As every good story has a beginning, a middle, and an end, so does The Rescue Service. In this blog post I’m going to pontificate a bit over the beginning – essentially author’s notes that did not feel appropriate to release while the story was updating. If everything goes well, I may get time to speak about the middle and the end later.
(Spoilers ahoy!)
Westward! Sweetsong’s found a good car to ride, one that’s safe and secure. There’s only one little flaw in her plan; maybe she should have looked at that map in the station more carefully.
Special thanks to AlwaysDressesInStyle for pre-reading!
As always, I’ll start by thanking my pre-readers: AShadowOfCygnus, metallusionismagic, MSPiper, and MrZJunior! Especially MSPiper; he found a rather significant continuity error that I somehow managed to completely miss, and thus saved me from
Some of y’all will be familiar with where Sweetsong finds herself, thanks to another story of mine you might have read.
Thanks to AlwaysDressesInStyle for pre-reading!
Chicago, the windy city! Somehow pegasi always seem to find themselves there, don’t they?
Thanks to AlwaysDressesInStyle for pre-reading!
For now, Sweetsong can fly along the coast; if she goes far enough south she’ll find another harbor that has rail lines, or she could go north all the way to Vancouver Island and find a train there. It won’t get her off the island, though. Or she could put aside the train-jumping for a while and become a beach bum . . . there are plenty of options open to her.
Out of Nebraska and into Wyoming, the train goes through the night and Sweetsong goes with it. Past forgotten towns and along a reservoir and into the Wind River Canyon, the train winds along and encounters Sweetsong’s least-favorite railroad feature: tunnels.
If she picks her trains right, Sweetsong’s in the last state before she reaches the Pacific. For now, she needs to spend some times making more money, and figuring out which route she needs to take to go west, rather than down to Oregon. Although if she does go to Oregon, that’s not the end of the world . . . if she wanted an easy trip, she’d have taken Amtrak.
It’s no Big Boy, but the cab of a locomotive makes for a comfortable ride through Nebraska.
Special thanks to AlwaysDressesInStyle for not only pre-reading, but also having been to Alliance and filling me in on where to get the best pizza there!
All good things must come to an end, and so it is with Council Bluffs. The Big Boy must move on, and so too must Sweetsong; the rails are calling out their song. A train isn’t meant to stay in one place, and neither is Sweetsong.
Sweetsong slept through Marias Pass, and missed the giant obelisk. She also missed Horse Mountain . . .
Still, she can always come back later and see it in the day. There’s always a train to take her near where she wants to go.
Iowa, not necessarily a destination for a mare on the move, although if she’d ridden the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern, she could have stopped off in Britt, Iowa . . . home of the National Hobo Convention.
Big cities come with big opportunities for a wandering pegasus. Busking, tourism, taunting the Willis Tower. . . .
Thanks to AlwaysDressesInStyle for pre-reading!
Heading west out of Seattle is kinda complicated . . . just like getting from Michigan to Chicago, there’s a lake in the way and you have to go south first. Plus, a lot of trains is a lot of opportunities, but not necessarily a lot of speed.
One more tunnel, this one short, and then an open expanse of saltwater! Is it the Pacific?
Sadly not, but it’s close to the Pacific. Sweetsong’s nearly reached the ocean.
Special thanks to AlwaysDressesInStyle for pre-reading!
Seattle! Home of the Space Needle and lots of coffee, not to mention the home of Boeing. A good place to tour for a bit, a good city for a pony to be in.
While this statistic probably doesn’t exist, I’d put money on the Lauritzen Gardens/Kenefick Park having more locomotive by weight than any other public park in the US. Sweetsong was right to guess you’d put them where traffic on the highway can see them; in fact, they’re on a hill overlooking I-80.
Is this the most efficient route west? No, it isn’t. Sweetsong will get there when she gets there; it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.
Pre-read by AlwaysDressesInStyle!
The end of the line . . . there’s not much further west Sweetsong can go before she runs out of tracks.
Fortunately, that’s the goal.
Special thanks to AlwaysDressesInStyle, penguincascadia, and TomRedlion for pre-reading and providing facts!
It’s fifteen miles from Rennie Island to the Pacific as the pegasus flies. Even for a pegasus who prefers hopping trains to flying, that’s not far. Sweetsong’s journey is nearly at an end.
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