Canterlot Castle
After Princess Celestia temporarily added the Southern Pacific 4460 to the Equestrian National Railroad roster, she could have some time to do some research on the incident of the engine's arrival. Since her dream, she already had some background information that she had taken note of that could possibly help on getting 4460 back home. She spent hours and hours, browsing through the Canterlot archives with Twilight Sparkle and Lyra with little luck. What she could find was some history on humans,(which wasn't so accurate), a map of the early railroads, and mythological strategies on getting to parallel universes. Otherwise, not much to go through which made Celestia really doubtful. She and the two mares took whatever they had to Celestia's room and began to soak up every bit of information. "Wow look at this!" said Lyra. "The first drawing and impression of a male human. Almost looks like an ape." Twilight had her eyes focused on the myths and spells. "Some of these seem reasonable for a guess, but not enough evidence." she observed. The princess was comparing the old railroad maps to the knew ones. She marked out no existing lines. A few more hours had passed as they studied, when Celestia dismissed the two. "Are you sure your highness?" asked Twilight. "I'm positive. I'll have an escort home ready for you. Goodnight now." Twilight and Lyra bowed and left the room.
She later began to feel tired, and looked out her window and saw it was already late dusk. "I'll feel regenerated tomorrow after a good night's rest." she said to herself. Just like that, her head hit the pillow of her bed and drifted off to sleep. It felt like a couple minutes into her sleep when she realized she was zooming across the country like she did the week before, but this time in Equestria. She followed the railroad line to Vanhoover and she already knew this was another dream where she would meet up with the 4460. Just up ahead, she saw the glowing lights of the town of Trottingham in the night. She had approached the depot platform and scanned the area with no sign of 4460. However she did hear the town's ponies talking among themselves about the train's recent visit just an hour before. "What a massive monster that thing was." said a blue stallion. "I'm sure it's gonna destroy that steep grade up the mountains. It usually takes three of our engines to climb it ." said the station master as he locked up for the night. The other ponies nodded their heads in agreement. Celestia gasped, but nopony heard her. She had heard about the snow storm up there, and how dangerous it was going to be if 4460 was going to travel that way. With that she followed the line to the north to catch up with the train.
A short ways away, she could see the lights of the newly built wooden caboose at the end of the train. The week before, Celestia made blue prints of the Southern Pacific rolling stock for 4460 to pull since the Equestrian freight car couplings weren't compatible. As she got closer, she could see that the train began to slow down and up ahead was the ruling grade. Looking inside the cab, she could she Fluttershy and Smokey talking to each other. "Okay Fluttershy," Smokey said. "up ahead is the grade. It's 5.89% which is really steep." The pegasus looked out the cab window towards the incline which made her nervous. "Will we make it?" she asked. Smokey thought aloud. "Well, the grade is 5.89%, with the engine booster ah' discovered, could give us 76,050 pounds of tractive effort, it's an additional 20 pounds per ton of train, yeah we'll make it, but our speed gotta be..." Celestia could see on Fluttershy's blushing face, that she admired the fire stallion a lot. She was soon interrupted by the call of the young female voice of 4460 herself. "Princess Celestia!" The princess flew over and landed on the track in front of the steam engine, with her blue eyes and other beautiful facial features. "You've summoned me. I don't get that to often." Celestia said. "I have your highness." 4460 replied. "I had a feeling that you were kind off stressed on trying to get me back home." Celestia nodded as a gesture for the locomotive to continue.
"Well, I have an idea, but I'm not even sure this will work."
"Anything right now works."
"I'm no astronomer obviously, but early in the morning, I was on my way to see my sister when I noticed that the moon was red. A lunar eclipse."
In the back of Celestia's mind, she remembered that her sister Luna had risen the Red Moon as a rare occasion on the 22nd. She was told that there would be a Red Moon twice this year but was planned carefully, not to mess up the season flow. They were to be only 2 months apart. "I believe," 4460 continued, "that the after-affects of the lunar eclipse had caused that portal to appear. I also remember traveling through a dark, dry, horrifying land before I came out the tunnel to Equestria." A dark land? the alicorn thought to herself. She couldn't recall anything of the sort, nothing like that in Equestria.
"However, I need James, my engineer to take me back, I have a feeling he's they key. But how do we get him here?"
"I don't know. It's sounds like a mission, but I wish you could have told me earlier." Celestia remarked humorously.
"Well, we didn't have enough time. Besides, I may look and sound young, but I'm still 73 years old. I don't remember everything.
The two had a long laugh in the night until 4460's bell went off. Her wheels slowly began to turn backwards. "Well, here I go! I have to tackle this grade. I don't think I've been on one this steep, well at least from what I remember." Another laugh from the two, making Celestia feel better and regenerated. She told 4460 that she would be staying close to watch, and see the engine doing her best. "Trust me your highness, you won't be disappointed! Though I haven't handled steep grades like this, I can handle mountains. I've dominated Donner Pass with my Cab Forward cousins and on my last run in '58! It's a cinch." Celestia couldn't argue with that, especially a steam locomotive of 4460's size and power. All she could do was take her word for it.
