about the engine being some sort of alien craft, or a machine from the darker side, or a parallel universe. Lyra Heartstrings however, didn't mention to anypony but to Twilight, that it's possible that 4460 was from the human world. Twilight said nothing but from the way things were, she had no doubt it was possible. She, Lyra, T-Rail, and Braeburn climbed up into the cab and examined the interior. Braeburn was talking to T-Rail on how similar the engineer's control set up was to the Equestrian locomotive's. Lyra looked up at the valves on the back-head where there were brass plates with words engraved in them. "Twilight." she called out. Twilight walked to her side. "The wording and numbering in here is so similar to ours. Wherever it came from, whoever operated this must have some relation in intelligence like us. T-Rail looked over and nodded in agreement to the mint-green unicorn. "I recognize some of these controls, but some others I don't know about, or they jus' far to complicated. Some ah can't even reach!"

Just then, a white Pegasus in golden armor flew in. He had a serious look on his face. Everypony in the cab turned their attention to him. "This engine is off limits until approval of her majesty, Princess Celestia." Then another Pegasus guard came in. "We please ask for you to evacuate the engine and station platform." he said. They began to escort the ponies out the cab and off the platform to the front of the train station.

"Well, at least we know that she's coming soon." said Rainbow Dash as she flew up to Twilight. Suddenly they all saw a chariot descending from the sky and landing right in from of them. There, walking before them was the Alicorn herself, Princess Celestia. Everypony bowed down to her and she looked across the crowd. "At ease my subjects, she said in a calm tone, "I received word from my student about this newcomer and I am looking forward to seeing it for myself. Twilight Sparkle." The purple unicorn approached her. "After you." Twilight straightened up and guided her to the station platform, where a group of guards stood around the black engine. Celestia stopped short of the engine with an expression of amazement and curiosity.

"This is impressive Twilight! It certainly fits your description.

"Thank you princess!"

"Who were the first witnesses and who brought it here?"

"Braeburn and T-Rail."

"Bring them here."

Seconds late the two stallions rushed before her and gave a quick bow. "Ya called?" asked Braeburn. The princess nodded and guided them closer to the base of the engine's cab. "Tell me exactly what happened and how you managed to bring this here." she requested. the two earth ponies switched back and forth on how they watched the engine appear out of the tunnel in Appleloosa, to when Braeburn made his death defying feat to stop the engine manually. All of this, through one night. Celestia listened closely and was totally impressed by this. "May we go inside?" she asked. "Anythin' for the her magesty." said T-Rail politely. With that they all climbed up the ladder into the cab. Once again, Twilight was examining, with Celestia, the valves and gauges of 4460.

"T-Rail. Can you show me the controls you're familiar with?"

"Well your highness, on this side; the engineer's side, we have the few main controls. Up here is the throttle, here are the brakes, this is the speedometer, sander, reverser, and the whistle."

"The whistle?"

"Wanna try it?"

With her magic, Celestia grasped on the cord and pulled downward. There was a loud his a steam and a bit of gurgling until the whistle blew in tune. It was a low, very musical tune and Celestia could help but chuckle. "I always wanted to do that!" she said. "I tell ya Celestia, but ah never heard anythin' more beautiful than that whistle." said T-Rail. Then the Alicorn turned to the fireman's side.

"What about these?"

"Those look like water valves and dampers to me. I'm not sure, but that lever looks like a blow down valve and this here looks like some type of oil feed."

Celestia knew that none of the trains in her land burned oil. This is what got her attention. "I wonder what civilization does that, or just builds something like this in general." Twilight then spoke.

"According to my friend Lyra, she believes that the engine is from the......."

"Human world?"

"Uh......yeah. I know that sounds kind of strange, but....."

"No, no, no. Humans aren't out of the question, nor is anything else. Nopony knows where this came from."

Twilight and the others looked up at Celestia in amazement. Even she had no doubts. She guided them out of the cab and out to the front of the station once more. Everypony gathered around Twilight and the stallions until Celestia spoke. "Braeburn, T-Rail, Lyra, and the Elements of Harmony, meet me in Canterlot at 5 o'clock , we shall discuss more of this in private. Guards, take the engine and store it in the Canterlot shed until then. Nice to see everypony!" With that, Princess Celestia got into her chariot and took off. Leaving the town quiet for a minute. They then turned to see that a guard was driving 4460 in reverse towards Canterlot, leaving a cloud of black smoke behind. The town went back to their business and still talking about the recent event. "Now what?" asked Rainbow Dash. "Now we prepare." said Twilight. I'm assuming we'll have dinner over there so everpony, look your best. We always want to keep Celestia pleased. "How long are we going to stay?" asked Fluttershy. "I can't leave my animals alone for a long time. They might starve, or fight, or even worse......" Rarity butted in to calm the Pegasus. "It's okay darling. We'll find a temporary caretaker for you until we return. I think i might know somepony." This definitely soothed Fluttershy. Pinkie Pie then spoke. "Oh! Should I bring desert? Or anything to celebrate the train's arrival?" Twilight shook her head. "The desert is fine Pinkie, but nothing party related. I don't think ponies would party for a machine." This sort of discouraged Pinkie Pie but she didn't mind. "Well then," said Applejack, "lets get this show on the road."


