A ride on the wrong train opens a whole new world for the CMC and two unlikely new friends when they meet a little tank engine and a her colorful coworkers.
In every possible sense of the word, Equestria is a magical land. But what happens when five fillies discover that magic doesn’t just extend to ponies, but to the trains as well? Join five familiar filly’s as they explore and crusade over the open rails, searching for their cutie marks with the help of a trainyard full of new friends as they travel to new places, and find even more trouble along the way.
Inspired by both My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and the Railway Series created by the Reverend W. Awdry. This is not a crossover in the sense of two universes meeting, but a story set in the land of Equestria to the timeless tone of talking engines with personalities as colorful as their paint.
Tagged for alternate universe due to Crusaders of the Lost Mark.
WARNING!: Currently undergoing rewrite/revamp, resulting in a number of continuity errors between chapters. Updated Chapters will be marked UPDATED, until all current chapters have been updated.
It’s not every day you have the chance to visit the capital of your country with not one but both of your best friends and your superhero-celebrity older siblings. So naturally when Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo realised that Applejack, Rarity and Rainbow Dash were all going to Canterlot on the same day on the same mid-morning train, The Cutie Mark Crusaders jumped at the chance for a day wandering through the majesty and magic of Equestria’s capital.
Truth be told, when they asked their siblings if they could tag along, not one of the three were expecting a yes as their answer. They were quite surprised, but overjoyed nonetheless. Thus began a day of excitement and friendship, of tourism and travel through monuments and all the overpriced knock-off souvenir stands attached. All in all, it was a good day, great even, one that came to it’s final stretch at Canterlot’s huge train station.
“But don’t y’all go wander’n off now,” Applejack said.
“Stay close dears,” Rarity told them.
“And try to keep up,” Rainbow Dash bragged.
….Right. That worked for all of five minutes.
“Ah horsefeathers where are they?!” Scootaloo shouted, trying and failing to hover above the crowd of ponies milling about Canterlot Union Station, falling back down beside her fellow Cutie Mark Crusaders.
“Just relax everypony,” Sweetie Belle said, who between her pinprick pupils, trembling legs and flattened ears looked the most terrified of any of them. “All we have to do is wait here and eventually they’ll find us.” This of course involved sitting still, and didn’t sit well with a certain orange pegasus filly.
“Eventually my blank flank! We need to get to higher ground so we can see them.”
“Quiet!” Apple Bloom yelled for all her tiny lungs were worth. “I’m trying ta remember what train our tickets were fer.”
Train tickets of course list not only the train’s departure and destination points, but also when and at what platform they depart. As it would happen though, the Curse of the Crusaders had chosen now of all times to strike again, and boy did it. After a whole day of tagging along with Rainbow, Applejack, and Rarity in Canterlot, the three filly’s had lost sight of their big siblings just before their train back to Ponyville was about to leave. Canterlot’s train station was already huge, so losing sight of the three mares was unfortunately easy. And between Apple Bloom holding her ticket in her teeth and getting spit on it, Scootaloo dropping hers in a puddle, and Sweetie Belle spilling a cup of water on hers, none of their tickets read anything more than a few inky smudges. All they knew was it was now 2:51, and their train was leaving at 3:00.
“Otay let's think,” Apple Bloom sighed, realizing none of them were going to remember anytime soon. “We know the train’s gonna be leav’n soon, so let’s looks fer trains ready to pull out.”
“And,” Sweetie Belle chimed in. “Look for that fancy passenger car on the back.” No sooner had the words left her muzzle than all three crusaders heard the shout.
“Aaalllll ah-bo-Aard!!” Before Apple Bloom or Sweetie could object, Scootaloo took off toward the conductor’s voice.
“Come on!” Apple Bloom shouted, grabbing her saddle bags in her mouth and slinging them onto her back. Sweetie Belle tucked her ears and ran after her, immediately regretted bringing Rarity’s hand-me-down bags. She barely managed to keep Apple Bloom in sight, never mind the orange pegasus filly hover hopping through the crowd well ahead of them.
When they reached the platform, the train was already leaving, bell ringing and steam billowing from the front as the engine started the long line of coaches and box cars. It looked just like the train that had brought them to Canterlot, from the old clanking Amareican type steam engine with its funny balloon shaped funnel up front, to the fancy gleaming emerald observation car with dark red stripes on the end. Scootaloo jumped up onto the observation car’s open porch and opened the chain gate in the railing. Soon all three crusaders had jumped aboard and were watching the station and Canterlot Castle disappear around the bend as the train wound its way down the mountain. That left Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle catching their breath alongside a pegasus filly who was feeling very, very proud of herself.
“Hah! And you two thought we’d miss the train.” Scootaloo had her tiny wings out as far they would reach, prancing and strutting like a peacock. “Once again quick thinking and even quicker reflexes saves the day.” Apple Bloom was starting to think what her big sister said about Rainbow Dash being a bad influence on Scootaloo was right, when Sweetie Belle managed to open the door into the coach.
“Gah-lee,” Apple Bloom gasped as they stepped inside, hooves sinking into a plush deep purple rug. The inside of the car was covered in carved wood finish that shined in the light streaming in from the coach’s wide windows. At the back was what looked like a series of compartments and rooms, which could’ve held anything from an office to a bathroom, or an indoor pool as Scootaloo imagined. The crusaders however, were most focused on the booth seats just right of the door, where two earth pony fillies were sitting at a white crystal table and sipping lemonade. Two filly’s the Cutie Mark Crusaders knew all too well.
“Oh look Silver Spoon,” Diamond Tiara snorted. “It’s the Blank Flank Brigade. What are you three doing in here?” She asked turning her nose up at them accusingly. “This is a private carriage.” Apple Bloom had a retort ready in her throat, but Scootaloo beat her to it.
“Not hard to imagine why. I can smell the snob from here.”
“How did you even get in here?” Silver Spoon asked, the insult having gone right over both rich filly’s heads.
“We jumped on,” Apple Bloom said matter-of-factly as she walked past the two spoiled filly’s to the other end of the car. “It was the only way we could catch the train fore it started back to Ponyville.”
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” None of the crusaders were expecting Diamond Tiara’s witch of the west laughter, and it didn’t seem her friend Silver Spoon had either. “That’s rich! A blank flank AND a liar!”
“What are you talking about?” Scootaloo asked, stepping back towards the two seated fillies.
“Diamond’s Daddy is in Canterlot on important business all day long,” Silver Spoon explained, fidgeting in her seat a little. “He said we could stay in the coach until he got back.” This confused Apple Bloom.
“Why would ya’ll want to stay in here when there’s so much to do in town?” And Diamond Tiara’s grin was nothing short of smug.
“Because Daddy just installed a jacuzzi in the bathroom.”
“NO WAY!” Scootaloo shouted, nearly deafening her earthy pony friend close by, and showering her in pinpricks of spittle.
“Ugh. Say it don’t spray it Scoots.”
“Sorry, but a hot tub on a train car? How awesome is that?!”
“Uh, everypony?” The four fillys looked to where Sweetie Belle was still standing in the car’s rear door, looking back behind their train. “I … don’t think this is the train to Ponyville.” Apple Bloom and Scootaloo walked up to her friend, and quickly realized what she was talking about.
“Hey you’re right Sweetie,” The orange filly gasped. “Foal Mountain’s on the wrong side!”
“What are you blanks talking about?” Silver Spoon asked, getting up and walking over to see whatever they had seen.
“Well,” the little Pegasus explained. “Rainbow Dash always told me if I ever get lost while I’m flying,”
“If you ever fly,” Diamond scoffed, but Scootaloo either didn’t hear her or for once managed to ignore her.
“All I have to do is fly until Canterlot is behind me and keep Foal Mountain to my back left. Look.” She pointed a hoof towards the distant but unmistakable peak of Foal mountain, standing to the right of Canterlot’s own shimmering peak. “We’re going north instead of south, totally the wrong way to get back to Ponyville.”
“HAH! Hear that Silver? Looks like the blank flank brigade has done it again. Not only did you losers get on the wrong train, you’re not even going to the right end of the country! Hahaha!”
“Uhh, Diamond?” Silver Spoon added nervously.
“Yes?”
“If they got on the wrong train, and are now headed away from Canterlot going the wrong way to get back to Ponyville, and we’re on the same train as they are, doesn’t that mean we’re on the wrong train too?” If the situation hadn’t been so panic inducing, it might have been funny how long it took the pink filly to realize what her friend had said, but when she did understand, her reaction was in a class all its own. Her eyes grew to take up three quarters of her face and her pupils less than a tenth of that, before Diamond Tiara’s scream nearly shattered the car’s windows.
“THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!” Sweetie Belle whimpered and tucked her ears against her head as Diamond Tiara raised her voice even higher. The little pink filly hadn’t stopped screaming since she realized she and Silver Spoon were now stuck with her three least favorite filly’s, and she wanted to make sure said fillies knew just how much she despised it. Unsurprisingly, she wasn’t the only one.
“How in the world is this OUR fault?” Scootaloo screeched back, her orange muzzle mere centimeters from the pink filly’s. “You’re the one whose fancy coach pulled out of the station and confused us!”
“It’s a Pullmare observation sleeper car you uncultured Blank Flank!”
“Prissy Pony!”
“Barbarian!”
“Daddy’s Girl!”
“Chicken!”
“QUIIEEEETT!!” Apple Bloom shouted so loud the end became a winy, if only to get a word in. “Does it really matter who’s ta blame here? Way I see it we’re ALL good’n lost now!”
“Not really,” Silver Spoon piped up, earning her the attention of the other four filly’s. “If we’re going northeast, that means we’re headed toward Manehattan on the old River Ridge Route. When the train left, was it pulling just passenger cars or some freight too?”
“Uh, both?” Apple Bloom answered, remembering the pair of painted box cars right behind the engine.
“All right, that means it’s a local service. We can talk to the conductor when the train stops at the next station, then he’ll have our coach uncoupled, and call a train to take us back to Canterlot.”
“Wow,” Sweetie Belle gasped with a tilt of her head. “How do you know so much about trains Silver?”
“My uncle Top Hat runs the Equestria North Eastern Railway,” She smiled proudly. “He’s the Controller for all the trains from Manehattan to Fillydelphia. If I’m right, our train’s going to make a stop at a station to drop off those freight cars and some passengers. I don’t remember the name, but I think it’s where the mainline connects with two branch lines.”
“Knapeford,” Diamond Tiara supplied, much to the surprise of the crusaders. “What? I know stuff too.” Scootaloo didn’t look like she entirely believed the spoiled filly, and Apple Bloom just stared at Diamond, who had now gone a whole five minutes without insulting anypony. Sweetie Belle though was more concerned about the situation at hoof.
“So how long until we get to the station?” She asked joining Silver spoon where the grey filly sat at the table.
“I’m not sure really. It’s not that far from Canterlot so it shouldn’t take us that,” A sharp whistle cut Silver Spoon off, and the filly’s felt the train jolt slightly as it began to slow. Scootaloo looked surprised they were stopping so soon, not realizing just how long she and Diamond had spent shouting at each other. The orange filly quickly hover hopped over to the window to get a better look at the station ahead, but had to squint hard to even see it.
Even when their train did pull in there wasn’t much to see. The station was little more than a pair of brick shacks and stone platforms on either side of the three track mainline, with a pair of switches criss-crossing the tracks and connecting them to two more sets of rails, one behind each of the two buildings.
The engine pulling their train huffed and hooshed as it pulled the box cars and coaches over the switches and onto the track behind the right-hoof station building, only letting it’s passengers out once the observation car was clear of the switches and mainline. As the old locomotive uncoupled itself and slowly rolled off into the yard, the crusaders went out onto their coaches rear deck for a better view. Apple Bloom’s eyes wandered across the small freight yard behind the station and smiled when she saw a pair of four wheel box vans painted with the mark of Sweet Apple Acres. They were sitting near the dark stone engine shed, where a dusty tender engine sat quietly in one of the berths as a small tank engine puffed its way across the yard.
“Kinda small ain’t it,” Scootaloo remarked, hopping off onto the platform. Looking at the tiny station’s buildings, Apple Bloom had to agree.
“It don’t look much bigger than Ponyville’s station, just brick instead'a wood. An come ta think of it,” she said turning a confused look toward Silver Spoon. “Ain’t stations usually built near a town? All I see’re trees.”
“Yes,” Silver Spoon clarified, adjusting her glasses. “But this is really just a Junction. Look.” She pointed with her hoof to another line of tracks splitting off from the main double tracks just outside the station, running off between a pair of hills before vanishing into the tree line.
“That’s the branch line to Hollow Shades. If there’s any passengers or freight that needs to go there, the mainline trains stop here, and lets the ponies and goods off. Then they wait until a train from the branchline comes to take them on to Hollow Shades.” Sweetie Belle couldn’t help but be impressed.
“That’s really smart.” Scootaloo was another story though.
“So, what? Do the trains have to stop at every station then? What if somepony needs to get to Manehattan really fast?”
“I think that’s what the Ex-pess trains are for,” Sweetie Belle added, which Silver Spoon quickly corrected.
“I think you mean express.”
“Yeah that! I remember Rarity one time complaining about Rainbow Dash making her late for her train to Canterlot and missing the Express to Manehattan.”
“Exactly,” The grey filly smiled. “Those trains only carry passengers and mail, and only stop at a few stations. They’re really fast, but kind of expensive too. I rode the Fillydelphia Flyer a few months ago, and everything there was suuuuper fancy.”
“So,” Apple Bloom nodded, still mulling over the first half of Silver Spoons explanation. “That’s the line to Hollow Shades. What about that other’un over there?” The farm filly couldn’t help feeling bad when Silver Spoons mood immediately deflated, reminding her of her sisters first time trying to make an Apple Souffle.
“I’m uh, not really sure where the other one goes,” she admitted when there was a hiss of steam from behind them, then a voice.
“That’s the line to Neighagra Falls.” All five fillies turned to look at the little tank engine now sitting behind their coach, voice cheerful and sweet like her face. She had only four small wheels, each painted the same plain black as her boiler and the small bunker behind her open cab. Her side tanks were small and squared, with the number 1311 picked out in slightly faded white paint. They sat low astride her boiler and tall slim dome, well behind her tall narrow funnel. Despite her drab paint She was a beautiful engine, petite yet balanced in her proportions, but the moment the filly’s looked at her, she gave a fearful squeak and vanished in a cloud of steam.
“Hey!” Diamond Tiara quickly jumped back into the coach, managing to draw the attention away from the timid tank engine.
“What’s up with her?” Scootaloo asked looking after the little pink earth pony before Silver Spoon answered.
“Diamond doesn’t like getting wet. It makes her mane turn all frizzy.”
“I’m so sorry,” The engine gasped. “I didn’t mean to, I just.”
“Woooow.” Sweetie Belle couldn’t help but walk around the engine, and her quality time with Rarity had taught her to recognize elegance when she saw it. “You’re so pretty.”
“Um, thank you?” The tank engine said nervously, as Apple Bloom trotted up to her buffers.
“Huh, I didn’t know engines could talk.”
“Usually only our drivers and fire-pony’s can hear us,” The tank engine explained as the steam cloud dissipated and Diamond Tiara peeked her crowned head back outside. Scootaloo hovered up onto the engine’s front footplate.
“What’s your name?” The little engine started to stammer an answer, before she could another pony came ambling up alongside her, watch chain jingling against his buttoned up shirt and blue uniform.
“Ello? What’s going on here?” He asked, medium grey coat nearly matching the wisps of steam escaping the little engine’s cylinders as his thick short beard captured some of the moisture. His muted colors only served to draw more attention to his cutie mark, a silver train whistle surrounded by a spattering of golden flecks. “Lilly, why haven’t you sorted out these cars yet?”
“Sorry Mr. Conductor Sir, I was talking to these filly’s and I got distracted.”
“Filly’s?” He pondered, glancing around before looking down at the five in question. “Oh. Ello there.” Apple Bloom was about to say hi back, but the conductor’s eyes immediately went to the observation car in front of Lilly and ground his teeth together.
“Well this certainly wasn’t on the manifest. I swear it never fails with those dimwit dispatchers. Cant’ they organize a train that’s not one of their precious Limiteds?”
“Um, Mr. Conductor?” Silver Spoon pipped up, walking over and sitting down in front of the old earth pony. “My name’s Silver Spoon, and my, uhhh,” She hesitated a moment, feeling Diamond Tiara’s eyes on her, but swallowed the awkward lump. “Friends and I kind of got on the wrong train. For some reason this train took our coach from the station when it shouldn’t have.”
“Yeah,” Apple Bloom finally spoke. “And we got on thinking, well.” She shot a withering glare back at Scootaloo, more than enough to make her big sister proud. “A certain somepony thought it was the train back to Ponyville.”
“Ahh,” The conductor sighed putting a hoof to his chin. “So you’re the missing coach everypony’s talking about. Well, that solves one mystery.”
“Yay!” Sweetie Bell cheered as the five filly’s moods brightened considerably. “Now we can get a train to take us back to Canterlot!”
“I’m afraid not.” The conductor’s words popped the newly inflated moods like an old balloon, and Lilly couldn’t help but feel sorry for them. “The Sun Racer is due from Manehattan, and there’s a freight heading up from Fillydelphia. If we let you out on the line now, you’d clog the road. Lilly dear,” He said turning to the little tank engine. “See that this coach is stowed by the sheds until the express’s gone through. We don’t want it getting mixed up in any more trains.”
“Yes sir.” Lilly coupled up and prepared to pull the coach away, but before she could Scootaloo hovered up the conductor.
“Wait, what are we supposed to do? Just wait in there until it’s time to go?”
“I’m sure the refreshment mare could use some help feeding the passengers until their train is ready to depart,” He said casting a worried glance across the train yard to where the old engine that had pulled the train from Canterlot was being looked over by its crew. “Celestia knows old Jeff isn’t the same engine he used to be.”
“Booooring,” The orange Pegasus groaned, her scowl matched by an equally despondent Filly.
“What she said,” Diamond Tiara sighed, eyes widening in shock when she realized what she had said and hoping nopony had noticed. But Apple Bloom had heard her, and it gave her a dangerous, all too common for her, idea.
“Actually, I think we’ll just wait inside.” She smiled and hopped back up into the coach, giving her fellow crusaders a roll with it wink as she went. Sweetie Belle shrugged as Scootaloo hesitantly hopped back on board. The Conductor could only blow his whistle and wave them off, letting Lilly pull the coach away from the train and back across the points before puffing and pushing the streamlined car forward into the yard toward the sheds.
“Okay what gives?” Scootaloo asked rounding on her friend. “Why are we back in here instead of outside?”
“Because,” the yellow filly smirked. “We’ve already tried to earn out cutie marks in baking.” It took a moment for the orange Pegasus filly to realize what her fellow crusader was implying, still sooner than Sweetie Belle, who had a jarring flashback to the aforementioned crusade in Sugar Cube Corner’s kitchen.
‘So much flour,’ the unicorn filly shuddered, before the gears clicked into place, and she joined Apple Bloom and Scootaloo in their excited smiles
“Oh great,” Diamond huffed down her muzzle. “Look out Silver, the blanks are at it again.”
“At what again?” Lilly asked from outside as they trundled over a set of points.
