New York, New York
“That was Newark!” Charlie said triumphantly as they rolled over the biggest lift bridge Celestia had ever seen. “We’ve only got a few more miles to the city! And in record time might I add!”
Her head sticking out the window on the other side of the cab, Celestia let out a cheer. This was the most fun she’d had in centuries, and she wasn’t even at her destination yet!
Charlie laughed. “I think that’s the most thrilled anyone has ever been for Newark, coming or going!”
“I’m just so excited!” Celestia called out the window as they raced alongside another highway. The GG1 really was an eager greyhound of an engine, already urging Charlie to go faster. Of course, Charlie couldn’t feel the engine like Celestia could, so he kept the G to a steady speed as they rolled out of Newark, while Celestia felt like she was on a massive sugar rush as the engine’s excitement seeped through her hooves.
“I think she wants you to go faster!” she called back to Charlie.
Charlie glanced down at the control stand with some bemusement. He’d had a sinking suspicion that the magic pony princess might have some kind of connection with his locomotive - one he didn’t (or couldn’t) have. He’d driven 4902 many times before in his life, and while it had definitely been an eager engine before - always needing to be kept in check on fast express and mail runs - it had never been this… energetic before. Normally, he’d joke that the engine acted like a living being, like the old steam drivers said about their engines.
Now, he believed it. He’d seen more life out of this engine in the past two hours than he had in the last thirty years.
How did Asimov put it? Sometimes there was a ‘ghost in the machine’ - and apparently 4902 had more than a mere wisp of a spirit in it tonight.
Of course, now that he believed it, he had to deal with the fact that his engine was apparently a speed freak. “Does she now? Does she remember that there’s a speed restriction on Portal Bridge?” He asked bemusedly. Work crews had been shoring up the old swing bridge for most of the month, and his train orders had been very explicit in stating the maximum speed was 65.
“You’re no fun!” Came the shout from across the cab.
Charlie could practically hear the engine groan as he reduced speed to keep them underneath the restriction.
“Don’t you start.” He glared at the engine as if it could hear him. “You and I both knew this was here.” This was not a new restriction, and both man and engine had come through the bridge this afternoon.
As it turned out, the engine could hear him, and the ammeter clicked and popped petulantly as the G rumbled over the bridge in question.
“Don’t you get cute with me.” Charlie said, more surprised than anything. “You’re older than me - act like it!”
Across the cab, Celestia pulled her head into the cab to stare at him, her eyebrow raising.
“What?”
“Pot, meet Kettle. I believe all three of us saw that commuter train in Philadelphia.”
The GG1’s blower motors kicked on at that moment in a very accusatory manner, leaving Charlie feeling like he was definitely being outnumbered. “Why don’t you both put a sock in it.” He eventually said with no malice.
Celestia smirked in victory as the train rounded the next curve, revealing: “There’s a tunnel?”
“Oh yes. Once we’re through that we’re in New York! You’ll get your pizza soon enough!” Charlie announced as they rolled into the tunnel portal.
Now enveloped in the sudden darkness of the tunnel, Celestia blinked. She’d quite honestly forgotten the whole reason she’d boarded the GG1 back in Philadelphia. She wanted pizza - to soothe her deeper emotional turmoil under a layer of delicious cheese and a satisfying feeling of being in control of her own life for a few hours.
I should talk to somepony, shouldn’t I? She asked herself as the GG1’s headlight strobed over the tunnel walls.
Newark
“What do you mean she isn’t on the train!?”
“I mean that she isn’t there. She was not on board. We searched every carriage, and came up with no Princess. Logically, this means that unless she was able to turn invisible and intangible, Princess Celestia is not on board this train.”
“Well if she’s not on this train, then where the hell is she?”
“I wouldn’t know. That’s why we’re looking for her.”
“Well what the hell are we supposed to do now? Start searching Chinatown buses?”
“That sounds like an excellent idea, Agent DeCiccio. I’m so glad you volunteered for that duty!”
“What?! Hell no! I already got the shit job already once-”
“You stood on a platform and did nothing.”
“-And now you’re gonna make me look through a bunch of buses full of Chinks? Who put you in command?”
“Considering that Princess Celestia is my charge, and my rank is the equivalent to a Lieutenant Colonel in your military, I would say that I am the one who put me in command. Now go find an omnibus and search it!”
