A Trip North
A Trip North
Admiral Biscuit
There was more to Equestria than Manehattan, and it was time to explore. I didn't understand why more people didn't. I guess there was plenty to see in and around Manehattan. There were guided tour vacation packages and the ponies even had cruises—both daily and weekly.
I thought it would be more fun to go somewhere not-touristy. I figured that I'd meet more interesting ponies there. With that in mind, I'd gone to the train station and copied down their timetables.
Back on Earth, it took very little effort to pick a destination and then use Google to find a way to get there. It would even sometimes make suggestions about when you could find a cheaper flight. It would tell you if roads were closed. There were reviews of places. Between that and Street View, you could visit places you'd never been while sitting in front of your computer.
Ponies didn't have any of that technology. I was sure that there were travel agents in Manehattan, and it probably wouldn’t be too difficult to find one. Or, I could just ask around and see what ponies at the bar thought was a good place to visit. Surely the front desk ponies at the hotel would be able to offer suggestions—but I wanted to pick a place on my own.
Interestingly, the train station did have lots of helpful information. It was really basic, but there were icons next to each stop that told if the destination had a hotel or restaurants, and that was really all I needed to know. At least I wouldn't wind up getting off the train at a whistle stop somewhere in the middle of nowhere and be stuck on the platform until the next train came through.
It wasn't going to be cheaper to leave my old hotel room and start over. I hadn't known that this was a thing, but the pony hotels had weekly and monthly rates, and was significantly cheaper overall to pay by the month.
I figured one bag would be all that I'd need, so after breakfast I packed up and waited out in the taxi stand for a taxi to arrive.
There were all kinds of ponies—and a few other creatures—who worked as taxi drivers. Or maybe it was taxi-pullers. I wasn't actually sure what the proper name would be. That made a lot of sense; it was the kind of occupation that would really be open to anyone who was fit and had a good sense of navigation.
The mare pulling mine was like no pony I'd ever seen before. She was a unicorn, which was odd in and of itself, and she was a beautiful golden-green, almost like a field lit by the sun right after a rainstorm.
She had a really strange gait, too. I couldn't say quite what it was, exactly, but I'd been around enough ponies to know that this was unusual.
I didn't think it would be smart to draw her into conversation. I'm sure that there were rules of the road and expectations of other ponies, but what they were was completely lost on me. All I could say for sure was that there were no kinds of turn signals or brake lights on any of the wagons and carriages that ponies were pulling, and there was a constant shifting of traffic across multiple lanes of the road. It seemed like complete chaos, and her ears and head were constantly moving around, judging the best route. The last thing she needed was for me to distract her.
Out of necessity, she took a different route to the train station than I had. We ultimately wound up on a broad strip of cobblestones crowded with taxis and omnibuses and all sorts of freight wagons.
The only spot that appeared to be reserved was the one for mail wagons; those signs were ones that all the ponies respected. Back on Earth, someone would have stopped there anyway 'just for a moment.'
“Half bit,” she said.
I nodded and got out a bit coin, which she levitated into a small coin pouch on her harness. “Keep the change.”
She tipped her hat to me and then merged back into traffic, and moment later she was lost in the sea of wagons, before I could even ask her her name.
Waiting in line for a ticket gave me plenty of time to think. These days, a lot of taxis were dispatched by radio, and of course there were apps like Uber and Lyft that could be used to summon a car wherever, but of course it hadn't always been done that way. There had to be a lot of circling around, waiting for a fare to appear. Maybe there was some kind of hierarchy or territories that different ponies had. Some of them probably stopped working during slack times of day, while others were willing to stay out there in the hopes of making a profit somehow.
I had to be careful to not get so lost in thought that I tripped over the ponies in front of me.
When I finally got to the front of the line, I made my way to a younger pony, figuring that they were more likely to be receptive to me. “One ticket to Greenock, please.”
“Return?”
“I can buy a ticket at that station, can't I?” I wanted to make sure.
“Yeah. Or from the conductor on the train if there isn't a stationmaster on duty.”
“Then just the outbound ticket, please.”
“Private or general seating?”
“General.”
He nodded and wrote a few scribbles on a yellow slip, and then stamped it and punched it, before handing it to me. “Greenock, general seating. The train leaves from platform 12 in an hour or so. That's down the main hall and to the left, then across the tracks and down to the platform.”
“Thanks.” The ticket was something to keep for my scrapbook, if for nothing else than the railroad name. The Manehattan, Paisley & Greenock Northern Steam Railway & Mumbles and Pit Wagonway. It had a nicely-embossed steam locomotive on the corners of the ticket, along with the ticket agent's writing, stamp, and punch.