“Earning our cutie marks,” Sweetie Belle answered gleefully. “We’ve never tried getting them in a train yard before.”
“Eeeyup,” Apple Bloom smiled. “And like my big bro always says, no time like the present! Who knows, maybe today we’ll finally find our special talents!” Diamond Tiara scoffed.
“Yeah, shoveling coal maybe.” Lilly didn’t like the way Diamond was acting toward the three louder fillys but she kept quiet about it as she shunted their coach into a siding beside the yard’s engine shed. Then she left to shunt the rest of the train still waiting at the platform, whistling back.
“Well, stay out of trouble! I’ll be back as quick as I can!”
“Okay,” Scootaloo shouted back from the car’s porch railing, before turning back with a devious grin. “Now, where to start?” Sweetie Belle’s expression and voice was much less intimidating as she turned to Silver Spoon.
“Silver, you know a lot about trains. What kind of jobs are there to do in a train yard?” Diamond’s eyes shot open in sudden glee, then turned to panic when she realized what was about to happen, but she couldn’t stop her friend.
“Well, there’s drivers and fire-ponies to run the trains obviously,” she started sitting back on her haunches and adjusting her glasses. “Then there’s the switch pony’s, the station master, conductors, ponies to clean and oil the engines, but usually the drivers and firepony’s do that themselves. Pony’s that check the rails, ponies to check the cars.” Every new job listed caused the grins of three fillies to grow and grow and grow until the inevitable finally happened.
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS RAILWAY HELPERS, YAY!!” But no sooner had the three fillies made their intentions known than a tired voice came through the walls.
“Cinders and ashes, what’s all that noise for?!” It took the filly’s a moment to realize it was coming from the engine shed next door, and before Diamond Tiara could say anything, the crusaders were out the door and away.
“Good riddance,” She huffed dropping back on her haunches and crossing her front hooves. “Let those blank flanks run off and get themselves in trouble. More lemonade for us right Silver Spoon?”
“ … ”
“ ... ”
“ ... ”
“Silver Spoon?” Diamond finally looked around when her best friend didn’t answer, and it only took a moment for her to realize the grey filly had followed the crusaders outside. “Silver! What, but, whu, buhjuh, arrrrrrrrrgghhh! Wait for me!”
Somewhere in Manehattan’s Grand Central Terminal, working comfortably at his office desk, a dull yellow earth pony in a top hat and neatly pressed suit sat up with a start, suddenly filled with incalculably overwhelming sense of dread for the safety of his railway.
Diamond Tiara dashed out across the coach’s deck and carefully hopped to the ground, wincing and scowling as she felt loose ballast on her carefully manicured hooves. Making a silent promise to take her revenge out of each of the Crusader’s pride, she looked around for any sign of Silver Spoon or the blank flank brigade. There wasn’t much to see though, being sandwiched between her Daddy’s railcar and the engine shed’s dirty outer wall. She felt a lump of panic start welling up her throat at the idea of being alone, before she recognized a tuft of purple tail hair sticking out around a corner ahead.
“Hey!” She yelled running up and around into the open air shed, nearly bowling over Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo and Silver Spoon. “What’s the big idea running off like that?! Do you three dunderheads have any idea just how easy it is to get lost in a railyard?”
“Oh do stop yelling,” The tender engine in the shed groaned, closing her eyes tight. “Can’t an engine have some peace?”
“Sorry Miss,” Sweetie Belle apologized looking up at the massive steamer. Her black painted boiler was wider than the rails she sat on, the hoof rails on the side nearly touching the shed wall. She had a short squat funnel, and two low rounded domes behind it. Just below her silver-grey smokebox was an odd barrel sat across her running hoofplate. A pair of small guiding wheels sat in front of eight medium sized drivers, with two more small wheels trailing under her firebox and high riding cab. Just below the cab windows the number 4116 was written in dark yellow-gold, standing out proud against her shining but in many places very dirty black paint.
“It’s all right,” the big tender engine sighed, her voice tired but still carrying a crisp northern tone. “It’s just been a while since I had much company.” Apple Bloom couldn’t close her mouth, bottom jaw hanging limp as she looked up and down the massive locomotive’s frame, from knuckle coupler to tender.
“I din’t know they made engines so darn big,” she gasped, her bow flopping backward as she craned her neck to look the steamer in the eyes. “You’re three times the size of any train ever comes to Ponyville!” The engine ‘s face dropped, not unlike Mrs. Cake when Scootaloo accused the mare of one too many taste tests. But before the big engine could even defend herself, Diamond scoffed down her snout.
“Please. A Pransylvania L1 Mikado is barely any larger than a standard pacific, and they’re much better on tractive effort.” Diamond cracked a victor’s smirk as the big engine beamed in gratitude, but withered when she realized the crusaders were all giving her the same incredulous look. “Um, uh, not that I would know of course but, uhh ...” The snobbish filly rubbed her neck, nervous enough to make Sweetie Belle look like a royal guardsmare. Just as Diamond had saved the big engine though, so did she return the favor.
“I can’t say I’ve ever been to Ponyville,” The big engine said thoughtfully, drawing the other filly’s attention off Diamond. “Oh but where are my manners? My name’s Mikaela, but most of my friends call me Mickey.”
“Nice to meet ya Mickey. I’m Apple Bloom.”
“Sweetie Belle.”
“Scootaloo’s the name, awesome is my game!” The big engine had to force her smile a little at the little pegasus’ intro, a complete contrast to the timid grey earth pony filly beside her.
“Um, my name’s Silver Spoon,” she finally squeaked out, earning a sudden look from Mikaela.
“Wait, is your Uncle Mr. Top Hat?” Silver nodded yes, earning a bright smile from the dusty mikado. “I thought you looked familiar! You rode the Fillydelphia Flyer with him a few months ago, didn’t you?” It took a moment, but Silver Spoon’s eyes soon lit up with recognition.
“Oh yeah! You were helping pull the train that day weren’t you? Wait,” she paused as another detail suddenly surfaced in her mind, one that only confused the little filly. “That was on the Ohayo and Alppacchan Mountain part of the line. What are you doing all the way up here near Hollow Shades?”
“Banking duty,” Mikaela groaned, ignoring the immature snort from two of the fillies arrayed around her knuckle. “Same fate as much of my class unfortunately. These ENER ponies do good work, but they’re just not quite up to the old Pransy Standards,” she sighed longingly. “So rather than keep testing my old parts with mainline runs, they’ve put me here helping other engines summit the hill. Not terribly exciting work, but better here than shut up in a tunnel somewhere.”
“Like how mah sister’n brother do with Granny Smith?” Apple Bloom asked with a tilt of her head. “AJ’s always tell’n her te take it easy so she don’t end up need’n another new hip.” Mikaela smiled, impressed by the filly’s young but quick mind.
“Something like that. I would like to be let out for mainline running again, but it’s probably best I enjoy the rest here for a bit. At least until head office lets me have some time in the shops. Wouldn’t want to run, myself … ” The mikado’s voice trailed off as her gaze left the five fillies, and the crusaders plus two followed the big engine’s gaze back to the sight of Lilly pushing their train's engine back into the sheds. “Into the rails,” she finished meekly as Lilly brought the older tender engine on her buffers to a gentle stop in the shed. “Gracious me,” Mikaela winced, looking the old steamer over. “They’ve certainly gotten their mileage out of you.” Lilly responded with a hiss of steam.
“Shhh,” she whispered as the conductor stallion climbed down from her cab. “Don’t be mean Mickey. Mr. Jefferson’s had a long day, and he deserves a good rest.”
“Old don’t always mean deaf you know,” The ancient looking amareican type groaned. A four wheel pilot truck creaked in front of four tall driving wheels, each moaning and clanking under the weight of his old stove pipe boiler. He still had most of his brass rail and trimming, but it was tarnished and weathered with age. His paint, the same black as Lilly, was mired in layer upon layer of dust, grime, and pock marked with more than a few spots of rusty red. Even his tender clanked, but it seemed nothing could quench the fire in the old steamer's heart.
“Sorry for the delay Sir,” he said looking at the conductor. “Just a little hitch in the ole chug along, nothing to fear. A few minutes rest and I’ll be right as rain on a summer sunset.” He let off steam, but what should have been a confident whoosh came out as a feeble wheeze. The conductor smiled at the old steamer's refusal to admit his age.
“Sorry Jeff, not today. I don’t doubt you could get the passengers to Hollow Shades, but we don’t want them worried the whole way there.” Jefferson couldn’t help but agree and cast an understanding but dejected look down, a complete contrast to the sudden look of hope on Lilly’s smokebox.
“Does … does that mean?”
“Clint will be along shortly to collect your train,” he finished without letting Lilly, the little black tank engine’s face falling like a stone. “He was already headed up with a load of timber for Neighagra. It’ll cause a slight delay, but with Mikaela being too heavy for the bridges east of the station, it’s our best option.” He turned on his front hooves to face the little tank engine still buffered up to Jefferson’s cowcatcher. “Lilly, there are a number of empties sitting in the yard: two fruit vans, three coal trucks, and a pair of tankers. Please collect these and arrange them on the ready track for pick up when Mike arrives with the goods connection.”
“Yes sir,” She muttered dejectedly, eyes never leaving her sleepers as the conductor ambled back to the station.
“Aw cheer up Kid,” Jeff smiled, trying to comfort the little tank engine. “You’ll get your chance one day, just wait and see. Why, I’ll bet ya Mr. Conductor asks you to take Clint’s empties back to Hollow Shades tonight.”
“Why should he?,” Lilly sighed. “I’d probably run out of water before the bridge.” She slowly puffed away to shunt more cars, leaving five very confused filly’s behind. Scootaloo watched her leave, then looked up at the old steamer.
“What’s up with her?”
“Lilly’s never really been outside a yard on her own,” Jefferson sighed. “All she wants is to pull a train down the line, but nopony in management will let her out of the yard. Her tanks are small you see, and don’t hold much coal or water. She can only go so far before she needs to fill up again.”
“Please,” Mikaela scoffed. “That’s poor pessimist logic at best. Terrance is always pulling trains between the mines on Foal Mountain and the Junction on his branch line, and he’s not much bigger than Lilly at all.” The freight engines' words surprised Jefferson.
“Well now, since when did you start singing the praises of the little engines? Why just last week you and those Manehattan pacific friends of yours said letting tank engines down the line was a waste of coal.”
“I respect useful engines that’s all,” she defended. “And since Lilly started working here as pilot, not one train has been late. She deserves to be rewarded, even if it’s only a short run.” Jefferson hummed an agreement, knowing Mikaela would never openly admit to growing fond of the little tank engine. Then however, the old steamer noticed something, or rather a few someone's, missing.
“Um, excuse me dear,” he said looking at Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, “But weren’t there three other fillies with you just a moment ago?” The rich filly’s twirled around, finding only faint hoof prints where the crusaders had been just a second prior.
“Oh no, not again.”
Lilly said nothing as she backed down on the sweet apple fruit vans, stopping as soon as she felt her buffers hit those on the freight cars. Once her firepony had hooked them together, she slowly pulled out of the siding, whistling to make sure the switchpony knew she was on the move. A quick stop, another whistle and she reversed back into the main departure siding just beside the line of coaches still resting in the station platform. As the vans clunked into the tank cars, Lilly uncoupled and went to fetch the next set of cars.
She found them on a dirty siding at the far end of the yard, the kind with weeds and tall grass grown up between the rails. She stopped in front of the siding and whistled, but the points remained against her. Her driver and firepony scratched their heads and were about to go to the signal box when Lilly heard the points groan and clank into place behind her. She looked left as she reversed onto the siding, and there were the crusaders, waving at her has she passed. Her driver slowly backed her into the siding, and as they passed she saw just how rusted the switch was.
“Thank you,” she smiled as she backed down and coupled up to the trio of rusty coal cars. “I don’t think the switchpony could’ve gotten that from his box.”
“No problem,” Scootaloo smiled back as she hopped up on Lilly’s front buffer beam even as her driver and firepony stepped down to inspect the cars. “Little gal’s gotta stick together right?” Apple Bloom nodded her head and bow when the orange filly’s words only earned confusion from the black tank engine, and Sweetie Belle could help but giggle at her expression.
"Mr. Jeff told us why the big ponies won’t let you pull a train, and we don’t think it’s fair.”
“But they’re probably right,” The little engine sighed, only to find an orange filly staring up at her defiantly.
“Horsefeathers! Even little ponies can do big things if they work together. You just have to prove to them that you’ve got what it takes. And the Cutie Mark Crusaders are gonna help you do that!” Lilly’s crew chuckled to themselves but said nothing and went about their work. The trio of coal cars had clearly not been touched in months, and they were taking no chances with the old brakes.
“But how? I already shunt everything they ask me to, and I’m never late. I never even so much as bump a single truck” She let off steam and resumed sulking. “I just don’t know what else I can do.”
“Hmmm.” Apple Bloom looked around, trying to think of ideas, but the crusaders had never helped a steam engine before, so not much of their experience, if one could call it that, translated very well. But then, Sweetie Belle spotted something.
“What’s that over there?” She asked and pointed with a hoof toward a set of cars sat on a long run around loop near the shed. Two long bogie flat cars sat between a pair of tall iron rail cranes, their booms nearly touching where they hung low over the cars between them.
“Mr. Jeff calls it the crane gang,” Lilly explained. “It’s supposed to help clean up accidents and get engines back on the rails, but all it really does is sit there.” Apple Bloom was already brainstorming ideas for how to use the cranes to help Lilly when the two last filly’s she wanted to see came running toward them.
“Aw crabapples,” She groaned and turned to face Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.
“There you are,” the tiara wearing filly yelled. “Just who do you think you are, running off and leaving us like that?” Scootaloo scoffed and sat down on Lilly’s buffer beam as Apple Bloom kept glaring at the pink filly.
“Not yer babysitters that’s fer sure.”
“Pah, as if we need you to look after us. I’m simply trying to keep you blank bunglers from causing any chaos for Mr. Conductor or the engines.” All this earned was an eye roll from the yellow filly and her fellow crusaders.
“Wow,” Scootaloo mocked with sarcasm thicker than tar. “And here I actually thought you cared about us.”
“Train yards are dangerous places,” Diamond said sternly. “Any number of things could go wrong if you’re not careful.”
“Oh yeah?” The orange Pegasus asked, leaping down from Lilly’s buffer beam and walking up to Diamond. “Like what?”
“I beg your pardon?” The pink filly asked with more steel than her eyes showed. Scootaloo smirked in a way Sweetie Belle wasn’t sure she liked, and jabbed a hoof toward the spoiled filly.
“Silver Spoon I get being a smarty pants. She’s got the look for it down to a capital geek.”
“Umm, thank you?” The grey filly answered hesitantly even as Scootaloo stepped even closer to Diamond.
“She knew we were going to stop here and that branch line name. But you.” Diamond’s knees started to wobble and sweat appeared beneath her tiara as a lump grew in her throat. “You knew exactly what kinda engine Mickey was the moment you saw her, what kinda coach we were riding in, and to top it all off you knew the station name when Silver didn’t even know exactly where it was.” The Pink Filly’s eyes grew with every word, her ears flattened back, and she only took a breath when the orange Pegasus had stopped.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say that you were a great. Big! Train loving ner!”
The sudden whistle cut everypony off, and snapped the attention of Lilly and her crew up toward the station and mainline. Another long blast shrieked out and Lilly gasped.
“That sounds like Mike!” The next blast was much closer, and the next one sounded dangerously so. Thinking quickly, the pony in the switch tower yanked back on her levers, flipping the switches away from the yard and back onto the mainline.
Not even a moment later, a black engine came screeching and tearing through the station, smoke pouring from his funnel and sparks flying from his wheels as a long line of freight cars thundered behind him. The engine and his brakes screamed all the way through and past the station, and even all the way across the yard Sweetie Belle could hear pony’s on the platform shouting at the rush of wind from the speeding train, the gust blowing some clean over. As quickly as he appeared Mike and his train were gone, vanished around the bend and into the distance.
“What the hay was that?!” Apple Bloom asked, ducking out from where she and a startled Silver Spoon had taken refuge from the noise behind Lilly, the tank engine anxious and worried.
“That was Mike and his freight train!”
“You mean the one Mr. Conductor warned us about?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“Yep,” Lilly's driver grimaced. “And it looks like those silly cars are up to their old tricks again. They love making trouble for no reason. Must have surprised him on the downhill grade after Canterlot.” Sweetie Belle looked toward the station then to the trail of smoke wafting through the air and tracing where the speeding train had just been.
“He’s going to be okay right?” She asked looking back at Lilly’s firepony, who put on his most confident smile.
“Mike? Well sure he’s young but he’s got a good head of steam in his boiler if you know what I,” He stopped when the confusion on the white filly’s face told him she didn’t, so he cleared his throat. “He’ll be fine. All he has to do is keep those little draconeqquus spawn behind him and on the tracks until Split’s Hill, and the grade will do the rest.”
Not three seconds later though, the sharp shrieking tone of an alarm rang across the yard from the switchpony’s tower. Lilly’s driver turned his head, and gave his firepony a look that asked and accused at the same time.
Somewhere between Manehattan and Hoofmouth junction, a long express train was thundering its way along the mainline. Cathrine, the big pacific express engine, prided herself on being one of the only engines fast and strong enough to keep up with the tight time tables of the Equestria North Eastern railway’s premier passenger train: The Sun Racer Limited. It was the only train that ran a round trip between two major cities in a single afternoon: leaving Manehattan for Canterlot at 2:30 sharp, and returning to Manehattan’s grand central terminal before sunset.
That was the real reason so many ponies, rich and not so rich took the train, because if the train wasn’t back in manehattan by sunset, the ride was free. Of course if you asked Cathrine, everypony rode the train to see her lovely fuchsia paint and gold stripes.
She felt her driver adjust the water level in her boiler, excess steam escaping from her cylinders as she steamed around a bend and through a station. She was speeding to make up time for a late start, so she was going so fast that by the time the staion master had raced outside her trains end was well out of sight. The stallion could only watch in horror as Cathrine blitzed under the signal gantry, her last coach passing underneath as the lights switched to dual red lights. Cathrine and her driver were now steaming up the long drag toward the highest part of the line, the hill that bore her name, and they had no idea what was waiting for them on the other side.
When the alarm rang out, it was followed by two sounds: The conductor’s rainbow of swearing, and the switchpony’s yelling through a simple megaphone. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo perked their ears up, their previous argument with Diamond Tiara forgotten as they listened along with the pink filly and Silver Spoon to the frantic shouting.
“Mike’s freight is off the line at the base of Cate’s Hill! All workers, report to the east platform immediately!” Sweetie Belle jumped slightly when she heard the conductor over by the engine shed, yelling to two stallions in dirty overalls and pointing to Jedidiah with his hoof. The stallions looked back at the old steamer hesitantly but then climbed aboard and soon steam was once again wheezing and hissing from Jedidiah’s cylinders.