***********

Canterlot, 5:00 P.M.

"Perfect timing Twilight!" said Princess Celestia, as they met in front of the palace. "Please follow me, we have dinner waiting for us downstairs." Downstairs? Normally dinner was held on the main level. Was it really that private? They ponies followed her down several flights of stairs into what appeared to be a large laboratory full of giant computers, and other machines. There were spotlights shinning down on a collection of automobiles, airplanes, a ship, and two steam locomotives! 4460 was one of them but the other one appeared to be smaller and seemed to look older. It had 4 small pilot wheels and 4 large drive wheels. It was trimmed in brass with read, green, and white paint. It also had a wide funnel like the equestrian engines. In the middle of the lab was a furnished wooden table with a velvet cloth, surrounded by several chairs. The largest one at the end appeared throne like and most likely was for the princess.

Over the course of dinner, the ponies talked amongst each other and to Celestia about what was going on in Ponyville and the small meeting on the platform with 4460. Many listened in as Celestia talked about here experience with the engine and here opinion about it. She then stood up and made a conclusion. "This locomotive, Southern Pacific 4460 is without a doubt, solid evidence of a parallel universe. And further more extremely likely to be a part of the legendary human world." It took a while for the ponies to soak this up, but for Lyra, it looked as if she was going to explode. "I knew it!" she exclaimed "I knew humans existed, and you thought I was crazy! You heard it from the princess herself!" They could help but laugh at her attitude. They never seen Lyra so excited before. Lyra blushed when she realized she was standing on her hind legs like a person, then she sat down.

After dinner, the ponies were led by Celestia to a giant machine in the floor of the lab where there were rails with silver rollers in between. in the back was a mechanical arm with a draw-bar coupling at the end. The machine was surrounded by a guard rail and behind it was a computer showing a diagrams and graphs. Celestia turned to the ponies. "It has been more than one hundred years since we seen human technology for the railroads. As you can see behind me, this steam locomotive is very similar to our own. This is the Central Pacific "Jupiter" number 60. It was built in 1868 and since it's arrival, we've built our own engines from its design. It is the same for these other vehicles. Ford's model A and T, American Airways Douglas DC-3, and the warship, HMS Hood. All are from this parallel universe. We know their stats, but never found any historical information. What we do know is that all from this collection have been destroyed in their world and reformed here. My guess it's the same for our newcomer." Everypony stared at Celestia speechless. "So let me get this straight." said Lyra. "You're telling us that you've held these underground for more than 100 years, and that our technological innovation is based off of what the humans, in the parallel universe had already made?" Celestia nodded. "Apparently, until then, we lacked the intelligence and ability to create machines like this, so we recreated them for our purposes." Then Celestia turned to Southern Pacific 4460 and using her magic, rolled it on the the machine in the floor. 4460's wheels locked into place on the rollers and her tender was detached, except for an extension on the fuel line. The machines draw-bar arm was then attached to the engine.

"What are you going to do? " asked Fluttershy.

"I'm going to run some tests on the engine to see what information I can get out of it. I measures draw-bar horse-power rating, tractive effort, speed, etc."

"Oh."

Celestia turned on the machine and opened 4460's throttle wide. The engine's wheels began to turn slowly, but gradually picking up speed. Her chugging intensified, and steam shot from the top of her boiler. Celestia and the others watched the locomotive transfer readings to the computer. It gave larger numbers and the line graph began to rise. By now the engine was at full speed! The computer read 116 mile per hour, boiler at max pressure: 260 psi, and her tractive effort at 64,600 lbs. Celestia kicked in the booster and the traction increased to 76,050 lbs. "Wow! This is awesome!" cried Rainbow Dash. Celestia offered Rainbow to blow the whistle. She flew into the cab, grasped the whistle cord and blew. 4460 let out that musical moan of her 3 chime. "This just got 20% cooler!"