New York’s Penn Station was an enormous complex of tracks, trains, and wires. Even at the late hour, there were trains bustling to and fro in seemingly every direction. Celestia was forced to keep her numerous questions about the complex to herself, as Charlie had picked up the radio receiver as they’d left the tunnel, and hadn’t been able to put it down since, a steady flow of directions from the dispatcher keeping him occupied as the engine clattered across numerous switches and cross tracks.
Celestia was certain that if she showed a photograph of this place to Round Wheel, her transport minister, he’d likely have a coronary on the spot. This was one of the most advanced pieces of railway infrastructure she’d ever seen, and if the GG1 was to be believed, it had once been even larger.
Humans are incredible, she thought to herself, not for the first time.
They slowly rolled past an empty train on another platform, Charlie sounding the locomotive’s bell in greeting to the train’s crew, who waved back from the cab of their own GG1.
Charlie finally hung up the radio as they swept past another signal, this one three lights in a diagonal pattern, and clattered across a few more undulating stitches, before the massive station vanished from sight as they rolled into yet another tunnel.
“I thought that was New York?” Celestia asked as they moved away from the station.
“That was Penn Station. We gotta go through the tunnel and then we’ll be at Sunnyside. That’s in Queens. Right now we’re in Manhattan.”
“All right.” Celestia paused for a moment. “Wait. Isn’t there a river between Manhattan and the other boroughs?”
“What do ya think we’re underneath?”
Celestia’s astonished silence lasted until the train burst through the other end of the tunnel in Queens.
Queens
Arriving in Queens was, if anything, a bit of an anticlimax. The train yard was massive, stretching off into the distance just as Penn Station had before it, but Charlie had been directed to park on one of the tracks closest to the tunnel entrance, meaning that Celestia wasn’t able to gawp like a schoolfilly at more human infrastructure.
Pulling the locomotive to a stop beside another GG1, this one in faded dark green with a gold stripe down its side and small letters that read “New Jersey Department of Transportation”, Charlie dropped the pantograph and tied down the brakes. Celestia felt the GG1 sigh in disappointment as the electricity left it; it wasn’t the same lump of lifeless metal that she’d boarded in Philadelphia, but it was close - now the engine felt like she did at the end of a long day in the palace - drained and tired.
She followed Charlie out of the cab and onto solid ground for the first time in two hours.
“Well your majesty, I said I would get you to New York City, and get you there I did.” Charlie said as he inspected the locomotive for mechanical problems. “Now, if you go about two blocks north from here, there’s gonna be a place that says “Carmello’s” on a big neon sign. It’s the only 24 hour pizza joint around - tell ‘em I sent you and they’ll take care of you.”
Celestia smiled warmly. “Thank you, for everything you’ve done tonight.” She said, before reaching up to nuzzle the human. “If you ever make it out to Equestria, come by the palace - you showed me your world, so it’s only fair that I show you mine.”
She lit her horn, and an engraved invitation dropped into Charlie’s hand in a shower of magical sparks.
“Was the least I could do, really.” Charlie said, smiling broadly as he carefully slipped the invitation into a coat pocket.
“The least you could have done was left me on the platform,” The princess countered. “This went above and beyond. You’ve made a friend tonight, Charlie. I won’t forget this.”
Charlie was temporarily rendered speechless by the sheer genuinity in her voice, giving Celestia an opening to turn to her other saviour on this night.
“And you,” She said, turning to the GG1 with the same level of warmth and friendliness. “Have been just as important to me on this night. I will not forget you either.” She nuzzled the GG1’s front as best she could, drawing a quiet ‘ding’ from the locomotive’s bell.
Charlie felt his eyebrows recede into his hairline at that, and behind him he could hear a surprised sounding click come out of the other GG1 behind him. An obvious proof of life from his engine was not what he - or the other engine - was expecting.
Celestia straightened up from the GG1, and with a final “Goodbye!”, spread her wings and took to the air. Charlie watched as she threaded the catenary cables over the yard, and followed her until she disappeared from sight.
Gathering up his things, he made to leave - to turn in his train orders and officially sign off on 4902 for the night. He made it about ten steps away from it and the NJT G - 4883 - before he stopped and turned around, glaring at both engines sternly.