“Come on Bunk,” Lilly’s driver said jerking his neck toward the station. “They’re gonna need all the help they can get.” The fire-stallion nodded and both took off toward the station building. Lilly cried after them that they had forgotten to put out her fire, but a sharp whistle from Jedidiah drowned her out completely. She and the five filly’s still standing beside her buffers could only watch as the old amareican pushed the crane gang out of its side track and across the yard to the station platform. Reversing back into the platform his tender was coupled to the front most coach, whose passengers had already been escorted out to make way for any available worker pony in the railyard. When every available railway employed hoof available save for the switch pony the conductor had piled onboard, Jedidiah gave a long whistle, steamed out of the station and headed onto the mainline. The worker’s coach had just rounded the bend when a scrawny unicorn came running out of the station building as fast as his hooves would carry him, only to stop and scream at the end of the platform.
“What’s he so upset about?” Apple Bloom asked as the unicorn ran toward the switch pony’s tower, leaping up the steps and yanking the door open with his magic. The switchpony, a clearly older unicorn mare came out and started talking to the younger stallion. Being across the train yard neither the filly’s or Lilly could hear the conversation clearly, but then the yellow farm filly noticed Diamond Tiara staring intently at the shouting pony’s, her lips moving slowly. Scootaloo looked at the spoiled filly and started to ask what she was doing, but Silver Spoon shushed her. The orange Pegasus looked ready to argue when Diamond finally spoke again.
“Called tower, rip track, Kate past milepost 68, High ball.” Apple Bloom was impressed.
“Dang. You got all that from just watching them?”
“How do you think I keep getting dirt on all the losers in school?” Any admiration the crusaders might have had was immediately quashed, sending Scootaloo right back into mocking mode.
“Yeah yeah, real impressive. Now what’s it all mean?”
“It means,” Lilly gulped. “That Cathrine and the express from Manehattan have just gone past the last signal before the hill at full speed!”
“But that means,” Apple Bloom started before the truth hit her like a ton of fruit. “That means they’re headed straight for that wreck on the other side!”
“We have to warn them!” Sweetie Belle yelled as Scootaloo tried and failed to hover above the thin tree line surrounding the yard.
“How?! Those guys must be miles down the tracks by now. Even if I had my scooter I couldn’t catch them.”
“B-but,” Silver Spoon stammered, “Can’t the big ponies deal with it?”
“I don’t think so,” Sweetie Belle groaned looking at the switch tower. “I’m pretty sure that’s the same kind of terrified out of their mind running around our neighbors do when a monster attacks Ponyville.”
“Aw horsefeathers.” Scootaloo kicked the gravel and tried fruitlessly to raise herself more than a few feet into the air. “If my wings were just a little stronger I could fly right to them!”
Fly. The word stuck in Apple Bloom’s mind, bouncing around like an unripe apple on the ground. She looked around the train yard and caught sight of Mikaela sitting in the shed, looking worried and bored.
“You rode the Fillydelphia Flyer a few months ago with him didn’t you?”
“Flyer,” The yellow filly mumbled before it clicked like a pair of well-oiled freight car couplings. “That’s it! Lilly!” She said whirling around to the little mulberry tank engine. “Do you think you could catch up with them?” The little engine was shocked at the farm filly’s suggestion.
“Ma-maybe. But I can’t go anywhere without somepony driving me, and all the workers left with the crane gang.” Apple Bloom wracked her brain for another solution, but it was Scootaloo who realized one, though she by no means liked it.
“Silver,” She said turning to the grey filly. “Can you drive a train?”
“N-no,” she squeaked, hesitating slightly before pointing a hoof at her best friend. “B-but Diamond can.” The Pink filly only had a moment to look betrayed before the little farm filly was shouting again.
“Then what are we waiting for?! You gals get Lilly rolling,” she said before turning to Scootaloo. “Scoots, help me flip the switches to let her out.”
“Aye aye captain!” The little Pegasus saluted running off with Apple Bloom to flip the switches by hoof. Diamond watched them gallop away until Sweetie Belle’s voice shouted at her from Lilly’s cab.
“Come on!” Almost by reflex Diamond hopped into the tank engine’s open cab as Silver Spoon scrambled back to uncouple Lilly from the coal cars. The pink filly’ face paled slightly at the dizzying array of gauges and levers, before confusion gave way to familiarity. She hopped up into the engineer’s seat and checked Lilly’s boiler pressure, but panicked a little when she saw the water gauge.
“The tanks are only half full! We’ll never get anywhere without any water!”
“I got it,” Sweetie Belle said jumping out of the cab and climbing up to Lilly’s left side tank. She opened the top and concentrated with all her might as a pale green aura grew over her horn. Diamond and Silver remembered enough from last month’s show and tell to know to duck, and hunkered down inside Lilly’s cab. But instead of a sparking explosion or fizzle, there was only the soft gurgling of water as Lilly’s tanks filled to near their tops. Diamond let water into Lilly’s boiler and watched as the little engines steam pressure climbed steadily.
“There,” The white unicorn gasped hopping back into the cab, mane frazzled slightly. She took a seat against Lilly’s coal bunker as Silver Spoon looked out across the rail yard to where Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were flipping the last switch needed.
“The road’s clear.” Diamond nodded to her friend and carefully opened Lilly’s throttle, letting the tank engine puff out of the siding and across the yard.
The switch-mare, who was now back inside in her tower frantically looking over the railway’s hoofbook for what to do, couldn’t believe her eyes when she finally looked up and saw Hoofmouth yard’s little 0-4-0 tank engine steaming out toward the main, a pair of young filly’s jumping aboard as she passed. By the time her hoof found the switch that would send Lilly back into the yard it was too late, and as the mulberry tank engine and her passengers puffed onto the main line, she gave a long almost victorious whistle.
In her cab, Diamond Tiara’s smile outshone her jeweled head piece by miles, another tug of Lilly’s whistle cord sending up another long blast. The crusaders had never expected to see their schoolyard tormentor having so much fun without teasing anypony. Silver Spoon knocked them out of it however, telling them Lilly’s fire needed more coal. A rhythm broke out in Lilly’s cab, Apple Bloom and Silver Spoon bucking coal from the bunker into tank engines firebox and Sweetie Belle using her magic to help Diamond Tiara adjust the gauges she couldn’t reach from the engineer’s seat, while a certain orange filly had scooted her way out of the cab and climbed out onto Lilly’s front buffer beam, her wings out and relishing in the growing wind.
Lilly was beside herself, smile growing and growing as Diamond opened her throttle, sending the little engine racing along the line at speeds she had only dreamed off. She might not have a train behind her, but she knew her job right then was even more important than pulling any freight cars. They kept gaining speed, blasting round curves, thundering down straightaways, and it wasn’t long before Lilly’s frames felt their speed in more ways than one.
“I’ve never gone this fast,” she groaned as they crossed a long stone viaduct over a dry gorge. Apple Bloom and Silver Spoon stopped shoveling as Diamond kept a close eye on Lilly’s boiler pressure and steam generation. As they rounded another bend in the mainline, Scootaloo spotted a tall hill ahead with twin ribbons of track running up its slope.
“I see the hill!” She cried from Lilly’s front, squinting her eyes against the wind, only for them to snap open wider than before. “Holy Hay and there’s the wreck!”
Cathrine groaned against the heavy weight of her train. It was always near the top of the hill she felt the coaches weight most. But her fire pony had built her fire up and she had plenty of steam in her boiler. Though not able to maintain their previous line speed, Cathrine was confident they could still make good time into Canterlot. She knew the slope coming down the other side was much steeper than the one she was climbing now, and the same weight she was fighting against now would help her gain speed and precious time back once they reached the summit. Maybe they could even manage to arrive in Canterlot ahead of schedule.
On the other side of the summit, Mike’s train had wrecked him just above the bottom of the hill, the silly cars using their out of control momentum to force him off the line on an inclined curve and into a line of old trees. Snapped trunks and branches lay all around, tumbled coal cars and telescoped box cars crushed under their weight, their piled up wreckage spilling over both of the mainlines double tracks. Mike was on his side, his two wheeled pilot truck buried and twisted in the piled up earth, while the side rods linking his six driving wheels to his cylinders had snapped on one side. His boiler was dented in from a tree falling on it, and his tender was laying upside down to his left. He could see the mess piled up around and behind him, and felt very foolish for letting the freight cars get the better of him.
Lilly could also see the wreck clearly now, along with Jedidiah and the crane gang on the left line. The workers and rail cranes were already clearing the mess, completely unaware they were on the same track as a speeding express. Diamond shut Lilly’s regulator and Sweetie Belle slammed the tank engine’s brakes hard on, bringing Lilly to a screeching stop behind the few of Mike’s freight cars still on the right line.
Lilly could hear worker pony’s yelling and shouting in confusion, some already moving toward her cab. But before they could get there, Silver spoon jumped into the engineer’s seat and quickly yanked Lilly’s whistle three times. The worker ponies froze, easily recognizing the signal for an oncoming train to stop, and what little color remained in their faces drained away when a deeper whistle answered with four short blasts. Again Lilly’s whistle blew three times. Thinking fast, Jedidiah lent his own whistle to the warning, sending up the three long tones for danger, just as a tender engine and its passenger cars appeared over the top of the hill.
Workers scattered like ants and Jedidiah’s driver quickly started him rolling backwards, but with the old amareican still coupled to the heavy cranes he knew he was going nowhere. Cathrine's brakes screeched in protest against the coach’s weight and the steep down hill grade, the big pacific engine fighting to stop. Scootaloo, still on Lilly’s front buffers, felt her wings droop when the rapidly increasing size of the oncoming train clicked, and she bolted back along Lilly’s boiler and dived into the immediate safety of her cab.
Apple Bloom held her bow down over her eyes, Sweetie Belle ducked into a corner,, and Daimond Tiara and Silver Spoon held each other in mutual terror as the orange Pegasus filly dived into what coal was left in Lilly’s bunker. All five braced and waited for the horrendous crashing of twisting metal and hissing steam. But instead …
KA-THUNK!
“ …. Is that it?” Sweetie Belle moved a hoof enough to see, then lifted her head to peek outside the cab.
“Is it over?” Silver Spoon whimpered.
“Are we dead yet?” Diamond squeaked, as Apple Bloom let her bow flop back up and tapped a hoof on Lilly’s cab floor.
“Enoope. Still here.”
“Hold on.” Scootaloo popped out of Lilly’s bunker, dusted in coal from muzzle to tail feathers. “Does that mean?” The five filly’s poked their heads out of the cab one by one and looked across the main.
“We did it!” Lilly cheered, letting off steam happily as the fillies slowly stepped down from her cab, taking in the sight. The express engine’s coupler was embedded in an upside down coal car’s frame, now properly twisted, but with every wheel behind still firmly on their rails.
“We did it,” Scootaloo gasped, her mouth hanging open as Diamond dropped back on her haunches, her mane frizzy and poofy from the moisture hissing in Lilly’s cab.
“We actually did it.” They all looked at one another and up at Lilly, before shouting all at once.
“WE DID IT!!” Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo joined in a group hug, leaping into the air while Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon giddily danced back and forth holding each other’s hooves. Lilly managed a triumphant toot and whoosh of her own. The six heroines were so caught up in their success, nopony noticed a flash of bright unicorn magic behind them. When they did stop bouncing long enough to open their eyes, three Filly’s found a big sibling each staring at them, and one found the eyes of her father.
Apple Bloom gulped when she realize they, The Cutie Mark Crusaders, the terrors of Ponyville, were standing in front of not one but what appeared to be two train wrecks. A glance to her left and right confirmed it: her fellow crusaders also had an idea of how good this didn’t look, but nopony’s mouth dropped farther than Diamond Tiara’s when a large Khaki brown stallion shoved his way to the front. At that moment, the pink and yellow filly’s had the same thought out loud.
It took a sudden showering of praise from the worker pony’s to convince Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Diamond Tiara’s father Filthy Rich that the five filly’s had had nothing to do with causing the accident.
“Shucks Bloom,” AJ said rubbing her neck. “I’m sorry for snapping at ya like that.”
“As am I darling,” Rarity apologized for the third time nuzzling Sweetie where the white filly sat on Lilly’s front buffer beam.
“Guess I have an apology to make too,” Rainbow sighed, lounging with Scootaloo on a small cloud she had made from Lilly’s steam.
“It’s okay,” the orange filly smiled laying back with her front hoofs behind her head. “I’m feeling so awesome right now I didn’t even hear half what you guys said.” The comment sent a round of laughter up, loud enough to reach Mr. Rich, who’s deep chuckling nearly upset the load of drinks and sandwiches he was carrying on his back.
“Here we are,” He smiled setting the tray down. “Refreshments courtesy of the dining car. On the house.”
“Really?” Sweetie gasped sitting up and practically lunging for the lettuce wrap Rarity’s magic offered up to her. “Mmmm, Mah favowite!”
“Sweetie! Don’t talk with your mouthful,” the older unicorn scolded taking a dainty bite of her own wrap. The apple sisters however dug right in, as Silver Spoon, who didn’t much care for lettuce, looked at Sweetie Belle curiously.
“Um, Sweetie belle?”
“Hm?” The asked through a mouthful of sandwich, nearly ignoring their sisters earlier warning.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what was that spell you used to fill Lilly’s tanks?” The mulberry tank engine looked back at her side tanks, still sloshing gently and mostly full.
“Oh that? That was a top off charm my Mom taught me. She says it’s really good for hoofball night, and it really helps when Rarity gets so focused on a project that she forgets how her back legs work.” The purple maned unicorn nearly gagged on her sandwich as any blood not helping clear her throat went right to her cheeks. Rainbow Dash of course roared with laughter while Scootaloo cackled right alongside her. When she finally calmed down enough she started to take a bite of her own lettuce wrap, before her eyes caught those of Diamond Tiara, the pink filly’s muzzle just inches from her own first taste as well. Lilly the tank engine watched both filly’s carefully as they stared each other down like the Dodge Junction gunslingers in Jedidiah’s stories.
Slowly, Diamond took a bite of her sandwich, followed by Scootaloo taking a bite of hers. Diamond took another bite, and Scootaloo mirrored with an even larger one. Before Rainbow dash could think not to laugh, if the thought even crossed her mind, the orange and pink fillies were noses deep in a good old fashioned eat off. Not even Filthy Rich could suppress a little laugh as Scootaloo scarfed down her wrap first, leaving Diamond with only a half bite left.
“HAH! Top that!”
“No fair,” Diamond whined. “You took bigger bites!”
“Yeah, cause that’s how you wi, whoah!” The little pegasi’s attempted victory pose on the cloud turned into a tumble when her balance blew off in the wind, and she would have fallen onto Lilly’s boiler if not for a pale yellow magical aura catching her.
“Careful now,” a dull yellow earth pony in a top hat and suit with a pocket watch cutie mark smiled as he walked up to the group with two more ponies at his sides. “I like to think we’ve had enough spills here today don’t you?”
“Uncle Hatty!” Silver spoon cheered, rushing up to the yellow stallion and into a warm hugging nuzzle, one that clearly warmed the hearts of the old pony’s companions. One was the grey earth pony stallion the fillies knew as Mr. Conductor, the other a cherry red unicorn mare slightly older than their teacher, Ms. Cheerilee, with bright teal eyes and a short curly deep purple mane. She too was wearing a suit, this one a sharp bright red that stood out against her coat, and the twirling blue ribbon wand cutie mark on her flank.
“Good to see you to Silver,” Top hat grinned, before turning a mock serious expression on his niece. “Now, what’s this I hear about a gang of Filly’s stowing away aboard a misplaced carriage, gallivanting round my train yard, and then taking one of my little engines for a ride?” Applejack cast a knowing smirk at her little sister, the yellow filly looking nervous regardless of their accomplishments.
“Uh, hehe, that would be us Sir,” she started only to be cut off by her fellow crusaders.
“You see Sir,” Scootaloo started as the red unicorn lowered her to the ground only for Sweetie Belle to interrupt.
“What happened was.”
“I know what happened,” Top Hat said quickly before the fillies could trip over each other’s tongues. “And I have to say I’m quite impressed. You took quick thinking and team work, then put them together to prevent a nasty accident. Look.” He nodded back to the express train, the big pacific engine up front watching as Jedidiah and the crane gang continued to clear the wreckage of Mike’s freight from the tracks.
“You five saved everypony on board, and those working the clean up as well. But then,” He smiled, standing a little straighter before bowing slightly to the three mares present. “What else would anypony expect but heroics from the families of the bearers of the Elements of Harmony?”
“Th, Thank ya Sir,” Apple Bloom stammered, not sure whether to beam or wilt under the pride oozing smile her big sister was giving her. The other Crusaders had the same dilemma; rare was the occasion their antics earned them praise.
“Now,” Mr. Conductor said clearing his throat and checking his gold watch. “I think it’ll please everypony that it’s been arranged for Mr, Rich’s car to be added to the Sun Racer Limited at Hoofmouth. Once this mess is cleared of course.”
“Lilly my dear,” Top Hat said turning to the mulberry tank engine. “Jedidiah needs some rest, so I’m sending him back to the station. Could you help the workers finish up here?” Lilly couldn’t believe it.
“You mean?”
“I understand if you don’t want to,” he smiled cheekily. “It would probably leave you puffing cars back and forth for the rest of the day.”
“No! I mean! Yes, yes sir! Thank you sir!” She whistled happily as a pair of worker ponies climbed into her cab even while her new friends crowded round her buffers.
“Congratulations!” Apple Bloom cheered as Scootaloo hopped up.
“See, I told ya all you had to do was show’em what you got!”
“I couldn’t have done it without you,” she smiled, then looked up to where Diamond and Silver were standing back, then added, “all of you.” The rich filly’s faces broke out into nervous smiles, but then Sweetie Belle torpedoed the mood.
“I guess this is goodbye,” She said, making the other four filly’s realize they may never see their new tank engine friend again.
“Actually.” Diamond Tiara looked back at her father, the old stallion clearing his throat with a gleam in his tired eyes as he turned to Top Hat. “There’s something I wanted to speak with you about. I was going to request a more formal meeting, but as an old friend said once, no time quite like the present.”
“Certainly Mr. Rich,” The railroad manager smiled, nodding toward the express train. “Come. Let’s talk business.” The business pony’s climbed aboard the train and went into the baggage car, where nopony heard anything else from them until the express had puffed its way into Hoofmouth station. The five fillies waved to Mikaela and Jedidiah in the shed, the old steamer finally resting his tired wheels. Shortly after they arrived, Lilly came chuffing round the bend with a line of freight car’s from Mike’s train, pulling them backwards into the yard, smiling and whistling to her five new friends as she went by. She shunted the cars and fetched Mr. Rich’s coach, gently buffering the observation car onto the end of the express, just as Filthy Rich and Top Hat finally reemerged from the baggage car, only to lock themselves in one of the cabins of Mr. Rich’s private coach.
The five filly’s all bid their new friends goodbye, dashing across the yard to wish Mikaela and Jedidiah good luck and get well soons. Then they climbed aboard Mr. Rich’s coach with their big siblings and waved their tank engine friend goodbye as she puffed backwards down the line.
“Bye Lilly!” Scootaloo yelled as the express train pulled out of the station, Apple Bloom raising her voice above the hissing steam and engine’s bell.
“If ya ain’t too busy, try an swing by Ponyville sometime ya hear!”
“I will!” she whistled back, then vanished round the bend. From the station platform, the stallion the fillys had come to know as Mr. Conductor watched the express train depart, and quite by habit, checked his watch.