I hadn't expected to go back outside. In hindsight, it should have been obvious that trains should be kept outside whenever possible. I did know that historically ventilation in tunnels had been a problem and I was sure the same extended to completely covered platforms like the giant glass train sheds that had been popular in Europe.
There was a wide bridge that led over the rails, with stairways extending downwards to paired platforms. Those were covered, and they had numbers painted on their roofs to make it obvious where to go.
A few colts and fillies were trainspotting—or maybe ponyspotting—up at the railings, but for the most part I was the only one who was really interested in anything more than getting to my destination.
I figured that with general boarding I would probably want to get to the train early to make sure I still had a seat. It was hard to imagine how without computers they knew for sure that there were still tickets available for that particular train. Maybe when the ticket book ran out, he knew that the train was full, or maybe once all the seats were taken, it was standing room only.
The train was at the platform already. The locomotive wasn't, which struck me as odd. The few times I'd ridden a train before, it had had the locomotive attached to it long before the journey began. It was what provided power for the lights and the air conditioning and everything else.
When I got aboard, it became obvious why they wouldn't need it—there was nothing on the train cars for the locomotive to power. There were no lights and the air conditioning was the open windows.
There were racks at each end of the car for luggage, which was nice. Overhead clearance was already tight for me, and above-seat bins like airplanes had would have been intolerable.
I put my suitcase in, tucked neatly against the wall, and picked a seat on the platform side next to the window.
I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew the train jolted and I put my hand out to brace myself, completely unaware that there was now a stallion in a suit sharing my bench.
“Hey!”
“Sorry, sorry!” I jerked my hand back. “I wasn't—you surprised me.”
“Hmf.” He shifted on his seat. “Ought to be more careful next time.” Then he brightened. “First time on a train?”
“In Equestria,” I said. “I'm Joe.”
“Pegasus Lane.”
“You're not a pegasus,” I blurted out before I could even consider how rude that might sound.
“Well, my mom thought I was, and so the name kind of stuck.”
He rolled his eyes at my incredulous look. “That's what my dad says. He says that she was really loopy after she had me and when the midwife picked me up she thought I was flying and so that's what I got named.” He sighed. “Mom isn't exactly the brightest flower in the field, you know.”
“I didn't mean to be insulting.”
“I get that a lot, honestly.” He looked at my clothes. “Those are pretty fancy. Where do you work?”
“Oh, I don't. I'm just visiting Equestria.”
“I see. I—don't think I'm trying to be rude, but I've got a book I'm reading, and. . . .”
“No, that's fine. I was planning on looking out the window at the scenery, once we get out of the station.”
“Alright. Nice to meet you, Joe.”
“Same here.”
***
On Earth, cities have suburbs, which sometimes go on nearly forever—sometimes the suburbs are even bigger than the city proper. I was sure that Greater Los Angeles and Greater New York City were far bigger than the cities they surrounded. That wasn't the case with Manehattan, at least. We were in the city, and then suddenly the country. There wasn't an actual wall, but there might as well have been.
Our last sign of the city was a large rail junction. We had to wait for a few minutes while an express train went past, and then we crawled through a few crossings and switches before picking up speed again.
For a little bit, the train ran alongside a canal and road. I saw a few teams of ponies towing barges along the canal; they mostly ignored the train as it went by.
Our first stop wasn't all that far out of town. I stuck my head out the window and watched as ponies up front swung a spout over to the tender and refilled it with water, and then we went on our way again, curving away from the canal and taking a route that went through fields of crops.
Back on Earth, my experience with fields had been that they went on for acres and acres, and they were generally growing all the same crop. Pony farmers weren't so inclined, and we'd pass right by a cornfield to a field of daisies and then hay. We'd occasionally whisk by farmponies working in their fields and sometimes they'd wave at the train.
The track curved again, and we cut through a forest. As it blurred by, for a moment I could have been back on Earth, and it was a weird feeling. Turning around and looking at my seat-mate didn't entirely make it go away, either.
Just after the forest, the train stopped again. The station was on the other side of the tracks, and I suppose I could have looked across the aisle, but I was more fascinated by the pegasus refilling the water tank. He had a bunch of small clouds all trailed out behind him, attached together with a rope. He'd push one over the open top of the tower and jump up and down on it a few times, and it would suddenly start raining until it completely dissolved. Then he'd tug on the rope and get the next cloud into position and repeat the process.
He went through four clouds before the train started to move again.
We went past a few more fields, mostly hay or some other kind of pasture grass, and then we were back in the wilderness.
The train was climbing into hills. Every valley it went down had another train station where we'd stop, which seemed kind of unfair for the poor locomotive. Any momentum it picked up going down the hill had to be shed to stop at the train station, and then it had to work hard to pull the train up the next hill. While I wasn't an expert, I couldn't help but think that back on Earth, they would have either routed the tracks through the valley or else put train stations partway up the hills and required people to walk the rest of the way to town.