“So, were either of you gonna tell me that you were like this?” He questioned the locomotives. “Or was this something you were gonna just sit on forever? Because there’s been a lot of things you could have told me!”
He directed this statement especially at 4883. His first ever driving assignment had been on that engine all the way back in ‘49, and he’d managed to stall the damn thing on a rainy day outside of Lancaster by making every rookie mistake in the book. If that engine could have told him how to not screw up and didn’t, he’d be quite upset with it.
Silence fell over the railyard for a long moment, long enough to make Charlie think that maybe he was going crazy, before the green GG1’s marker lights lit up softly. He got the distinct feeling that the locomotive remembered that little incident, and was a bit embarrassed by it.
He sighed dramatically. These engines were older than he was and yet insisted on acting like his daughter when she got caught with her hand in the cookie jar. “I suppose that’s the best I’m gonna get out of you two, isn’t it?”
Both engines blinked their marker lights before going dark again. Charlie chose to take that as a yes.
“You’re both incorrigible.” He said, somewhat at a loss for words as he trudged off to the yard office. “Just, go to sleep - we all have trains in the morning.”
Two Blocks Away
The staff at Carmello’s All-Night Pizzeria had seen a lot of things in their time: standard things like drunks, late night workers from the nearby rail yard, and cops looking for a good slice before dawn. There was also the odd stuff: hookers, addicts, nutcases, and even the occasional stray dog that would beg for scraps at the back door - it was the way of New York City, to have all the crazies come out at night
That being said, crazy did not begin to describe what happened when a flying horse dropped out of the sky and landed on 30th street. Diego, the Honduran delivery boy who was obsessed with horses, began swearing rapidly in his native Spanish when the horse landed, and didn’t stop doing so until the horse turned and walked into the open door of the pizza shop.
She was a beautiful white mare, with massive wings tucked up at her sides. Lonnie, the cook, was almost ready to begin wondering exactly where such an animal would have come from when the horse looked at the menu and then ordered a large cheese pie to go.
That stopped all conversation in its tracks for the duration of the purchase as Diego quickly processed the mare’s transaction, boxed up the pizza, and rang her up.
The fact that the horse paid with a piece of gold worth well more than the pizza was somewhat overshadowed by the fact that she levitated it to Diego.
She then left, leaving Diego and Lonnie standing in an empty pizzeria as she flew away to wherever it was she’d come from.
“Did any of that just happen?” Lonnie eventually asked. “Or did someone dose me when I wasn’t looking?”
“No, la pinche princesa caballo nadamas entró aquí.” Diego said, so shocked by what had just happened that he forgot how to speak English.
Stats
Page generated in 0.03 seconds
Total duration
872 users online
1,302,661 hits today, 2,280,440 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it further.
What’s really amazing about those huge interlocking plants was that all the switches were once controlled manually from the tower by some dude with a big lever . . .
I couldn’t find a pic of Penn Station’s tracks in its glory days, but here’s what Sunnyside Yard looked like back in the day:
i.redd.it/uh198zwll3121.jpg
Best part is definitely Charlie talking to his engines like a pair of misbehaving schoolgirls. And Celestia got her pizza! Huzzah!
For anypony that doesn't speak Spanish, that roughly translates to "No, the f
ing princess horse just came in here."
Hidden world, all around us.
Bwahahaha
Have these pizza shop guys been completely ignoring the biggest news in 50 years if not 5000?
It is now my head canon that ponies cause minor sentience upon large machines.
10586565
They're graveyard shift workers, it's really easy to get way behind on news like that. Especially in the days before the internet was around.
It's the most thrilled anyone has ever been for New Jersey.
10586732
Yes!
I Iove that railroad locomotives have minor sentience in this story (minor as in, can't drive themselves and need drivers and workers to go anywhere).
google translated that to - No, the princess horse swims came in here
What does the 'swim' part supposed to mean (flew?)
10659627
I like to think that the magic that has been brought over by the ponies brings certain thing in the human world that have had blood, sweat and tears put into them to life as for one thing the newer trains are not seen to have life by celestia while the older ones which were made by many people do have life.
Fuuuuck you dude. :/
10660578
I got “No, the fucking Princess horse just came in here.”
Wait, how old is Charlie if the GG1s are older than he is? If he started piloting them in '49, wouldn't he have to have been born before 1930, probably before 1925?