“Right on time,” he smiled through his beard, pocketing his watch and retrieving a small brass whistle. As the train puffed toward Canterlot, the fillies turned to head inside, when something caught Sweetie Belle’s eye.
“What was that?”
“What was what Sweets?” Scootaloo asked as the white unicorn went back to the coach’s railing.
“That light. It looked like it was coming from the station.” She squinted her eyes to try and see as Silver Spoon came up and looked for herself.
“What light?”
“I don’t know, it was all gold and sparkly.”
“Well,” Apple Bloom sighed. “Whatever it was, it’s gone now. Probably nuthin anyway.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“Come on,” The yellow filly nodded. “Let’s get inside. We got a long ride back to Ponyville.”
Later that day, as Celestia’s sun neared the horizon, it painted the sky a dazzling array of pinks and purples. Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow settled into the warm water of the private car’s onboard Jacuzzi, where just a moment ago five little fillies had been having the greatest splash war in the history of Equestria. But as with all heroic battles, the casualties were many and terrible.
“OW!” Diamond Tiara flinched as the brush tore through another tangle of hairs, pulling and breaking, and feeling like it could rip her scalp off on the next pull.
“Sorry,” Sweetie Belle apologized, concentration wavering and causing the brush held in her magic to waver in the air. The pink filly grumbled about butter-hoof unicorns even as she steeled herself for another brush stroke. Apple Bloom tried her best not to take some small measure of satisfaction in seeing the spoiled filly at the little unicron’s mercy, even as her own mostly dry mane was being woven into a pair of intricate braids by Silver Spoon.
“There we go,” the grey filly smiled as Scootaloo brought a mirror and held it up for Apple Bloom to see. She gasped upon seeing her normal hairstyle replaced with twin braids, one of which held her trademark bow at its top.
“Gah lee, I look just like Granny Smith in the photo albums.”
“Well,” Scootaloo snickered, “Aside from you know, everything but the hair.” The yellow filly heard none of it, and took a moment to admire her new mane styling.
“Ya know you’re really good at this Silver.”
“Well I have had some practice,” she smiled, her own silvery hair still up in a towel. “Thanks for letting me. Diamond won’t let me anywhere near her mane.”
“Oh hush up,” the pink filly sighed without any real venom. “You know how my hair gets when it’s wet. OW!”
“Sorry!” Sweetie Belle squeaked.
“It’s okay,” Diamond sighed. “You’re actually doing a better job than my usual stylist. That mare shouldn’t be in the same town as a hairbrush. Ow!” Scootaloo watched the pink filly’s hair care with a growing smirk.
“And that’s why,” She smiled running a hoof through her short mane. “I keep mine as aerodie-nemic as possible.”
“Aerodynamic,” Silver Spoon corrected.
“That too.” A giggle went around the room before Scootaloo realized what she’d said, but even then she couldn’t help but laugh herself. As the laughter abated however, an awkward silence fell, only to be broken by the sharp cry of a steam whistle as a train thundered past on the opposite track. It only served to remind the fillies of the friends they had said goodbye too, and a very uncomfortable subject for one of them.
“So,” Apple Bloom started, looking at Diamond Tiara, the pink filly no longer squirming under Sweetie’s brushing.
“So.” Her tone said she knew exactly what the farm filly was starting in on, but rather than blunder through it herself, Apple Bloom gave Scootaloo’s seated haunches a swift kick.
“Look uh, about what I said back at the station. About you being a … you know.” Diamond sunk a little further into her shoulders, eyes toward the floor. “What I’m trying to say is, I’m …” Scootaloo looked like he was actively struggling with some great inner force working and fighting against her, but slowly, the words did indeed escape her lips.
“I’m … sorry …. for calling you a nerd.” When Scootaloo finally met the pink filly’s eyes, she found the expected look of shock, as if she had suddenly grown a horn.
“What, but? Why?” she asked. “Why in the world would you, any of you apologize to me?”
“Cause,” Apple Bloom smiled, “That’s what pony’s do when they’re sorry, right Scoots?”
“I guess,” the little Pegasus groaned, earning another kick to the flank from Apple Bloom. “I mean yeah!”
“Besides,” Sweetie smiled. “If it wasn’t for you, we’d have never saved all those ponies on the train.”
“Heh.” Diamond rubbed the back of her neck, pink cheeks turning the faintest shade of deeper red as Scootaloo relaxed herself into the booths plush seating.
“Even I have admit that was pretty awesome. I mean did you see how fast Lilly was going?! Don’t get me wrong Rainbow Dash is much faster, but dad-gum! She was like, whoosh on the curves, wheesh down the straightaways!” The other crusaders could only giggle as Scootaloo’s dramatic impressions of their tank engine friends speed caused Diamond’s blush to turn her whole face red. This continued until Scootaloo nearly flopped off the edge of her seat, which made Sweetie Belle realizing something all of them had overlooked until now.
“Hey!” She said looking between Diamond and Silver Spoon. “You two should come crusading with us!” This of course stopped Scootaloo dead in her tracks.
“Little white unicorn filly say what?”
“Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara should go crusading with us,” She repeated as plain as common sense. “When we get back to Ponyville.”
“Uh, no offense meant Sweetie,” Apple Bloom said gently. “But uh, … they already have their cutie marks.”
“Well yeah, but can any of us recall one time our crusading didn’t end in disaster? At most it’s only gotten us in trouble with the adults.” Apple Bloom and Scootaloo tensed up and glanced at each other nervously. It had become something of an unspoken superstition not to mention out loud the curse that plagued the crusaders.
“And look,” Sweetie continued. “Here we’ve actually done something right for a change! Awesome even! All we had to do was work together.”
“Well yeah but …” Scootaloo was about to make the argument that this was Diamond Tiara they were talking about, only to realize how much the last few hours had changed the pink filly in her eyes. And if anything was to be judged by the way Diamond avoided the little pegasus filly’s gaze, the same was true for her as well. Once again awkward silence fell like a curtain over the room, and it endured even after the pink filly got to her hooves and trotted back to one of the coach’s rooms, closing the door behind her.
“That went well,” Scootaloo sighed with tired sarcasm as Silver Spoon let out a breath of her own.
“I’m really sorry.”
“You?” Apple Bloom asked perplexed, “What the hay do you have to be sorry for?”
“It’s just … Diamond’s never been the best at making new friends.”
“Really,” Scootaloo asked pouring on the sarcasm now that the pink filly was out of sight. “Must be her sparkling personality.” This earned her yet another swift kick to the flanks, one from each of her fellow Crusaders.
“She’s actually really nice!” The grey filly insisted. “When you three are off crusading she always comes up with the most fun games to play. She’s just … shy.” Apple Bloom looked at Silver Spoon as if the grey filly had grown a set of wings and a horn.
“Now hold the feed just one second. Diamond Tiara: shy. You sure you’re use’n those words right? Cause sounds to me like somethin’s out of consmext.”
“Context,” Sweetie Belle corrected.
“Whatever! Are you seriously tellin us that Diamond Tiara, the Diamond Tiara we get tormented by at school every day by, is an act?!”
“Well, not all of it,” she admitted in shame. “I really am sorry about teasing you girls for not having your cutie marks yet. I got mine early so I always thought that any bla.” She managed to catch herself before she said blank flanks. “Fillys like you all were just too dumb to find your talent or weren’t as special. Now I know that was really, really wrong.”
“We forgive you,” Sweetie Belle chimed. “You did keep us from arguing and panicking earlier.”
“And,” Scootaloo added. “It was you who told us Diamond knew how to drive a train. We’d have never stopped that express train without you.” Silver Spoon was speechless; never in a million years expecting such nice words to come from a trio of classmates she’d helped bully day in and day out. Maybe Princess Twilight was right about the power of the magic of friendship after all.
“Thank you,” she squeaked out quietly as the train carrying them back to Ponyville trundled over sleek rails under clear skies.
As the sound of the school house bell rang out across town, parents all over Ponyville braced themselves for the flood of returning colts and fillies, free of the school house for a whole weekend. But instead of home, the Cutie Mark Crusaders were heading toward their tree house for a long afternoon of crusading and a sleep over. That was the plan at least until recess had rolled around, and left a dark cloud hanging over the three fillies moods. Nopony said it, but all three were thinking the same thing, until Sweetie Belle gave it voice.
“Diamond Tiara sure has been quiet.”
“She hardly left her seat at lunch,” Apple Bloom noted. “And she wasn’t much better yesterday neither.”
“I talked with Silver Spoon,” Sweetie added. “She said she’s the same at home.”
“Hope she’s alright,” Apple Bloom sighed as Scootaloo scoffed.
“She’s probably fine.” She wouldn’t admit it, but she was a little worried as well.
“Do you think we should tell Twilight?” the unicorn filly asked. “I mean, this does sound like a friendship problem.”
“Maybe,” Apple Bloom nodded. “But I really don’t think it’s our place ta interfere just yet. Like AJ says, some thangs ya just gotta keep in the family.”
Meanwhile, across town ….
“And that’s the basic outline of it,” Mr. Filthy Rich finished, adjusting one of the trio of maps now laid out in the main reception hall of the Castle of Friendship. The eponymous princess lifted one of the charts up in her magic, mulling over the stallions words as the meetings other member, the curly maned Mayor Mare, also eyed the maps.
“Your proposal is very interesting Mr. Rich,” Mayor Mare answered finally, still examining the map. “But it was my understanding that the authority zoning act restricted all corporate railway authority to that railways designated region.”
“That is true,” the stallion clarified, pointing toward another map with his hoof. “What you are looking at is a map of the current networks. This,” he said pushing the other map toward the grey maned mare, “is an older version.”
“Ah yes, now I see,” The mayor grinned, adjusting her spectacles as the alicorn beside her kept smiling at the new information in her bookish way. “And this would be the rail line your efforts would be based on?” she asked pointing to a hoof to a specific line marker.
“Yes Ma’am. My partners and I believe a subsequent renovation and expansion of the old line, which by all technicalities is still under the jurisdiction of the ENER, would provide Ponyville with all the economic gumption it needs to be a boom town again.”
He knew both mares were well read in the history of Ponyville, not least of which the boom times the town had enjoyed after the Apple Family discovered Zap Apples near the edge of the Everfree Forest. Since then though like Granny Smith the town had grown sleepy and slow, life ambling around in a rut worn by time. It broke a lot of older pony’s hearts, Mayor Mare’s included, to see younger mares and stallions leave to take their chances in the big cities, but Filthy Rich new if his plan worked, that would all start to change.
“Well Mr. Rich,” the Alicorn of Friendship smiled, “I think this is an excellent idea, and one that will help everypony.”
“Indeed,” the mayor nodded. “Though it will take some work convincing the shop owners on Manestreet their businesses won’t go belly up during construction, I think this could very well be just what the doctor ordered. It’s high time this town was known for something other than yet another monster attack, no offense of course Your Highness.”
“None taken,” The Purple alicorn smiled, standing from her seat. “I think I’ll mention this in my next letter to Princess Celestia.”
“Before you go,” Mr. Rich called quickly, and rather nervously. “I was wondering if I could ask you something.”
“Hm?” Twilight asked returning to her seat as Mayor Mare left, sensing a private matter.
“On the matters of friendship,” he elaborated, before explaining last week’s railway incident and the situation with his daughter.
“Hmmm,” Twilight hummed reclining into her throne, trying to look as calm as possible for the anxious parent’s sake. “It sounds to me like Diamond Tiara has found some unexpected friends.” Unexpected indeed, considering her and Silver Spoons history with the crusaders.
“From what I saw, she did get on with them surprisingly well. It’s just well …” Twilight decided not to push when the old stallion’s voice deserted him for a moment, and waited patiently.
“Diamond has always had a fascination with trains you see. When she was a foal her favorite toy was a little wooden train set. My business was less efficient in those days and I enrolled Diamond in a daycare center to be at the office more,” he mentioned with regret. “The other foals, well … they teased her for it. I was so busy in the office then that her only real friend was little Silver.” He didn’t go into details: how his little filly had come home crying from show and tell one day with a smashed train set in her saddlebag.
Twilight was already filling in the gaps herself: a young filly with a unique interest teased and tormented for it by the other foals, finding one friend to lean on through it.
“After Silver Spoon’s family said they were moving to Ponyville, I knew the bullying would only get worse for my little filly, so I made the decision to leave Canterlot as well. I had hoped a new start here would make her forget what happened but.” For Twilight the picture was clear now: despite her father’s best intentions the bullying in daycare had already left Diamond Tiara apprehensive about opening up to other ponies.
‘And now,’ The Princess of Friendship thought, realizing the scope of the irony. Now Diamond had found not one, but three fillies who didn’t think her love of trains was weird, and who she could actually get along pretty well with. The big question though, would she open up to them?
If studying under Princess Celestia had taught Twilight anything, it was that sometimes somepony needed a gentle nudge, or toss, in the right direction. With a plan fit for the Princess of the Sun, Twilight softly cleared her throat, just enough to get Mr. Rich’s full attention.
“I have a suggestion,” she started politely, and carefully explained her idea.
“But,” she cautioned, “she is your daughter, and I wouldn’t want her doing anything you’d be uncomfortable with.”
“No it’s quite alright, in fact,” Filthy Rich said as a smile grew across his muzzle. “I think that is an excellent idea. And I know just the stallion to make it happen.”
The next morning, the Cutie Mark Crusaders were trudging themselves through town early, all three still rubbing sleep from their eyes.
“How did that mailmare even find our tree house?” Scootaloo grumbled as she stretched her wings, feathered limbs stiff from a poor sleeping position.
“Crash into enough wrong houses,” Apple Bloom growled quoting her older sister, “And ventually you’re bound to hit the right one.” Sweetie Belle yawned and nodded.
“Even a broken clock is right twice a day. What’s really strange though,” She said levitating the envelope the wall eyed Pegasus had delivered. “Is that we all got the same letter.” Indeed, the crusaders had all received a copy of the same envelope, blue paper with yellow lettering, and each with clear instructions not to open them until they were at the Ponyville train station.
It was early on a Saturday morning, so Ponyville was both eerie and peaceful as the crusaders ambled through town toward the station. A thin mist hung low, blown in from Saddle Lake by the shifting winds of the unpredictable Everfree Forest. But being fillies, and lower to the ground than adult ponies, the fog was almost impossible to see through.
“Stick close,” Apple Bloom said as the fog became thicker, and Scootaloo tried and failed to hover high enough to push the fog away.
“Great,” She huffed settling back onto her hooves. “Where’s Rainbow Dash when you need her?”
“Sleeping probably,” came a condescending uppity voice somewhere to the crusaders left, which immediately put the three fillies on high alert.
“Wh, who’s there?” Sweetie Belle stammered as she tried to muster a light charm from her horn.
“Show yourself!” Scootaloo yelled, turning every which way to look for the voice. “Come out with your hooves, wings, or whatever the hay ya got up or I’ll!”
BONK!
Her twisting and turning landed her muzzle square in the path of the voices owner, leaving them to bowl each other over.
“Oh for neighing out loud, watch where you’re going you little … Oh, it’s you.” Scootaloo looked up only to find the pink muzzle of Diamond Tiara staring back at her, the rich filly hopping off as soon as Scootaloo tried to shove her off.
“Hello Princess,” The orange Pegasus glared, even as Sweetie Belle chimed in.
“Hey Silver!” She greeted as the grey filly appeared out of the fog, “What are you girls doing here?”
“Following directions,” she said matter of factly, holding up a blue envelope. “We got these letters in the mail just this morning.”
“Really?” Apple Bloom asked pulling out her own. “Huh, small world after all.”
“Or one with a bad sense of humor,” Diamond Tiara scowled in a venom-less tone. “See ya round. Come on Silver.”
“Wait,” Sweetie interrupted. “Do yours say not to open them until you’re.”
“At the train station?” Silver Spoon finished. “Yes they do actually.” Scootaloo groaned as Diamond did the same.
“Getting smaller,” she grumbled as the five filly’s trudged through the fog together. By the time they reached the station, Silver Spoon and Sweetie Belle were talking about the grey filly’s father’s latest business deal, and Apple Bloom listened closely as Silver mentioned a steady increase in fruit sales over the past few months. Diamond Tiara and Scootaloo said nothing, just picked out spots at opposite ends of the station and sat there. Neither filly did much of anything else until they heard Silver and Sweetie Belle’s conversation turn toward their letters, and a distinct difference.
“You didn’t get yours in the mail?” the white unicorn asked.
“No, Ms. Hooves doesn’t get to my dad’s house until about noon, and there wasn’t any mail yesterday.” Diamond Tiara scooted closer to hear better, an orange Pegasus filly doing the same as Apple Bloom tried to apply some common sense.
“Well it ain’t like it just walked in on its own right? Somepony had to deliver it.”
“What if it was sent by dragon magic?”
“Nah," Apple Bloom waved her hoof at the new voice's suggestion. "The only pony who sends letter that way is Prin, PRINCESS TWILIGHT!” The yellow filly jumped so high her bow nearly flew off her head, whipping around with its owner to quickly bow. Sweetie Belle and Silver Spoon knelt down as well, but it only served to earn a tired groan from the Princess of Friendship.
“Please don’t,” Twilight Sparkle groaned. “I told you, I’m your friend not your Princess.”
“Sorry,” Sweetie Belle apologized getting back to her hooves. “But Mom say’s whenever you see a princess you have to bow no matter what.” Apple Bloom and Silver Spoon both nodded in agreement, and Twilight grumbled something about old uptight mares.
“It’s all right,” The purple alicorn said with a smile, one that only grew when she glanced around the station. “Oh good you’re all here.”
“Here for what?” Scootaloo asked, still irritable from the early hour. She wasn’t the only one.
“And what’s with these letters?” Diamond Tiara asked as she ambled up to the Princess, the purple alicorn’s smile turning knowing.
“Open them and find out.” The five filly’s looked at one another and swiftly tore open their envelopes, before reading aloud from their letters.
“Dear young prodigy,” Scootaloo began, reading slowly so as not to trip over the big words. “After showing great ingenuity and initiative.”
“You,” Sweetie Belle picked up, excitement growing as she read. “Have been selected to participate in the Equestria North Eastern Railway’s Junior Railponys!” Twilight’s smile only grew as Apple Bloom took her turn.
“Membership if accepted includes a personal ID badge that grants access to ENER facilities, free of charge train rides, as well as your merit record.”
“Merits,” Silver Spoon recited studiously, “are earned through participation in railway sponsored activities and projects. Based on the merits you earn, you will be awarded an honorary title.” Twilight suppressed a fit of giggles as Diamond Tiara’s eyes grew nearly as wide as her smile.
“Such titles, include honorary engineer, conductor, station master, switch pony, dispatcher, and etcetera!” She was nearly cheering, but then her eyes found something that confused the excitement right out of her. “Mandatory requirements include regular rail journeys with an assigned engine, one of which at the controls. What does that mean?”
“It means,” Twilight laughed knowingly, “That you’ll be assigned to one train to learn about and ride with often.” No sooner had she said that than a soft whistle echoed through the fog. “And here she comes now!” The five filly’s looked at each other confused until a second whistle chirp sounded out, growing closer as the tone became clearer. Scootaloo was the first to notice it.