The 4460 stopped about a mile and a half from where they were talking. Her pneumatic reverse gear shifted down to move forward, and she soon began to charge forward. Over the tops of the trees, the princess could hear the shotgun-stack in the distance which sounded like her giant iron friend was working hard to get the train moving. The light reflected off the rails as 4460 got closer now picking up speed, faster, faster, until the sounds of her chugging began to blend together. Celestia stepped back a little when the train came into view, her marker lights glowed green, her oil-fed fire flickering, and kicking up the surrounding dirt. The engine looked marvelous at speed making Celestia think 4460 was an innocent show off. The drive rods whipped around almost looking invisible, the holes in her box-pock wheels giving the optical illusion like they were still, and the smoke flying back over the skyline casing.
The 4460's deep whistle wailed as she flew by, the princess's head following and watching her charge up the steep grade all the way until the engine disappeared into the fog, the cars still rolling by. She looked to the glowing caboose. It too, disappearing in seconds. Throughout the night, she watched as the train was stressing up the grade, getting closer and closer to the summit. Smokey closed the cab doors keep him and Fluttershy warm, for now the temperature began to drop and coating the the windows in frost. At first the snow began to fall slowly, but soon got heavy with the strong winds picking up. 4460 didn't seem mind since Celestia could hear her humming cheerfully, which she thought was crazy! The engine's front was covered in snow in minutes and snow was caking up in between small spaces. Her hot boiler was the only exception since the snow melted instantly.
As they reached the climax, the whole train stopped when Smokey and the conductor walked outside, bundled up in winter clothes. They had a small talk, then began climbing on top of the refer cars, opening the doors and hatches. The conductor was a unicorn, so he used his magic to shovel snow into the cars to keep the produce cold (smart idea). Fluttershy hesitantly walked outside with an oil can and began to walk around the drive rods oiling all the parts. She had no warm clothes on her which made Celestia feel sorry for her, but Smokey caught Fluttershy and ran over to her. "Are ya crazy or somethin'!?" he called over the whistling wind. "I'm sorry Smokey!" Fluttershy answered. "I just want to help out. Save you the trouble and......." Smokey put his hoof up to silence her "Get back in that cab cause ya gonna freeze out here! Ah will take care of the oil!" Smokey sounded pretty angry to Celestia's ears, but the caring type of anger. "O.....o......okay S.....S....Smoke.....S....Smokey." Fluttershy shivered. She then flew into the cab and closed the door. "That poor pony." he mumbled to himself. "Wanting to help, it's cold and snow, in the m....m....middle of s...s...summer, mountains, aaaachoooo! (Uh oh! Not you too Smokey. Wait I'm writing this story!)
Quickly but carefully, he finished oiling the drivers. Celestia now began to understand what some railroaders go through and why they are so tough. Just as Smokey was walking to the cab, a deep shrill pierced the darkness, then falling silent again. The fire stallion's ears folded down, he bit his lip, and his irises shrank. Celestia was shocked too, and she thought of the worst. "Smokey! What was that?" Fluttershy asked from the cab. The deep shrill came again, but this time it was closer. "I don't like the sound of that!" 4460 cried, half her face covered in snow, but only the princess could hear her. 4460 looked around nervously but couldn't she what was behind her. The ground shook to the pattern of giant footsteps. "4460!" Celestia shouted. Still with her faced covered in snow, she replied.
"Mmmph?"
"There's a Yeti! Get out of there now!"
The engine didn't think twice. She tried moving but realized she was under control of Fluttershy. "Guys! We gotta go! Smokey hehehe don't stand there, hehehe let's go!" Smokey and the engineer were still frozen in shock. "Guys let's go! Quit fooling around! I wanna go home too you know!" They still couldn't here her and she realized it. Oh I'm so stupid!, the locomotive said to herself. She closed her eyes and built up pressure. She gave a loud cry of the whistle, rang her bell, and blew her horn. Anything noisy for the crew to snap out of it and it worked. The crew was back in consciousness, but now they could hear the footsteps getting louder and faster. "Uh no." 4460 grumbled. Smokey yelled up into the cab. "Fluttershy! Get us outta here!" She responded by pulling the throttle wide open but the drivers began to slip with snow flying off. "We're not moving!" she cried "Sand! Give 'er sand!" Smokey shouted." The sander was put on full but 4460 was still slipping. "Sand!,......SAND!,.......SAND!" 4460 finally got a grip and slowly started pulling out. Celestia wished she didn't have to sleep to see this but she couldn't wake yet. The yeti's shrill came again and the footsteps grew, scaring the life out of the 4460 and her crew. Smokey was half way up the cab ladder when he saw the angry red eyes in the distance. "Oh buck."