That clearly wasn't the pony way of doing things.
***
Four stops later, Pegasus Lane got off the train and I had the bench to myself for the rest of the journey. The train was slowly emptying out; I guess ponies wanted to go to points north from Manehattan but not so many wanted to go from point to point.
I tried to remember what the timetable had said—was there another major city on this route, or did the train just go until the tracks stopped and then turn around and come back? I didn't think that there had been any overlaps in its schedule from northbound to southbound, but then once I’d picked a destination, I hadn't paid that much attention to the rest of the schedule.
It wouldn't be fair to say that I got bored on the journey, but there was a point where it did all start to look kind of the same. Maybe that was just my poor human attention span, or maybe there were only so many fields that you could see before you'd really seen them all.
Had the ceiling in the train cars been higher, I might have been inclined to get up and walk around a bit, but the fact was that I'd had to keep my head slightly bent as I got into the coach, and it'd be just my luck to be walking just as the train hit a bumpy spot of track.
Pegasus Lane had had the right idea with his book. I should have brought something to read for when the boredom inevitably set it.
My mind went back to the Manehattan taxi system, and while I'd come up with a few ideas about how it worked, I had no satisfactory answers and I resolved that when I was back in town I was going to pay more attention to the ponies I saw. At least they had a lot of color variation which ought to make it a bit easier to tell if I kept seeing all the same ponies in the same places.
The one that had pulled me to the train station would certainly be an obvious one. I’d never seen another pony quite like her.
We passed through another little bit of forest near the top of a hill, and then the train dropped down again, and I managed to remember that my stop was either the next one or the one after it. The conductor had made multiple announcements, but I'd sort of stopped paying attention to them. I was sure he'd remember where I was supposed to get off the train, but what if I did forget? Would I be kicked out at the next stop? Would anyone notice? Would I have to pay extra before they'd let me off the train?
What if I didn't have the money? Would I have to pay off my debt by peeling potatoes in the dining car—if the train had one—or more likely shoveling coal in the locomotive? Given the sort of informal attitude ponies seemed to have, maybe you could ride for free if you shoveled coal. Maybe not on a train, since if you weren't very good at it, the train would go nowhere, but what about the cruise ships?
That was probably a silly idea. Nopony would want to have a trip at sea where they only got to enjoy the engine room.
“Next stop, Greenock!”
That was my destination.
Most of the stops were kind of slow, since the locomotive had to take on more water, which meant that ponies didn't queue up at the exits, so I stayed in my seat until the train had come to a full stop. I remembered to get my suitcase and as I exited the train, I almost asked the conductor which way to the inn, but then I remembered that he probably didn't know. His view of the world was likely just the train station and anything that was in eyeshot of the tracks.
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um, expected name change?
9004498
Oops, missed one of them.
Personally I've always referred to them as chauffeurs, although for sedan chairs they were referred to as porters or chairmen.
Now you've piqued my curiosity and not gone anywhere with it.
That seems rather cheap.
Take London, the official city of London (the square mile) has a population of less than 10K, the greater London metropolitan area about 8.5 million people.
It's interesting they have both canals and railways. Britain spent a whole lot of money during the early industrial revolution putting together a canal system only for the invention of railways to more or less kill it all off in about 50 years.
That a clever use for a magic rope, although I do wonder if it would work better if you had a big funnel into the tank so that a single large cloud could be emptied into the tank at once rather than using several small ones. Maybe it would end up to wide to pass through tunnels or the cloud might be to large for a single pony to control.
I take it June is the month of trains ?
I wonder if the Taxi Driver was a siren or other water based species, given usually different motions are for other form sizes and densities of fluid?
Be glad the train calls into town, round here the station can be a mile out and 500 foot down. In fact, the local station actually had a 20 foot ladder for people to climb up to the road, at the top of the hill, because that road was built crosswise over the origional 1 in 3 climb to the Top o Town. If you think thats bad? shortly after that main road carves round the side of the cliff with easily a 100 foot plus drop straight down to the river. The near 500 foot drop is a town a few miles away. Both stations and lines have long been lost.
Rolled his eyes.
No blog post? WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH ADMIRAL BISCUIT?
9004689
The anger and discontent caused by inner city traffic would be an effort free buffet for a Siren.
9004553 Naturally, I suspect chernglerngs!
Well, I just discovered this story and read all the way through it. It's nice to have another funny Slice of Life story from you, so I'll keep an eye on this one. See you next time!
Okay perhaps it seems obvious, but I love the way you highlight the world differences as much as the similarities. Speaking of which:
You waxed lyrical and then gave us nothing else about her? I know that's life, but now you're just teasing! Hopefully you'll come back to her.