“Is that?” She asked hesitantly trotting toward the edge of the platform, the other filly’s close behind. Two more peeps sounded out, and Sweetie Belle jumped for joy.
“It’s her!”
“Well I’ll be,” Apple Bloom smiled as grins appeared on Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara’s muzzles as well. Out of the morning fog appeared the two yellow headlamps of a bright green and white striped brake van, followed by a short train, and the almost silent hiss of a tiny tank engine’s cylinders. Mulberry paint, once spotted with railyard dust, was newly shined with shimmering brass trim that seemed to glow with its own light. But not even the new paint, or the trio of cars in front of her could prevent the crusaders from recognizing their friend.
“Lilly!” They cheered together, swarming the tank engine as an older earth pony stepped down from the small coach behind her brake van.
“Hi girls!” She whistled back, before a sharp cough drew their attention back to the platform, and to the now familiar top hat wearing earthy pony.
“I’ll assume from the shredded envelopes you all got my letters?” Five eager nods answered Top Hat’s question, earning a chuckle from the old stallion. “And what do you say?”
“Well Sir,” Apple Bloom started nervously rubbing her leg. “We’re mighty honored but, I’d really need to talk with mah sister about this first.”
“Don’t worry,” Twilight smiled walking up beside the farm filly. “I’ve already talked things over the AJ and Big Mac, and your parents too Sweetie Belle. They all agree this would be a great experience for you five to have together.”
“Together?” Diamond Tiara squeaked, swallowing hard when the implications fell into place in her mind.
“But of course,” Top Hat grinned matter of factly. “As the first members of the ENER’s Railway Juniors Ponyville chapter, you lot will have to work together to help Lilly here get the old line open again.”
“Old line?” Sweetie Belle asked, sitting down on Lilly’s buffer beam. The other fillies also took a seat, knowing enough from class to sense a story approaching.
“The Rambling Rock Branch Line to be specific,” the railway official explained. “It once ran from the gem mines in the Rambling Rock Ridge, through the forests, up along the edge of Saddle Lake, then back over the hills to the junction at Pithsburg. Our plan is to restore the line to operating condition, and extend the tracks until they connect with the mainline right here.” He looked around the station, his enthusiastic smile turning into a planner’s smirk. “That of course will require a new station to be built. These Southern Region shacks won’t do at all.”
“When can we start?” Scootaloo asked, nearly vibrating in place from excitement, but with a chance of go exploring, try new things for her cutie mark, all with an adults seal off approval, who could blame her?
“Well today if you wish,” Top Hat replied as Lilly let of a small puff of steam.
“We we’re just going to head over to Pithsburg to start the inspection,” she said proudly as the steam wafted back along her small train of one small passenger car, a flat car loaded with rail ties and steel rails in front of a frogger brake van. “Mr. Top Hat wants me to help the workers reopen the line.”
“That makes sense,” Diamond Tiara said rather quietly. “Since you’re so small it won’t be as dangerous going over any bridges or embankments.”
“Huh,” Apple Bloom grinned. “Looks like yer tiny size was an advantage all along.”
“So what are we waiting for?” Scootaloo smiled hopping up into the coach. “Come on, I smell a crusade coming on!”
“Really?” Sweetie Belle asked tilting her head and sniffing the air. “All I smell is smoke.”
“Sorry,” Lilly squeaked blushing as Top Hat held the coach’s other door open. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle hopped inside with Silver Spoon right behind her, but the grey filly paused when she saw Diamond still sitting on the platform. She was instantly torn between following her new friends and sticking with her best filly friend forever, when a certain farm filly poked her head out one of the car’s open windows.
“Well don’t jus sit der, ya’ll com’n or what?” Apple Bloom wouldn’t realize the kind of impact those words had until much later, all she saw was the smile that slowly grew over the pink filly’s face before she got off her haunches and bounded up into the coach.
With a chirp of her whistle Lilly started rolling backwards, pulling the short train back up the mainline towards Canterlot, leaving Twilight Sparkle having goodbye. They were nearly out of sight, and the Princess wondering if what she was feeling was the same as when Princess Celestia had sent her off the Ponyville, when the truth of the situation hit her like the proverbial train.
“Oh dear Faust,” she gasped, ears and wings dropping her eyes went wide. “What have I done?”
Too late Twilight realized she had unleashed the Cutie Mark Crusaders plus two on the rest of Equestria.
There are few things more depressing than a rundown railway, a fact Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara discovered for themselves as their train pulled into the old station’s railyard. They had made surprisingly good time, only stopping twice to take on water and coal. Apple Bloom was the first to set hooves on the old cobble stone platform, whistling as she took in the sights.
“Sure looks like this place has seen better days,” she commented as the other four fillies filed out of the coach behind her. The Pithsburg station was laid out a lot like Hoofmouth; two platforms and buildings straddling the mainline, only where the building on the north side of the line was painted and well kept, the one on the southern side had been sorely neglected. The windows were all boarded up, and under the awning shading the platform a family of birds had made a nest. Sweetie Belle scrunched her nose when she saw the state of the station building’s roof.
“Um, is there supposed to be moss growing up there?” Top Hat only scowled, already trotting away toward the yard where a trio of worker pony’s were working on the switches. They were still clearing a line of bushes that had grown up through the rails at the end of the yard, when the sound of an approaching whistle drew the attention of five filly’s and their tank engine friend.
It came from up the mainline, a line of steam puffs popping up into the air as their owner whistled their approach. Another train came into view, a long line of empty coal cars pulled by a medium size tank engine. His boiler, side tanks and bunker were painted bright red, while his cab and smoke box were dusty black with coal dust. His six driving wheels were red as well, but dirty with coal dust, and though they were small like Lilly’s, if he was struggling with his train he didn’t show it. He brought the cars to a smooth stop in front of the signal before the station yard, blowing off steam from his hidden cylinders as he did, giving Lilly a chance to say hello.
“Terrance!” She called, getting the larger tank engine’s attention.
“Lilly?” He asked in surprise, voice rough like rock, but with a smooth southern accent. “Well good morn’n to ya! And just what're you doing in my neck of the mountains?”
“I’m helping Mr. Top Hat reopen the Rambling Rock branch line,” She beamed happily as Terrance’s signal went from red to green.
“Well then I wish ya the best of luck. Careful though,” he warned grimly as he started his train moving again. “The start of the line shouldn’t be too bad, but you need to keep a sharp lookout after the tunnel.”
“I will,” Lilly whistled as Terrance and his train trundled over the points and vanished behind the station building.
“Friend of yours?” Scootaloo asked hover hopping around the old station.
“Yep,” The mulberry tank engine beamed. “Terrance taught me a lot about shunting and managing freight cars when I first came to ENER. That was before Mr. Top Hat put him in charge of the Foal Mountain Branch Line.” Apple Bloom watched as the last car of the red tank engine’s long train click-clacked over the points and vanished behind the station. She had never seen so many of the same train car.
“Not a very clean engine is he?” Sweetie Belle noted, the little filly sharing her big sisters aversion to dirt. “What kind of freight does he haul that could make his paint so filthy?”
“Coal,” Silver Spoon supplied matter of factly, whipping a little dust of her glasses as she did so. “The Foal Mountain mines are famous for the special kind of coal that’s found there.”
“Really expensive too,” Lilly added. “It burns hotter than most other coals, and longer too. I’ve never tried it, but Mike and Mikaela use it all the time.”
“Hmpf, aren’t they special” Diamond scoffed when a gasp from Scootaloo grabbed the other’s attention.
“Hey check this out!” She yelled beckoning them over to where one of the boards covering the windows had fallen off. The five fillys piled on top of one another to peek inside the dusty window.
“Wow,” Apple Bloom gasped, “Everything’s still there.” And it was. They were looking into the main waiting room and ticket office. Every little trinket and tool, from a clock on the wall to the ticket clerks stamper were still in place. Even a dreamcatcher was still hanging on the wall, its feathers trailing strings of beads and dust bunnies.
“Can we get back in the coach?” Sweetie Belle asked, nervously backing away from the window. “This place is giving me the creeps.”
“Yeah,” Silver Spoon nodded in quick agreement. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Diamond Tiara of course wanted to explore more, the farm filly already seeing lots of woodwork on the station that needed replacing, but just then Silver’s uncle Top Hat called them back inside the coach. The worker ponys had managed to clear the last of the overgrowth from the yard, and as they wrestled the last switch into place, Lilly puffed forward, then pushed her train into the yard. Diamond Tiara and Scootaloo poked their heads outside their coach’s window, even as the others sat nervously in their seats, the rails beneath them groaning with all but unfamiliar weight. It wasn’t long though until they were clear of the yard, and firmly onto the old branch.
Scootaloo was soon glad her friends had talked her out of riding on the brake van’s open deck. The little mulberry tank engine had to go slow over the old tracks, all the while pushing her train past bushes and through grass that had grown up, around, and between the tracks. Sweetie Belle, feeling a little braver now that the tracks under them were slowly clacking instead of moaning, watched the dense overgrowth pass their coach window.
“Wow. Just how long has it been since this place was closed?”
“Well,” Silver Spoon began, touching her chin as she did. “I remember reading something about the mine being closed after an accident. That was, fifteen, twenty years ago.”
“What kind?” Apple Bloom asked, only for the grey filly to shake her head.
“I don’t know. I read about it in a book, and all it said was that the mine was no longer deemed profitable.”
“Maybe we can ask Mr. Top Hat,” Scootaloo suggested.
“You know,” Diamond Tiara said slowly, not sure if she wanted the other four filly’s attention or not. “I’m pretty sure my Dad used to work there.”
“Really?” Apple Bloom asked, ears perking and clearly wanting to know more. “But I thought his work was fancy suit and tie stuff?”
“I think it was before that,” The Pink filly explained. “I found this old photo album in the attic once and it had a lot of pictures of him and a bunch of other stallions, all wearing hard hats and covered in dirt.”
“Huh,” Apple Gloom nodded before Scootaloo, to the surprise of everypony, suddenly broke out in snorting laughter.
“What’s so funny?” Sweetie Belle asked innocently as the orange Pegasus’s cackling turned to hiccupping snorts.
“FilthyRich!” The orange filly gasped, “Working in the dirt! HAHAHAHAHAA!!” It took all of two seconds for the others to figure out the joke, and after four second they were all doubled over laughing and giggling to their hearts content.
As Lilly pushed their train along the line, it became clear Terrance was right. The line was indeed in good shape for its age. They only had to stop a few times, the first time at an old station where a worn dirt road crossed the tracks at a gated crossing just beyond a small pond. Here the worker pony’s showed the filly’s how to check a gate’s closing spells, a charm placed on the crossing to make the gates open and close as a train passed through. Sweetie Belle immediately tried to put a new charm on the old gate, but she ended up placing the sensor spell too close to the gate, and it nearly swatted her into the pond across the tracks.
Their next stop was where the line curved wide to go around the base of a hill. At the top of the hill was an old white tree, outlined against the blue sky like a statue in the Canterlot royal gardens. Lilly’s driver and fire pony explained that trees, especially ones as old as the one on the hill, were only allowed to be so close to the line before they had to be cut down. Then of course Silver Spoon elaborated with how each railroad used different standards and units of measurements for line side clearance, and used enough numbers to leave both rail-pony’s heads spinning. The fillies watched as Top Hat and the workers checked the track bed, making sure the ties weren’t rotted and that the ballast wasn’t going to shift under Lilly’s train, and soon they were on their way again.
Then however, they came to the tunnel. Apple Bloom was the first out behind the workers, and the little farm filly had to bend her neck so far back to see the tunnels top, her bow nearly touched her tail.
“Wow,” she whistled, still looking up. “So this is the tunnel Terrance was warn’n ya about.”
“Yep,” Lilly gulped, shaking a little on her wheels even as Scootaloo trotted up beside her fellow Crusader.
“What’s the big deal? It’s just a hole in a mountain.”
“And dangerous,” Top Hat grimaced ambling up to the fillies. “I think its best we wait here while the workers check the tunnel. Now you girls be good while I fill out some forms in the van all right?”
“Yes Uncle,” Silver Spoon nodded, earning her a goodbye nuzzle before the old stallion climbed into the brake van and the workers vanished into the darkness. The three earth fillys of course knew the value of safety first, while Sweetie Belle and Lilly weren’t very keen on going in at all. Scootaloo as usual, didn’t see any sense in waiting a minute.
“What’s wrong with it?” She asked pacing back and forth across the tracks. “I mean look, it’s fine! There’s hardly a scratch or crack on it.”
“Maybe,” Silver Spoon said quickly, sitting primly by the side of the line. “But it’s been years since any trains went through that tunnel, and there could be stress cracks and collapses inside. Especially on a tunnel so large.”
“Why did they build it so big anyway?” Apple Bloom asked looking over the arched entrance.
“Probably for the mining equipment,” The grey filly supplied while she adjusted her glasses. “After the royal decree that grouped Equestria’s railroads into four regional companies, they could only run trains on track they owned.”
“She’s not wrong,” Lilly admitted anxiously. “It’s only recently that Mr. Top Hat has convinced the other managers to start making deals for running rights. When this line was still active, they probably had to move in all of their equipment through this tunnel.”
“Lilly?” Sweetie Belle asked noticing her tank engine friend wasn’t looking very confident. “Is something wrong?”
“Uh, well,” The little engine gulped looking up and down the tunnel’s entrance, before admitting, “I … I don’t like the dark.” Truthfully she had never run at night, and the idea scared her more than a little, something Sweetie Belle understood.
“It’s okay,” the white filly said sitting beside Lilly’s buffers. “I’m scared of the dark too, but my big sisters told me the only thing to fear is fear itself. And juice stains.”
“Scared of the dark,” Diamond Tiara scoffed. “Puh-lease. What could there possibly be to be scared of in ther?”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!!!” Three panicked screams jolted the fillies a foot into the air, and shocked Lilly so bad her trim nearly came off.
“What in Luna’s name?” Top Hat barked from the brake van’s veranda as the trio of worker ponys came galloping out of the tunnel, his trottingham accent starting to show. “Oy! Just where do you lot think you’re going?!”
“Not back in there that’s for sure!” The lead worker panted, a tall unicorn with dusty brown fur and a blue mane, the same color as another’s coat.
“We found a blockage twenty meters in,” He gasped, dropping on his haunches to catch his breath. “We tried digging it out but.”
“It moved!” The third yelped, shaking like an autumn leaf. “It shifted, snorted and everything! I’m telling you there’s something big and alive in there!”
“Rubbish,” Top Hat snorted, hopping down from the brake van. “If it’s an animal it can be moved out like any other stubborn stopper. Driver, get ready to push.” Lilly’s driver nodded and opened the tank engines regulator even as she tried to swallow her fear down.
“B-but what if it’s got teeth or horns?” She asked nervously eyeing the tunnel entrance. “Or breaths fire or something?!” Top Hat looked like he was going to launch into scolding the little engine’s fear, when an orange filly raised her voice
“We’ll check it out!”
“WHAT?!” the other four filly’s yelled together, so loud Top Hat recoiled as if struck.
“Are you crazy?” Apple Bloom asked. “We don’t even know what’s in there!”
“Exactly,” Scootaloo smirked dangerously. “Plus this might be our chance to get a herding cutie mark.”
“Doesn’t that involve multiple animals?” Silver Spoon asked innocently.
“We should get Fluttershy,” Sweetie Belle suggested. “She works with scary animals all the time, and they never attack her.”
“I’m of half a mind to do just that,” Top Hat grimaced looking at the tunnel then back down the line they had come up. “But winter is fast approaching, and I don’t want any more delays than necessary. We must complete the inspection today.”
“Come on,” Scootaloo beckoned, already trotting toward the tunnel mouth. “It’ll be fun.”
“You go right ahead bird brain,” Diamond scowled sitting back on her haunches and turning her nose up. “The smart ponys are staying right here.”
“Wow,” The Pegasus filly laughed. “And here I thought I was supposed to be the chicken.” Apple Bloom knew what her fellow crusader was up to the moment Diamond Tiara’s body went stiffer than an apple tree.
“What was that?”
“Bwack buk-buk-buk-buk-bwaack!” The pink filly’s face turned from light to scarlet red as Scootaloo kept making clucking sound.
“Oh yeah! We’ll see about that feather brain. Let’s go!” With that she stomped off toward the tunnel, Scootaloo right beside her, and looking very pleased with herself. Nopony spoke until the two were well inside the tunnel.
“Wow,” Silver spoon gulped. “I’ve never seen Diamond so, competitive before.”
“Not sure that’s the right word,” Apple Bloom sighed sitting on the ground by the rails, and looking worried enough to concern Lilly.
“What’s wrong?”
“Well,” The yellow earth filly started. “My big sister Applejack told me rivalries are dangerous.”
“How can two pony’s doing their best be bad?”
“That part she wasn’t very clear on,” Apple Bloom admitted ruefully, not having understood the lesson when Applejack told her. “All she said was it’s all fun and games until somepony gets em’self hurt.”
There was more wisdom in that simple phrase than the fillys knew, wisdom the pair currently inside the tunnel were soon to learn first hoof.
“Dang it,” Scootaloo grumbled as she squinted her eyes tighter, trying in vain to see more than a few inches beyond her muzzle. “Why’s it have to be so dark?”
“Well we are underground,” Diamond sarcastically supplied, going slow so as not to stub her dainty hooves in a rock or rail tie. “Things tend to get dark when there’s a mountain over your head.”
“Will you stop whining? Geez. If I knew you were gonna be a prancy I’d have tricked Sweetie Belle into coming. At least she has a light built in.” Diamond scowled, having realized the moment the tunnel mouths light faded behind them the little Pegasus had used her pride against her, but that same pride made her determined not to be afraid. Or at least not look it.
Truth be told both fillies were in over their heads further than they realized. Instead of long and straight like they imagined, the tunnel was short and curved, so nopony, not an engineer or a pony walking could see right through to the other side. But they kept walking, proud courage ebbing away as the tiny sounds began in the darkness. A drip of water behind them caused Scootaloo to jump, wings popping out with a sproing.
“What’s the matter?” Diamond sneered. “Scared?”
“N-no,” The little Pegasus stammered with all the bravery she had left.
“Aww, not so tough now that the lights are out are yaIEEEEEEEEE!!” The pink filly’s jab turned to a shriek when a drop of cold water fell from the tunnel roof right onto the base of her tail. The cold went lancing up her back, pomfing out her mane and making her dance in midair before running for her life down the tracks.
“Hey!” Scootaloo cried out galloping into the black after the pink blur before she heard a sharp metallic thud and the sound of haunches dropping into loose wet gravel.
“Ow,” Diamond whined rubbing her nose as the orange filly came running up beside her.
“You okay?” She asked helping the other filly to her legs.
“No,” She answered quickly, still making sure her muzzle wasn’t bleeding. “It feels like I ran straight into a giant … wall of …metal?” Diamond’s voice trailed off as she opened her now properly adjusted eyes and noticed two very important facts:
One: the very faint shine of what little light there was in the tunnel off the wall in front of them.
Two: the wall was standing up.
Sweetie Belle had just convinced Silver Spoon, Lilly, and Apple Bloom to play a game of I Spy when Diamond Tiara and Scootaloo came tearing out of the tunnel like a runaway freight train, screaming at the top of their little lungs.
Both filly’s leapt into Lilly’s cab, diving for the sanctuary beneath the driver’s seat, and their friends only had a minute to be confused before a giant gleaming bronze bull came snorting out of the tunnel mouth, horns glinting in the sunlight and smoke wafting from its nostrils. The beast turned its head this way and that, sniffing the air, and whether it was fear or intention, Lilly chose that moment to let off steam with a terrific whoosh, loud and close enough to startle the bull and make him gallop away past their train, toward the open pastures further back down the line. The three fillies still sitting in the grass by the tracks looked at one another.
“Uhh, what just happened?” Sweetie Belle asked dizzily as Lilly’s driver poked his head out of the tank engine’s cab.
“A Khaltaur! Haven’t seen one of those in a while,” he remarked as Lilly shook horribly on her wheels. “Little guy must’ve laid down in the tunnel to take a nap. That metal hide gets awful hot during the day.”
“C-ca-can we go now?” Lilly squeaked, trying to get her shaking under control.
“I think that’s best,” Top Hat nodded. After coaxing Diamond and Scootaloo out of their hiding place in Lilly’s cab, and making sure the fillies were all safe inside the coach, he and the workers piled into the brake van, and with lamps shining, Lilly slowly advanced into the tunnel. None of the fillies said a word as the rolled through the darkness. Apple Bloom and Silver Spoon wanted to say told you so’s, but the embarrassed looks on their BFF’s faces kept them quiet.
The two daredevils for their part, didn’t feel much like talking anymore either. They knew that sooner or later their parents would find out what happened, and there were sure to be consequences.
Sweetie Belle, in her own show of bravery, hopped up in her seat and looked out the coach’s windows as they trundled through the tunnel, only to look back and forth along their train in confusion when they stopped. Behind the train Lilly was just as confused, her driver having brought her to a stop still inside the tunnel when the brake van’s bell gave three chimes to stop. To the pony’s up front however, the answer was quite clear.
“This wasn’t on the map,” Top Hat grimaced as he looked out toward Saddle Lake over a rusty railing. The reason for the tunnels sharp curve was now staring them in the face. Just outside the tunnels mouth, the tracks ran along a narrow ledge, built up in places with cobblestone walls where the natural rock face wasn’t wide enough. Even now it was clear to the workers that nopony would be able to walk or stand on the ledge when a train passed by. Below them was the calm wide waters of Saddle Lake, stretching north and south as far as the eye could see. Top Hat walked over to the edge and looked over, checking the walls for cracks as the workers did the same, though with much keener eyes.
“Hmm, what do you think Trestle?” He asked looking at the blue earth pony who only tapped his chin.
“The wall looks fine,” He said giving the track itself another look. “And I can’t see any signs of subsidence in the ballast. But best slap a stone welding spell on it just to be safe.”
“Good idea,” The unicorn in their company said, horn already charging. “Maker knows the Everfree weather couldn’t have been kind.” Top Hat nodded a grim reply. There was moss growing around the tracks here and weeds a plenty. The line from Pithsburg to the tunnel was more or less still up to snuff and ready to run trains on, maybe even mainline engines. All it really needed was a trimming, but he was suddenly very nervous about how the rest of the line had faired, especially so close to the infamous Everfree Forest.
“We’ll need a bridge,” Top Hat said where he stood gazing out across the lake toward the opposite shore, where Ponyville lay. Trestle nodded, mind already at work on a design
“Aye. Straight across the Lake to the other side. Do you really think the Mayor can convince the townsfolk to let you put tracks right through town?”
“I dearly hope so,” Top hat sighed. “This entire project hinges on the ENER obtaining a station in Ponyville. Between the growing demand for Sweet Apple Acres produce and the tourism to see the Castle of Friendship, a station or at the least a depot in town would guarantee the line’s return to profitability.”
He could only hope the cost of repairing the old line didn’t bankrupt the new one.
“Then what?” Applejack didn’t bother to hide the smirk that crept onto her muzzle as her brother Big Mac sat entranced by the story being told by his littlest sister, sitting across the table both their hayburgers forgotten on their plates. The older apple sister looked across the table, and her smile only grew when she saw the happiness in her grandmother’s old eyes.
“Well,” Apple Bloom said resuming her story. “After they got the Khal-taur out of the tunnel, the workers had to spend a lot of time check’n the tracks on the other end. It was on this reaaaaally tall cliff, and you could see Saddle Lake and Ponyville and everyth’n from it! You could even see the Carousel Boutique an our windmill from there!”
“We didn’t go very fast after that though,” Sweetie Belle said casually, sipping the fresh tea her mother had prepared for dinner. “Mr. Top Hat and the workers kept making Lilly stop so they could check the tracks. One time they even had to push the rails back together.”
“It’s no wonder,” Rarity nodded. “All those years unattended, and so close to that horrible forest. Why it’s a miracle the tracks were still there at all.”
“That’s what Silver Spoon said,” the unicorn filly nodded. “She even had to tell the worker pony’s how to use one of the tools they brought.”
“Clever little thing isn’t she?” Sweetie Belle’s mother remarked, sipping her tea.
“She’s wicked smart,” Scootaloo related to Rainbow Dash as the prism maned Pegasus watched the filly practice her wings, hover hopping from cloud to cloud. “Like real egghead smart.”
“Make’s sense,” Rainbow shrugged watching the filly slowly building up her wing muscles. They did this at least three times a week after dinner, and the filly’s anemic wings had already improved by leagues. Given a good running start, she could glide through the air at least 20 feet before gravity brought her down. “Her uncle’s the big boss of the railway ain’t he?”
“Yeah. Silver Spoon’s like a living book when it comes to the history, and Diamond’s the same way with the engines.” Scootaloo poked her tongue out as she leapt into the air, spinning a little at the top of her jump before landing. “When we finally got to the old mine, she started running and jumping all over the place looking at all the old stuff. There was even some old freight cars buried in the back!”
“The stuff pony’s leave behind eh?” The cyan mare laughed, taking a moment to glance across the trees and town, over Saddle Lake to the low rocky ridge just peeking over the tip of the Everfree forest. “Hey squirt, how long do those business ponies reckon it’ll take them to have the trains running again anyway?”
“Not very,” Apple Bloom said taking a bite of some alfalfa that had fallen off her hayburger. “Mr. Top Hat said at most they jus need ta do some re-ballast’n here an there, and replace a few pieces of track. The big challenge is gonna be the bridge they need ta put in ta connect with the station in Ponyville.”
“I can imagine,” Granny Smith said nibbling on her plate of steamed leaves, looking distant and deep in thought. “My oh my, this’ll be the biggest con-struct’n project since they put up the Town Hall, or built the train station for that matter,” she laughed, but her eyes only grew more misty, looking deep back into her memory. “If only Pippin could be here to see this.”
“Pippin?” Applejack asked setting down a glass of milk, and her grandmother smiled in the coy way only grandparents can.
“Lil, Bloom here wasn’t the first Apple to make an engine a friend,” She smiled wistfully. “Back before you and yer brother were born, Pippin pulled the trains tween here an Whitetail. Oh he didn’t look much like the trains we gots now. He was a steam tram. Big hen shed on wheels I called him once,” she laughed heartily. “Poor fella got so mad, he din’t say a word the rest of the day!”
Apple Bloom leaned forward in her seat, ears perked and open, and her big siblings could only shake their heads. She was up late that night, listening by the fireplace as Granny Smith told her about the old days and simpler times, of gracious hard working farm ponys and steam engines, and stubborn mayors and even more pig headed merchants.
The filly went to bed that night happily tired, but as Big Mac finished tucking her in, he noticed a flicker of candle light dancing across the floor at the bottom of the stairs. The red stallion snuck down the stairs as carefully as he could, peeking his head out just enough to see Granny Smith pulling a thick book from the fireplace mantle. Mac couldn’t help but smile, he knew the old mare wasn’t nearly as crippled as she let on, and she could still surprise the apple siblings in the field some mornings. But tonight, as she sat down in the chair by the flickering embers of the fireplace, a single candle lit on the tiny table beside her, Mac could see the years catch up with her. And as she opened the book, the years kept coming.
He knew what was in those pictures, he’d snuck enough peeks when he was Apple Bloom’s age, but he still kept quiet as he could as he walked up behind his grandmother’s chair and looked into the book, and the story’s each little magically captured image told.
A tiny sapling in a burlap bag, the buds of flowers just starting on its branches, while an apple green mare with braided pigtails smiled lovingly beside it.
A fresh cut clearing, holes still empty where stumps had been dug out while a wooden frame took shape, with the beginnings of plank walls and a brick chimney.
A family picture, three distinct branches of the apple family. In the middle was a young couple, a tall deep red stallion, smiling beneath his Stetson hat, while the green mare beside him smiled in spite of herself, trying in vain to turn so her large belly didn’t show.
A foal, a little colt wrapped in blankets, his tiny bright yellow muzzle just barely poking out beneath his sleepy green eyes.
As the pictures went on, the colt got older. Going to school, playing with his friends, his wonder when his parents presented him with a little sister and brother. The pictures showed them playing through a growing town, one building after another rising along the streets. There was even one of a half built clock tower, where the colt and an older stallion with wild white hair stood beside the yet to be installed clock.
The pictures didn’t change much, but the town in them got bigger, and two more colts appeared in some of the pictures, playing with the couple’s son. One was an off-white unicorn, the other a dark tan earth pony. They ran and played in the small park, through the orchard, there was even a picture of them climbing into the cab of a blue steam tram. There was nother picture of them with the tram, this time with a tiny box car behind it filled with crates of fresh apples being loaded insdie. However, only the two of the colts were doing the loading. The yellow colt, was busy talking to an orange mare with red hair.
Granny Smith laughed softly and shook her head, only for the smile to run away from her face as her hoof lingered on the page’s edge. For the longest moment she didn’t move, or so much as breathe for that matter, until a sigh finally escaped her and she closed the album.
‘Seems like only yesterday,’ she thought to herself, sinking into her chair. She felt the soft presence of her grandson, and basking in the warmth of the fires embers, she slowly closed her eyes and entered Princess Luna’s realm of dreams.
Apple Bloom wasn’t quite as asleep as her family thought when she heard her big brother’s hoof-steps coming back up the stairs. Her door was open just enough that she could peek outside, and the look on Big mac’s face told the little filly her big brother was sad about something. The next morning, she couldn’t help but tell Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo.
“It couldn’t be the sales,” She thought out loud as she had her fellow crusaders made their way across town. Instead of their club tree house, The Crusaders were going to the Ponyville train station to talk with their tank engine friend. “We had one of our best crops ever this year. The only thang else gets Mac upset is seeing Granny Smith sad.”
“But why?” Scootaloo asked, but her earth pony friend could only shake her head.
“I wish ah knew,” She sighed, wells already turning in her mind. Not one of the crusaders could stay sad for long though, as they were soon at the station, and a tiny cloud of steam signaled Lilly was already steaming up for the day.
She had spent the night in the shed where the station kept important passenger cars, like Filthy Rich’s private coach or even the royal coach when Princess Cadance visited her sister in law. It sat at the end of a trio of long passing sidings just beyond the tiny stations main platform. To the shed’s left was a switch that lead to a small turn table and around it, five more tracks fanning out into the tall grass. Just down the line was the junction, where the mainline from Canterlot branched off, one line headed south over the Ghastly Gorge and on to Appleloosa and Dodge City, the other going west toward Whitetail Woods through the Elk Ridge tunnel.
But though her fire was sizzling nicely and her boiler warming up, Lilly looked very glum indeed.
“Morn’n Lilly,” Apple Bloom smiled trotting up to the little tank engine.
“Hey girls,” She sighed dejectedly, a tone the fillies knew well from pony’s returning from the Ms. Cheerilees office.
“What’s wrong?” Sweetie Belle asked jumping onto Lilly’s buffer beam and taking a seat on the warm metal.
“While we were looking at the branch line, Mr. Rich had some ponies surveying a route through town for the new tracks. They were almost at Saddle Lake when a pony from the local Guard walked up to them.” Lilly couldn’t honestly say she understood the details, she had more in common with her new Filly friends than she realized, but she did know the looks on Mr. Rich and Mr. Top Hat’s faces last night had not been happy ones.
“They said they won’t allow trains to run through town unless they have nets and a kitchen.”
“Nets?” Scootaloo asked tilting her head in confusion as the faint sound of an approaching train wafted through the air. “Why the hay would a train need nets to be around ponys?”
“Or a kitchen fer that matter,” Apple Bloom added, scratching her bow trying to figure out their latest problem. First Big Mac, now Lilly, Apple Bloom’s mind was tying itself in more knots than her pink bow just trying to figure out how to help one of them!
It was Sweetie Belle’s finely tuned ears that perked up when a steam whistle shrieked across the station yard, wailing like Rarity at spilled juice. The unicorn Filly whimpered as she tucked and pressed her ears against her head, and even Scootaloo winced at the sheer volume of the sound, but Lilly seemed to perk up on her wheels.
“I know that whistle,” she gasped as a big tender engine pulled a long freight train into the Ponyville station yard, newly cleaned grey and silver paint shining like new in the morning sun.
“Good morning Lilly,” The big engine cheered, and while the Crusaders were by no means unhappy to see Mikaela again, her next whistle nearly sent them to their knees. Her whistle shrieked so loudly and at such a high pitch, Apple Bloom swore she could hear everfree timberwolves howling in agony.
“Mickey!” The Tank engine winced before the silver engine’s whistle stopped. “Why on earth do you still have that stupid thing?”
“I happen to like my banshee whistle thank you very much,” Mikaela hmphed importantly. “There’s no comparison when it comes to announcing one’s presence.”
“Yeaaaah,” Scootaloo droned sarcastically, massaging her ears. “Nothing says hello like a splitting headache.” Lilly and the other Crusaders giggled at the indignant look the little pegasi’s remark brought to the big engine’s face, which worked better at lightening the mood than anything else.
“Good to see you’re out and about,” Lilly smiled as the end of Mikaela’s train finally cleared the mainline and passed over the points.
“It was a bit of a rush job,” The big Mikado admitted, feeling a tiny jet of steam escape from somewhere it probably shouldn’t. “But I’m not about to let you and these fillies try wrestling this branch line back open all on your own. It’s the least I can do for the newest Railway Juniors.”
“You already know about that?” Apple Bloom realized out loud.
“Hard not to,” The tender engine laughed. “You six are the talk of the line! Every engine and rail-pony from Manehattan to Baltimare is talking about the five fillies and the little tank engine that raced against time to save The Sun Racer Limited!”
“Eep!” was all the sound Lilly gave before she vanished in a cloud of steam. Scootaloo, as expected, was nothing less than ecstatic.
“We’re famous?! Awesome!”
“Holy smokes!,” Apple Bloom gasped, a country mile wide smile on her muzzle. “Jus wait till Diamond an Silver get a load of this!!”
“Where are they anyway?” Lilly asked, glancing around the shed.
“Sleeping probably,” Mikaela puffed, yawning in spite of herself. “At least that’s where I would be if these cars hadn’t needed delivery.”
“What’s in em?” Apple Bloom asked walking out and sweeping her eyes down the length of the train behind the tender engine that all but filled the stations passing siding. There were at least fifteen freight cars, all long and riding on four wheels trucks: six flat cars loaded down with gleaming new steel rails, seven more piled high with fresh cut wooden ties, two box cars, and a brake van.
“Building supplies,” Mikaela smiled sleepily, the early hour catching up with her. “Yard manager said they’re for the new connection through Ponyville.” When her explanation only earned glum looks from Lilly and the Crusaders, the big engine felt curiosity and concern ebb away her lethargy. “What is it?” She asked, and Lilly explained what she had heard, with Scootaloo joining in toward the end of the tale.
“And if we can’t get Lilly come nets and a kitchen, they might not let her run on her new tracks.”
“Nets and a … wait,” Mikaela groaned looking at the sky. “What exactly did they say you would need to get?”
“I uh …” The mulberry tank engine suddenly looked very sheepish, and her eyes were looking everywhere but at the bigger engine. “Well, they didn’t say nets and a kitchen exactly. S-something about catching cows and plates for my sides.”
“You mean cowcatchers and side-plates,” Mikaela corrected, muttering something about tank engines with soot in their funnels. “They’re safety measures to keep ponies nearby from being caught under your wheels. Do you remember Hut and Hike, the little diesel shunters that help Terrance on Foal Mountain?” Lilly’s face paled, and anyone in her cab would have noticed her boiler pressure drop dramatically.
“That’s what those are?!” She panicked. “You mean if I want to run through town, I gotta wear those ridiculous things?”
“What’s so bad about em?” Scootaloo asked off handedly, earning a snort from Mikaela.
“They’re basically a metal skirt that goes round the outside edge of an engines frames.”
“And what’s wrong with skirts?” Sweetie Belle asked, doing her best impression of her big sister when she had a self-proclaimed fashion expert on her hooves.
“Nothing, if you have legs,” The tender engine said drolly. “But on an engine … well….” She searched and searched for the right words, until Lilly supplied them.
“They make you look like somepony stuck a boiler and cab on top of a box.” The crusaders took a moment to picture it in their heads, and based on the degrees of disgust Mikaela saw on their muzzles, they now understood Lilly’s aversion.
“I really don’t wanna have to get side-plates,” Lilly groaned. “Everyone will laugh at me.”
“Hey,” Apple Bloom piped up looking the tank engine in the eye. “Just cause how you look might change don’t mean what we think of ya will.”
“Farm girl’s right,” Scootaloo added. “You’re our friend Lil, and we’re with ya no matter what.”
“Yeah,” Sweetie Belle chimed, bringing a smile to the tank engine’s face.
“Thank you.”
“Now that’s friendship,” Mikaela smiled. “Not every engine can say they have three friends like that who would stick with them through thick and thin, or getting modified to look like some boxy fiddly old tram engine.”
“Mickey!” Lilly shouted indignantly, just as Apple Bloom’s eyes shot wide open.
“Wait, what was that last part?”
“Umm, fiddly old tram engine?” Mikaela answered nervously as the filly's grin grew so wide it threatened to split her muzzle.
“That’s it!”
“What’s it?” Lilly asked, voicing the other crusaders confusion. Apple Bloom quickly related Granny Smiths stories from the night before to the engines, and later that day, Mikaela’s driver and fire-ponys were retelling those same stories to Top Hat in the caboose of Mikaela’s train.
“Yes,” he sighed with a grim look on his face, like a colt who knew he wasn’t getting the presents he wanted for Hearthswarming. “A tram engine is just what we need for the branch line, and I seem to remember my father going on about losing an engine by the name of Pippin to the Southern. But to my knowledge the steam trams were all scrapped years ago.”
“I’ve heard talk Sir,” Mikaela’s firepony said, “of an old steam tram working the docks in Tall Tale. I don’t know any real specifics Sir, but the fact he’s managed to keep himself busy all these years says something.”
“Quite,” The railway manager nodded. He was already in the process of buying the Ponyville Depot for the new Union terminal, and a dedicated engine to take freight from the station across town would help immensely. “I’ll send a letter to his manager at once.”
WARNING: I tried to write a cockney accent in this chapter. Please don't hurt me.