9004553
Chauffeur is pretty good, although to me it gives an image of a fancy suit and hat and maybe a more fancy carriage, too.
The gait is called a tölt. That was going to come up in the blog post, but here it is:
It's a gait that Icelandic horses have, which I believe is unique to them.
The furthest back I could easily find records is NYC in 1948, where it cost 20¢ for the first 1/4 mile and 5¢ per 1/4 mile thereafter. Prior to that, it was of course cheaper.
Now I'm kind of curious which city/metro area has the greatest population disparity.
The US had some canals on the East Coast which also disappeared due to the railroads. I figure that the same thing would happen in Equestria, and there'd certainly be a period of time when both systems were in use.
A larger cloud would likely require more ponies to move it around and get it where they wanted it. Also, it's possible that these clouds are weather rejects being reused in the water tower.
9004629
Just sort of a coincidence. Also, for what it's worth, this story arc was started before Marathon, and then got set aside so I could finish that.
9004689
Nope, she's a pony.
I actually like the idea of there being a ladder to the road. Although that's probably problematic when you've got luggage.
9004711
Correction made; thank you!
9004785
I was going to do it at the end of this story arc (there are four or five more chapters to go), rather than have one for each individual chapter.
9004789
They would be, although I can't help but wonder if the ponies who are doing their work in the traffic actually enjoy it?
9004801
Nope, she's not a chernglerng. Or a changeling, either.
9005251
Tomorrow! There'll be another update in the 'up north' arc tomorrow!
9005278
Thanks!
If you're really, really, really familiar with my work, you might be able to figure out who she is (even though she's never appeared in any of my stories).
Her strange gait is called the tölt, and it looks like this:
Aw, I wish we'd find out more about the unicorn cabbie.
My reader always downloads the first published version, so I'm always thrown by edits when I go online to comment. (Especially need to check if the typos are actually still there before pointing them out!)
(Or before mentioning "Olsen" sounded kind of like a Project Sunflower reference.
)
9005422
Man, everyone wants to! Her weird gait is a tölt (see the comment above yours for a video of a tölt), and as I said to someone else earlier, if someone's really, really, really familiar with my stories, they might figure out who she is.
Those have both been fixed by now (but I'll look again); they were both found and commented on by other readers.
It's not; Pegasus Olsen is a canon character, and was originally going to be Joe's seat-mate, but then I thought it would be funnier if it were a stallion because it might lead one to wonder just where Joe put his hand.
gamesmylittlepony.com/images/files/1155.jpg
9005398 Hey thanks, that is a fascinating gait (and a really pretty horse). I've seen this gait somewhere before, but I had to download the vid to actually see how it worked. Amazing.
And wow she really wanted to gallop, and broke out a couple of times.
I'm steadily making my way through all of your work I've missed, but it's slow-going so it may take time before I recognize her (or I just don't recall).
9005385 (eyenarrows) Of course ANOTHER chernglerng would deny chernglerng involvement! (points at you and alerts the others of his kind)
9005383
It would give them a chance to stop and chat to whoever ends up nearby.
Plus if the taxi's are paid by time rather than distance they're being paid to just stand around.
I too would like to know more about the golden-green taxi puller. In part hecause of the beautiful description, in part because the bandwagon amuses me.
Also, fascinating point I'd never considered before now: Given the Equestrian diet, it makes sense that they'd have large-scale flower farming.
9005583
I think (and I'd have to look it up) that the Tennessee Walking Horse has a similar gait, although it's not exactly the same. Apparently, the hooffalls are the same as in a walk, but the horse can do it at different speeds.
In my limited experience riding horses, once they start cantering, they want to gallop. Maybe it's the same with the tolt.
It's an older story, and she's actually not exactly in it, but it might be guessable from context. And don't feel bad for not having read it; even FoME hasn't (or forgot to comment on it if he did).
9005957
According to Horizon (who is not a changeling), I am also not a changeling. I don't know what more proof than that you need.
9006161
Exactly!
Taxis are probably paid by distance (delivery wagons and such would likely be time), but of course there's still the chance to gossip at taxi stands, the Thermopolium, and of course the jacks (future chapter).
9006876
Interestingly, you haven't read that story. Or if you have, you didn't comment.
Yeah, they'd totally do it. There are surely some ponies, even in Ponyville, who have reasonably large-scale flower farms.
A unicorn doing Earth pony work is certainly interesting...
9064509
Her father is a taxi pony, so she’s following in his hoofsteps.
Speaking of suburbs and metro areas. The Kanto Plain in Japan is pretty much all city at this point. Riding the train from one major metropolis to another it gets less dense but never stops being dominated by apartment buildings.
9082255
Southeast Michigan is a lot like that, around the Detroit Metro area. Runs about 40 miles or so west, I dunno how far north, and south most of the way to Toledo.