The next day the Crusaders and their new friends had to go back to school, and they were treated to an especially dreary case of the Mondays.It was only made worse when jJust before the final bell rang, Ms. Cheerilee announced a new group project.
“Now,” She said as she reached a hoof up to scratch on the chalkboard. “I’m sure everypony’s heard something about the new railway coming to town.” A flurry of nods followed, save for five fillies who gave each other knowing smirks. Truthfully, Cheerilee was overjoyed to see the Crusaders making friends with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, although there was still a rival’s animosity between Scootaloo and Diamond.
“There will be three big parts to the construction,” She continued, drawing with her hoof as she went. “One: reopening the old branch line across Saddle Lake. Two: building a new passenger station and tracks through Ponyville. And three: building a bridge to connect the two. The Equestria North Eastern Railway, the ponies in charge of all this, are having a contest to decide the designs of the new bridge and station. Your project, will be to come up with designs of your own for one or the other. You’ll be working in groups of two and three, so I want everypony to pick their partners by tomorrow, and have a good day.”
As Ms. Cheerilee dismissed class, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Daimond Tiara, Scootaloo and Silver Spoon headed for the Ponyville train station. Mikaela was now making trips to Ponyville twice a day with supply trains from Fillydelphia, and her driver had offered to show the fillies how the big tender engine worked. Diamond Tiara of course already knew almost all the ins and outs and was eager to show off, but the other four were just as excited.
They trotted up to the station together and were greeted by a wail from Mikaela’s banshee whistle. The big Mikado was currently being turned on the stations turntable, which was barely large enough to fit her, and whose simple wheel crank meant her crew was having a tough time of turning her around. What two days ago had been a sleepy village train depot was now bustling with activity. Worker ponies of all shapes and sizes were going every which way. Unicorns and Pegasi were lifting more rails and ties off Mikaela’s freight cars, while a gang of earth ponies were hard at work marking out the path the new track would take through town. Apple Bloom was all but gaping at the sheer number of ponies at work, and nearly went under hoof when she walked into a group of earth pony’s pulling a sled of ties down the road. She had to hurry a little to catch up with the others, and felt her eyes begin to roll down the tracks as Diamond Tiara and Scootaloo turned their much too big for them egos on each other again.
“Puh-lease,’ the orange filly scoffed, interrupting Diamond’s ramblings on boiler management and steam generation. “What’s there to know? You put the coal in the hole, get it hot, make steam, and off you go.”
“It’s a little more complicated than that,” the pink filly insisted as Mikaela chuffed off the turntable behind them. “Steam engines aren’t like diesels. You can’t just flip a switch and press a button then sit back and watch the scenery go by. They’re a finely tuned piece of machinery, and have to be treated properly. Like me.” Her prim smile turned to a scowl when Scootaloo failed to hide a snort of laughter.
“As I was saying,” She glowered. “You have to oil the side rods, grease the couplings, keep the ash pan and boiler tubes clean, build a fire, raise steam, and all that before you even leave the station.”
“What’s a diesel?” Sweetie Belle asked, face scrunching at the sour note Diamond had used with the word, but it was nothing compared to the venom in Mikaela’s voice.
“A train yard of trouble with a bad attitude,” The tender engine glowered. “They’re locomotives that run on magic and gems instead of water and coal. Mr. Top Hat’s tested a few on our railway, but they always make a mess of things. They think they’re so great and advanced, and all you ever hear out them is the same old abolish steam slag.”
“A-bomb-ish?” Scootaloo asked.
“Abolish,” Silver Spoon corrected as a sad tone entered her voice. “It means to do away with, or end a practice. My uncle said the Van Hoover and Western railway has already abolished steam, and replaced all their engines with diesels.”
“But what happens to the steam engines?” Apple Bloom wondered out loud, only to have Mikaela’s eyes look away from them.
“It-it’s not nice to say.” The farm filly recognized the look, the same one Granny Smith got when she asked about her grandfather, and decided not to ask any more questions on the issue. Though to be fair she wasn’t very curious about it after she spotted an orange mare wearing a Stetson talking with an older stallion in a tall hat.
“Hey AJ!” The filly shouted, galloping the rest of the way to her big sister’s side, winding the mare a little on impact.
“Oof, howdy Bloom,” Applejack gasped as Top Hat’s niece Silver Spoon ran up as well.
“What’re you doing here?” The yellow filly asked as the older Apple habitually readjusted her little sister’s bow.
“Jus talk’n with Mr. Hat bout the new tracks he an Diamond’s Daddy are put’n in.”
“It’s shaping up quite well,” Top Hat smiled, turning to point a hoof down the street being marked by the workers. “The new track will follow this road. It curves around the southern side of Ponyville, from the station, all the way to Secretariat Street.” Apple Bloom perked up at that; Sweet Apple Acres wasn’t very far off that road at all, and the school house was even closer, just up a little trail on the hill.
“From there,” Top Hat continued, “the tracks will enter the town itself, passing by Carousel Boutique, Sugar Cube Corner and a host of other stores before turning toward the new bridge, and linking up with the old line across the lake. I understand your teacher told you about our little competition to decide the design?”
“Eyess Sir,” Apple Bloom nodded, though her eyes betrayed a creeping anxiety. “But, if ya don’t mind me asking, what’ll happen to the old station when ya build the new one?”
“Well, the plan was to tear it down and build the new terminal here on the main,” The older stallion admitted as the words made the filly’s head droop. “But as Ms. Apple has informed me it would be much more efficient for everypony if we renovated instead.”
“Eeyup,” Applejack nodded as her little sister’s mood perked back up. “The station’s already pretty bare-bones as is, so it won’t take much ta make it inta a lil-freight depot, leav’n the new station free ta handle passengers.”
“Indeed,” Top Hat smiled before a sudden tone caught one unicorn filly’s ears.
“Sweets?” Scootaloo started as her fellow crusader perked up and turned her head toward the station building. “What is it?”
“Didn’t you hear it?”
“Hear what?” Silver Spoon asked, perking her own ears up and searching for a sound.
“A bell.” Now all five were listening, trying to pick out any sound over the bustle of noise all around them, and sure enough, three seconds later two chimes rang out from behind the station building.
“Oh that?” Top Hat smiled cheekily as he started walking, leading the filly’s and farm mare toward the station. “That would be our new yard engine. Since the Ponyville depot will soon be part of the Equestria North Eastern, and given the fact we shall need an engine that meets the proper safety standards to shuttle cars through town, I decided this place needed someone to keep it in order. To that end, I bought this smart old boy.”
“Rescued is mo the word,” a worn but kind voice remarked through a thin haze of steam. He was undoubtedly a steam engine, evidenced by his short funnel and the hissing steam billowing around him, but the rest of him was very, very strange looking. His wheels were hidden behind big metal plates, and below his buffers were slanted grates, almost like a smooth cheese slicer. His boiler was hidden inside what appeared to be a big wooden shed, with two windows on his front, and two on his side. On his roof was his funnel, and a tarnished brass bell that though weathered and worn, still rang clearly across the train yard. The fillies were immediately reminded of Jedidiah, the tram wearing the same kind aged look as the old amareican, and many of the same signs of age. His paint had worn away completely, exposing pale wooden planks, but here and there you could still see traces of a rich blue.
“Top o the morn’n,” he chimed politely in an aged but very unique trottingham accent. “I ope I’m not intruding on anything.”
“Not at all,” Top Hat smiled back. “In fact you’re right on time. Pippin, I would like you to meet The Ponyville chapter of the Railway Juniors.” Each of the filly’s said hello as their name was called, but when Top Hat got to Apple Bloom.
“Is your name really Pippin?” She asked staring at the tram engine unbelievingly.
“Well I shoo ope so,” The old engine smiled with a laugh. “It wouldn do to have been go'n around all ese years calling me'self another engine’s name now wou it?”
“Did you used to work here a long time ago? Like, town found’n long time ago?” Mikaela couldn’t help but hear, and winced at the question, remembering well how prickly Jedidiah could get about his age. But the tram took it all in stride.
“You know as a mat'er o fact I did,” he gasped as if realizing a stark revelation, before closing on eye and looking Apple Bloom over carefully. “Now that you mention it, you remind me of a little colt I knew back in those days.” Applejack couldn’t help but smirk at the growing excitement on her little sister’s muzzle.
“I might know why. Does the name Granny Smith ring any bells?” She asked, watching the tram’s features light up.
“Granny? You wou'd'n by chance mean Annie Smith?”
“Eeeyuup, that’s her. She’s mine an Bloom’s Gran Ma.”
“Well bless me ole bell,” Pippin laughed from deep down in his boiler. “I knew I was gone a long time, but sweet celestia. A granmother! How is Annie ese days?”
“She’s do’n fine,” Applejack supplied with a smirk. “If it wasn’t for her hip she’d still be working in the fields same as the rest of us.”
“That sounds bout right,” the old tram chuckled, his eyes sparkling as they glanced around the station. “My goodness things have certainly changed round ere. Why, I remember when that turntable ad its own little roundhouse, and you coul barely see the town o'er the station roof.”
“And it’s going to change more,” Top Hat nodded thoughtfully. “We’re in the process of connecting this station to the Rambling Rock Branch line, and I need you Pippin, to keep this station in order.”
“But o corse Sir,” The old tram smiled, before chuffing away to sort out the empty flat cars. As he buffered up to them he started humming a little tune, and while it took him a minute or two to start the long metal cars moving, the empty cars were soon being marshalled closer to the mainline, giving the workers more room to unload the rest of the train.
The fillies watched the old tram work for a few minutes before a cry from Mikaela’s driver reminded them of their plans. As they ambled off toward the waiting tender engine, Apple Bloom was all but dancing in place. Pippin couldn’t help but watch them go, and felt himself drift back to memories distant but now closer than ever.
“Come on guys! Last one to the Acres is a rotten apple!”
“HEY! No fair Mac! You always get a head start!”
“And you have that dang shortcut! You know we can’t jump as far as you!”
“So grow wings!”The three colts raced after one another, leaping and bounding over the tracks and shouting ponies going on their way.
Pippin chuckled at the memory of three little ponies with barely a thought to spare for anything beyond their next adventure. And though it seemed Ponyville now had a new trio, or was it quintet?, of troublemakers, Pippin couldn’t help but miss his old friends. One thing he didn’t miss however, was that horrid bucking trick they used to pull on him. He shuddered on his frames just thinking of it, but the clank of unloaded rails buffered his mind back to the present, at least until the next odd glance reminded him of another time worn memory.
To Diamond Tiara’s chagrin the mikado’s crew didn’t include all the various cleanings and maintenances involved with a steam engine in their lesson, instead ushering the five fillies right up into the tender engines cab. Mikaela already had a nice fire going, and her firepony showed them how to build it up, using large and small coals to make something almost resembling a fort in Mikaela’s firebox.
“This way,” He explained, “The coals won’t burn right away, and instead of making all your steam in the yard and blowing off, you can have a roaring fire just when you need it.”
“Oh I get it,” Apple Bloom said with just a bit more understanding than her friends. “It’s like what Big Mac does for company. He spends an hour stacking the logs jus so they’ll be burn’n when ponys start arriving, but not before.”
“Exactly,” The stallion smiled, before Mikaela’s driver took over, showing them all the various levers, valves and what they did to control the big tender engine’s speed. He was just getting to the regulator, when Scootaloo’s eyes caught on a valve and gauge marked out in red.
“Hey what’s this?” She asked pointing a hoof at the gauge.
“That,” the driver warned, “Is the safety valve. If Mikaela has a problem where something clogs her boiler or cylinders, it causes steam pressure to build. This,” He said tapping the gauge’s glass covering as something drew Silver Spoon’s attention to the cab window, “lets off steam when the pressure gets too high. It’s a safety measure all steam engines have.”
“Apple Bloom,” The grey filly called, “Isn’t that your big brother and granny?” The yellow filly hopped to the window just as a red stallion crossed the tracks with an old yellow-green mare, and Apple Bloom couldn’t even try to stop her smile when Granny Smith laid eyes on the old steam tram cuffing back and forth across the station. It wasn’t long before Mikaela’s driver realized he had lost the filly’s attention to the reunion in the yard, and settled for leaning against the firepony’s seat across the cab. Not a word was said as the fillies strained to hear every word being said across the yard.
Pippin was pushing another pair of flat cars into line behind their empty counter parts, when green fur appeared in the corner of his vision. He reversed just enough to bring the new pony into his line of sight, only to realize this pony was not new to him at all.
“With the mare in the moon as my witness,” He gasped tiredly, suddenly feeling as worn as his frames as the equally aged mare sat down before his buffers.
“I know,” Granny Smith chuckled. “I nev’r thought I’d live this long neither.” The joke sent both tram and mare roaring with laughter, and for a moment, the years melted away.
“Oh my stars, I just can't believe it.” The old mare shook her head, as if trying to clear the dust from old memories. “Of all ta faces I’ve seen in my years, yours is one of ta ones I ner could ferget.”
“That makes two of us,” Pippin smiled, but the lines seemed to creep back into his face as he glanced across the train yard. “So much has changed.”
“Fer sure. An quick too. Why it seem like only yesterday you were holler’n at colts to stay off ta tracks.”
“And when you were throwing apple cores at'em for stealing your pies. Though to be fair,” Pippin sighed as his eyes settled on Big Mac and Applejack, the siblings now talking about business and harvests. “We only er had ose problems with three colts now didn' we?”
“Mm-hm,” Granny Smith nodded, already knowing where Pippin’s next questions were going to land. Or she thought she knew, until the tram’s tone turned somber.
“I eard about what happened at the mine. I … I’m so sorry Annie.”
“Ah’ve made peace with it,” She sighed, tone as worn and tired as its owner. “He’s with Blossom now. I only wish,” she admitted mournfully. “Tat they’d gotten te see deir youngun’s grow up. AJ’s tha spitt’n image of her ma.” Pippin nodded a soft agreement.
“Yes, and little Apple Bloom looks just like her father did at that age. All wide eye and steam'n on both cylinders. Minus the hat of course.”
“He gave it ta AJ after her trip ta Manehattan, visit’n her Ma’s kin. She hardly ever takes it off.”
“And the stallion?” Pippin asked.
“Macintosh; AJ an Bloom’s big brother. Most folk jus call’m Big Mac.” Pippin couldn’t help but smile.
“His father’s nickname, and his granfather’s looks.”
“John would be proud,” Granny Smith agreed, even as her head dropped and his ears folded down. Pippin knew better than to ask. He knew what was coming next, and he could only sympathize.
“It really is a mixed bless’n,” The old mare admitted slowly, tracing her hoof in the dirt. “Liv’n long as we have.”
“Aye,” Pippin said simply. Just as Granny Smith had watched her husband pass, then her son and daughter-in-law, Pippin had watched his brothers and sisters be taken to the breaker’s yards one by one. But both elders knew the last thing their relatives would want was to see them sad over their memories.
The two stallions creeping up on Pippin’s flanks knew it too.
Pippin never saw them, not until they reared their legs back and bucked him square in the sideplates. The old tram jumped and rattled as the crashing wobble traveled up his plates, through his planks, all the way to his roof and bell, turning its normal chime into a resounding DING!
“Bloody Luna!” He yelped, before his vision flashed red and he looked to his flanks. “Who’s back there?! Come out you blimey little buggers fore I!”
“Take it easy old boy,” The off white unicorn on his left laughed from behind his mustache. “It’s only us.”
“You impudent little!” The tram huffed and whooshed as the voice made him forget the year. “Why in my day colts were!”
“Seen and not heard Pip, we know,” The dark tan earth stallion coming from his right smirked, his muzzle wearing a smirk it hadn’t known in far too long. Somehow, Pippin managed to keep his anger even as a smile threatened to overwhelm it. “We remember well. Do you?”
“Oh I remember,” Pippin glowered through his smile. “Two rabble rousing colts named Magnum and Filthy, who ne'er knew when to leave well enough alone.”
“You do remember!” Magnum mock cheered. “Thank the goddess. I was afraid time had worn out your mind.”
“Oh real-eh,” Granny Smith glowered, folding her hooves over her and pinning both stallions with a glare perfected with age and practice. “An jus whut made ya’ll think that would be ta case?”
Pippin could no longer hold back his laughter as the full grown unicorn stallion fumbled under the old mare’s scrutiny, and neither could Filthy Rich. The old tram settled down onto his wheels and watched the scene play out, new and familiar at the same time. When the time finally came for the fillies to go home Pippin watched, his old eyes twinkling, and for the first time in years smiled as he dozed in the afternoon Ponyville sun.
After Pippin arrived, things quickly began to pick up around the Ponyville station. Trains of supplies were quickly sorted out by the old tram, who knew just how to handle the troublesome cars. With the supplies literally rolling in, and trucks of ballast now among the incoming cars, the workers were quickly laying the new tracks past the station toward their planned route through town. Pippin for his part enjoyed the work. First he would push two or three ballast trucks down the tracks until he reached the end, then let the railponies unload them. As they set to work spreading the rock and shaping it into a proper road bed for the tracks, Pippin reversed back to the station and retrived a flat car or two of ties and rails, after which it was back to the days construction site.
While it wasn’t that much of a change from his old job shunting cars back and forth in the Tall Tale dockyards, the fresh air and green scenery had him smiling from before sun up to well past sunset. Not even a week after his arrival, Pippin was already pushing flat cars piled with rails and ties quite a ways down the new tracks, stopping beside the path that lead up the small hill to where the school house sat. He watched a group of ponies go by, a few of them pausing to wave their hooves or shout a hello, and Pippin couldn’t stop smiling. It amazed him just how many ponies remembered him from his old days on the Whitetail tramway. He wanted to ring his bell and say hello back, but he couldn’t. Not until …
The school’s bell toned, and the foals rushed toward their waiting parents, free for the weekend. All were wearing scarves or hats, a sign of the dropping temperatures he could feel in his frames. Pippin lent his own bells chime to the chorus as five filly’s in particular trotted toward him and the work crew as the last of the ties left the flat car on his buffers.
“Howdy Pippin!” Apple Bloom smiled. Her usual bow was complemented by an apple green scarf wrapped snug around her neck. Sweetie Belle was also wearing a scarf, hers the same light pink as her mane, and a matching toboggan hat on her head.
“Allo,” He said wistfully, turning the filly’s good moods curious. “An may I say, it’s good to see some things nevah change.”
“What do you mean?” Sweetie Belle asked innocently as the other once again tilted their heads in confusion at the old trams words.
“Well tween all the new faces an buil’ns, its nice to know foals are still the same. Yer always appiest afer the school bell rings!”
“Darn right!” Apple Bloom laughed as Scootaloo and Daimond Tiara cracked up together while Sweetie Belle and Silver Spoon giggled.
“Yeah,” the grey filly smiled. “Now we can go to the library!” The laughter died as suddenly as it started, and the rest of the crusaders looked at their grey friend as if she’d grown a second head. “… well we could.” Scootaloo just rolled her eyes.
“Uh, no. Why would you wanna coop yourself up inside when there’s so much to do outside? That’s like reading a book at a wonderbolts show.” Now it was Diamond’s turn to scoff.
“Says the vice president of the Ponyville Daring-Do fanclub.”
“Th-that’s different!” She quickly insisted as her orange cheeks went red, and her friends right back to chortling as a familiar banshee whistle echoed up the street.
“Well com on then,” Pippin laughed. “That’ll be Mickey.” The tram rang his bell, and as soon as the crusaders had climbed aboard, set off back down the new tracks. Pippin wished his bell that was the only sound he made as he puffed, but his old frames and worn parts meant he almost didn’t need it. His hidden side-rods clanked terribly behind his side plates and his frames groaned like bare trees in a winter gale. Outside on the emptied flatbed though, the crusaders were none the wiser and were already, though somewhat reluctantly, talking about their class projects.
“So,” Silver Spoon said studiously as she pulled her white and sky blue scarf snug around her neck. “It’s Diamond, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle doing the station, and me and Scootaloo on the bridge right?”
“Eeyup,” Apple Bloom nodded. “But we only got til the end of next week ta get it done.”
“Exactly,” Scootaloo huffed from beneath her thick purple scarf, tone tired and annoyed. “We’ve got this weekend and all of next week to do it, so why rush?”
“Why not?” Silver asked innocently. “We have all this time to do it, why not use it to do the best we can?”
“Because there’s tons things to do more fun than homework?” Scootaloo fired back. “Unless you think those railway egg-heads are gonna pick something a filly came up with.”
“She has you there Silver,” Diamond Tiara sighed, her voice almost completely muffled by the thick pale purple scarf wrapped around and around her neck and head so many times it nearly connected to her white toboggan hat. “Ms. Cheerilee’s probably just using this as our last big homework before school ends for the winter.”
Seeing Diamond and Scootaloo agreeing on something might have been wonderful, if it hadn’t come alongside a dip in Silver Spoon’s mood. The grey filly’s excited smile had reversed itself and now she seemed a little too interested in the flatcars planks beneath them. And if being around Pinkie Pie had taught Sweetie Belle anything, it was to let no frown go unturned.
“Hey,” she said nudging the grey earth filly with her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she sighed quietly, looking anywhere by the unicorn filly’s eyes, but now Apple Bloom saw her too.
“That frown ain’t noth’in. What’s buggin ya Silver?” Apple Bloom moved a little, just enough that she was between the three of them and Scootaloo and Diamond.
“Well,” Silver started hesitantly, only to have another blast of a banshee whistle drown her out. Behind them Pippin was sure he could already hear Mikaela laughing about old rusted out engines when he rolled back into Ponyville station, but a glance back revealed laugh was the last thing the Mikado was going to do.
Mikaela was just pulling into the station with the latest train of supplies, but instead of her usual strong whooping puffs, steam was wheezing from her cylinders in thin clouds, and her normally clean white smoke was tinted a dusty black.
“Oh dear,” Pippin cringed, stopping just short of the switch connecting the new line to the old station. “You girls be good an wai ere. Looks like Mickey needs som elp.” The old tram uncoupled and reversed away over the points, then puffing forward again through the yard. The crusaders watched worried as he backed down on Mikaela’s front and gingerly helped the much larger engine into the yard.
“Do ya think she’s hurt?” Apple Bloom asked looking at Diamond Tiara, who could only shrug.
“Well it’s not strange for engines to make black smoke,” she said matter of factly. “It’s not advised, but it’s not strange.” Silver spoon didn’t know whether to be relieved or sad that her friends seemed to have forgotten about her for the moment, but she couldn’t help watching as Pippin gingerly helped Mikaela onto the yards turntable. He uncoupled and puffed away just as her driver and firepony climbed down from the cab and started to look her over. The crusaders immediately ambled over to the tram as he came to a stop at the end of the stations platform.
“Is Mickey okay?” Scootaloo asked as Pippin driver hopped down and walked inside the station building. “What’s wrong with her?”
“S’er repairs mor’n likely,” He said with a critical eye on the Mikado. “Shoddy clean’n an plum poor patches. Why, I woul’n be shoked if the wee girl’s got boiler ache on top off it’al.”
“I’m fine,” Mikaela snorted, only it was more of a sniffle, steam still wheezing from her cylinders. “I was in that blasted tunnel for almost half a year,” she admitted sourly. “A few more trips and I’ll be right back to my old self.” Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara traded glances, both having heard the same story and tone from family members too stubborn to admit needing help.
“Not stopped up lie at you won be,” Pippin scolded. “Wat you need is a proper fixin. A good week or two in da shop woul do you good.”
“For the last time you pile of rusted iron! I’m fii, azu, aka, aaaAAAHHH-CHOOO!” Mikaela’s driver had the misfortune to be peering down her funnel when the tender engine sneezed, and he was immediately covered from tail to teeth in coal dust. What didn’t get caught in his coat and mane slowly settled over the turntable like charred snow.
“Bless you!” Sweetie Belle shouted from under the protection of the stations awning, cowering from the dirt right alongside Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, leaving Apple Bloom and Scootaloo out in the filthy falling mix.
“Yeesh,” The little pegasus winced slowly backing up to join her friends in the shade. “Say it don’t spray it Mickey.” After so many years in the dock yards of Tall Tale Pippin was beyond caring when it came to dirt, but he still threw a reprimanding glare at the much larger engine.
“So … fine ar, ya?”
“Shut up,” The Mikado groaned as her driver shook himself like a dog, throwing off shovels worth of black powder before making his way to the station building. He walked past the fillys, meeting Pippins driver and the station master as they came outside. Though they worked for different railways, Ponyville’s station master wore the same style of uniform as the crusaders had seen on the ENER; a crisp blue suit with a dark red trim that stood out against his chocolate brown coat and checklist cutie mark.
“Well?” the station master asked, clearly hoping for good news, but Mikaela’s driver could only sigh.
“For today at least, she’s had it. She worked up a devil of a draft heading through the Horseshoe. We thought we had it taken care of, but it still sucked half her fire into her tubes. She’s not going anywhere until they’re cleaned.”
“Drat,” the station master huffed, only for his mood to sour even further when he took more than a passing glance at Mikaela’s train. “Wait, where’s the rest?”
“What rest?” Mikaela’s driver asked dumbly.
“The rest of your manifest. My dossier lists your train as hauling ten flat cars of ties and rails, seven ballast trucks, and a baker’s dozen trucks of paving stone.”
The two stallions immediately began to argue like colts, while Pippins driver tried and failed to stop them as what had been a civilized discussion devolved into a shouting match. All this left the crusaders very confused, and looking to their railway expert.
“What’s the problem?” Sweetie Belle asked turning to Silver Spoon, the grey filly explaining as best she could.
“There’s more cargo in Canterlot. Mickey was supposed to pick it up on her way, but her driver didn’t know about it, so it was left behind.”
“So?,” Scootaloo asked flatly. “Just put it on the next train down.”
“They can’t,” Pippin said sourly, earning him the attention of all five fillies. “Canterlot’s a Union yard.”
“Onion?” Apple Bloom asked, her nose scrunching up at the memory of the eye watering vegetable.
“U-nion,” Silver Spoon enunciated as she adjusted her glasses. “It means the yard isn’t owned by just one of the railways. So instead of only being used by Equestria North Eastern, Southern, or Grand Solar trains, this one can be used by anyone.”
“Wouldn’t the engines argue a lot?”
“It depens really,” Pippin said. “Ers lots of ole rivalries tween the roads, but Canterlot’s always been a kinda neutral groun. The problems come,” he explained sourly, “when yer movin cargo cross differen roads. Any freight train stops in Canterlot has to be marked, so engines from differen roads don’t leave with the wrong cars. But at also means the cars can only be picked up by engines from that road.”
“And,” Silver Spoon added. “Ponyville’s station isn’t ENER, it’s on the Southern railroad. Uncle Hatty had to make a special deal so some of his engines could bring stuff to build the new tracks here. Some kind of special registration or something.”
“A Running Rights Certificate,” Pippins driver said trotting up around the fillys to Pippin. “So far only three ENER engines have the certificates needed to run on Southern Rails. Your friend Lilly’s one, and Mikaela the second.” Apple Bloom counted in her head and quickly spotted an error.
“Who’s the other engine?” The stallions muzzle turned up in a sly grin as he looked around at Pippin, and when the old tram saw his meaning, his planks went pale.
“… Oh bugger.”
“Sorry old boy, but Lilly’s needed on the old branch, and Mickey’s going nowhere soon. You know better than most what kind of trouble forgotten freight can be.” Pippins expression turned stern. He did know better than most. Some of his sourest memories were of shoving forgotten or mislabeled freight cars onto out of the way sidings between warehouses and wharfs, watching them pile up until somepony in management auctioned them off.
“I suppose,” he said with no small amount of hesitation. “But I’ll nee to top off fore we leave.” His driver nodded his thanks and turned to the station master, who positively beamed at the news.
“Excellent,” he smiled with a clap of his hooves. “I’ll fill out the necessary forms, shouldn’t be but a moment.” He turned to go back inside, only to stop just before the stations doorway and briskly trot back. “And for the sake of time you can leave Mikaela’s cars here.”
“What about us?” The railways stallions all looked down at the five fillys still standing on the platform, and Mikaela’s driver suddenly looked more like a sheep than a pony.
“I … might’ve promised them a ride to Pithsburg on the return train.” He admitted nervously, looking at the filly’s in question with no small amount of regret. “I’m sorry kids, but it doesn’t look like you’ll be able to make it today.”
“Old on.” Everypony looked at Pippin. “Now maybe it’s my old age tawk’n, but what says these fine young ladies ave ta stay ere? I‘ll need to take me own brake van won’t I?” It only took the railways stallions one look down at five sets of big expectant eyes to realize the old tram had painted them into a corner at the filly’s benefit. To his credit, the station master was able to hold out an entire seven seconds, right until Apple Bloom pulled out her puppy-dog eyes.
“Argh, fine!” he sputtered, quickly averting his gaze and bracing for an assault he knew was about to hit. “You can take Mikaela’s caboose.”
“HOORAY!” The five filly’s cheered as the station master immediately covered his ears, leaving Pippin and Mikaela’s driver to be bombarded. “CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS RAILWAY JUNIORS, YAY!” The shout was loud enough that workers across the railyard flinched, never mind the old tram right next to the fillies.
“Cinders an ashes what a noise!” Pippin shut his eyes as his frames and planks rattled up and down, trying to get his bearings as his hearing returned. But unlike the two engineers standing stunned, the old tram was laughing. “An ere I though Pransylvanians were the loudest of em all.” He waited for his driver to shake his sense back into his head, the still partially deaf stallion finally climbing aboard as the crusaders took off across the train yard for Mikaela’s caboose. The station master called out to them as the tram began to roll away from the platform.
“But keep an eye on them! Anything happens to those fillies the Element bearers will have my hooves for glue!” Pippin rang his bell in response, and calmly trundled back across the yard, stopping only for a moment at the short water tower before rolling over the points, back and then forwards to buffer up the caboose, where the crusaders now stood waving goodbye.
“See ya Mickey!” Scootaloo cried, waving both a hoof and her wings at the Mikado.
“And get well soon,” Sweetie Belle added. The stopped up Mikado managed a wheeze from her whistle, smiling her thanks as Pippin and the caboose slowly pulled away and headed onto the mainline towards Canterlot.
Immediately after Pippin set off for Canterlot, Scootaloo realized they had a huge problem, one that could potentially ruin the whole evening.
“Can’t you go any faster?” she asked for what seemed to Pippin like the ten thousandth time, but then he had been hearing that question all his life.
“I’m a tram, knot som express engine. If you wanted speed en you picked the wrong train.” Pippin wasn’t about to admit his driver didn’t know how to disable the mechanism that restricted his speed. He was perfectly fine with rolling along at a peaceful twelve miles per hour, but for the little orange Pegasus staring at him from across his buffer beam, the trams slow pace was infuriating.
“Aaaarrgh! For neighing out loud, I can glide faster than this!”
“Will you relax?” Apple Bloom groaned as her fellow crusader kept throwing her fit all around the caboose. “Just sit back’n enjoy the ride.”
“Aye. Why jus look at the bea-utiful views.” Apple Bloom nodded, and even Diamond Tiara moved over to the cabooses window, but Scootaloo simply sat down, crossed her hooves and pouted.
“It’d look better from the air,” she grumbled, but her friends ignored her sour mood. As Pippin trundled along the main line, past peaceful farm fields and over lazy streams, he was thankful for how little this part of the railway had changed. While most of the mainlines that met in Canterlot were now triple or even quadruple track, with fancy banking, barriers, and signals built up along the right of way, this stretch was still green. Here on the old double track mainline there was just the open rails, and farm fences standing out against the rolling rocky hills. Pippin still remembered where all the little bridges and tree covered cuttings were, and rang his bell when he passed a pair of colts working a corn field he remembered their grandparents tending once upon a time.
Inside the Caboose, as Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara watched the scenery go by, and Scootaloo sulked, Sweetie Belle was scribbling on a piece of scratch paper from her note book, until she happened to glance up and spotted the look of distant gloom, not out the window, but on a certain grey filly’s muzzle. One too many crusades in Sugarcube Corners kitchen had left all the original crusaders with more than a few lessons in frown extermination from Pinkie Pie, and Sweetie Belle was determined to help her out of her funk.
“Hey Silver,” she said nudging the grey filly’s slouched shoulder. “Bit for your thoughts?” It took Silver spoon a moment to realize the little unicorn was talking to her.
“Hm? Oh, it’s nothing,” she sighed dismissively, but Sweetie Belle wasn’t convinced.
“Is it about what Scootaloo said?”
“Maybe,” The grey filly sighed, slouching even further over the cabooses tiny table.
“I’m sorry if she hurt your feelings. Scootaloo just doesn’t think about what she’s saying sometimes. My Big Sister says it always important to look before you leap.”
“Uncle Hatty says that too,” Silver commented with a small smile creeping up her muzzle, only for it to run away a second later. “Sweetie Belle? Do you think I’m … a nerd?”
“Um, Yes?” She answered hesitantly, only to regret it when Silver’s head dropped down into her hooves. “B-but in a good way! I mean, being a nerd isn’t all bad right?”
“No,” Silver sighed dismally. “Until somepony wants to have fun. Then you’re all alone in a library while they go outside with their other friends.” Sweetie Belle’s jaw dropped with a gasp.
“That’s not true! Where did that come from?” The grey filly kept quiet for the longest second, her eyes glancing up to dart between Diamond and Scootaloo. It took Sweetie Belle looking to where her silver haired friend was staring to understand what was really bothering her, but before she could say anything about it, Scootaloo’s head perked up like a spring.
“What the?” she wondered out loud, getting up and trotting to the front of the caboose, leaving four very confused friends behind her.
“Well,” Diamond Tiara said. “That was … odd.” Apple Bloom wasted no time in following her winged friend outside, and with curiosity guiding them, Sweetie Belle, Silver and Diamond soon followed.
“What’s wrong Scoots?” the farm filly asked as the orange Pegasus strained her neck out past the edge of the cabooses small deck.
“Can’t you feel it?” She asked back, clearly focused on something.
“Feel what?” Diamond returned almost rhetorically as the Pegasus filly flexed and stretched her wings.
“The wind. It’s, being pushed and shoved. But there’s not a cloud in the sky.”
“Oh that?” Pippin scoffed with a laugh. “Ats e ole viaduct. What’s left of er any-ow.”
“Viaduct?” Apple Bloom asked.
“A kind of railway bridge,” Silver Spoon explained almost be reflex, though she was just as confused as her friends. “The term’s mainly used on long stone arch bridges, but I’ve never heard of one being built on the mainline between Canterlot and Ponyville.”
“Well to be fair it wan’t a true viaduct,” Pippin admitted. “It was an experiment by a Cloudsdale engineer ta see ow fast he could build a bridge strong enough to carry trains. So what’s the bleeding fool do? Make it out of clouds!”
“But that’s stupid,” Scootaloo said, still flexing her wings in the odd air currents. “You’d have to slap like a million cloud walk spells on it, and don’t those wear out?”
“Yeah,’ Sweetie Belle frowned. “The last time my sis visited Rainbow Dash, she spent all day complaining about how often she had to re-enchant her hooves.”
“Well,” Pippin smiled as he rounded a bend. “If you all look left, you’ll see that’s just what they did.” The five fillies trotted out onto the cabooses narrow deck, craning their necks and heads left of Pippin and the caboose as their short train trundled across a wide stone bridge, stretched across the wide valley. Below them the Bridle River sloshed and churned on its way toward Saddle Lake, the calm shimmering crystal blue surface broken in spots by old trees lying half sunken in the river, or rocks that the waters flow had not yet worn away.
Sweetie Belle couldn’t help but squeak when she noticed the drop on either side of them, and Scootaloo stretched her wings as far as she could in the wind blustering through the valley. But none of them could look away from where the wind seemed to splash and break like the rivers own current against an invisible structure. When a particularly strong gust forced itself and a spattering of small clouds past their small train and collided with the immovable force, the outline of a long bridge with ten arches became visible, if only for a moment.
“See? They slapped so many spells on it that it’s still mess’n up the weather.” But while the Tram told his story, Apple Blooms eyes caught something else.
“What’s that down there?” She asked pointing her hoof down into the river valley. There, snaking along the water’s edge was what appeared to be a long line of mossy rock and stone, following the river until both vanished around a bend in the valley.
“It looks like an old track bed,” Diamond observed, earning a tired nod from Pippin.
“Probably. Ere’s plenty of ole lines litter’n ese hills. South off Ponyville, ere used to be dozens of stations connect’n to the little railways. Why when I was young, I knew this one wee engine who.”
All five fillies hooves snapped up to clamp down on their ears, their teeth rattling as a sleek blurr of orange and gray streaked past them on the other line.
“You bleeding Git!” Pippin shouted as the other train thundered past. “Mind where you’re blast’n at orn off will you?!” Predictably, the other engines response was again, blasted through his horn.
“Stuff it up your stack old timer! Unlike you smoking relics, I have a railway to run!” Pippin wanted to fire back with every colorful trottingham insult he knew, but it wasn’t until the other train had click-clacked its way past that the old tram could even hear his own thoughts again. With the offending engine and his train well out of shouting range, his attention turned to the fillies stumbling around his caboose.
“What in tarnation was that?!” Apple Bloom asked, her friends flinching and holding their still sore ears.
“Not so loud,” Silver Spoon winced, her eyes screwed shut behind her glasses as a headache besieged her senses, only for Scootaloo to scream at all of them.
“WHAT?!” She yelled, looking around at her friends in pure confusion, and maybe a bit of fear. “WHAT’S GOING ON?!”
“Quiet!” Diamond Tiara shouted back, only for the orange Pegasus to keep shouting, her ears temporarily numbed by the horn.
“What was that?” Sweetie Belle asked meekly, her ears seeming to have fared the best out of the bunch, but she was still nursing a burgeoning headache.
“Just a-nuther pain in thee smokebox diesel,” Pippin sighed. “Ey’re almos all e southern uses on the line te Dodge ese days. They do good work, but you won’t find a worse bunch o braggarts here o anywhere else. Cept maybe Manehattan. I knew this one bloke, talked abou a fleet o tugs ported ere who … Hmmmm.” The old tram seemed to trail off, his features squinting and concentrating on something either right in front of him or all around them.
“The line’s steeper en I remember.”
“Is that a bad thing?” Apple Bloom asked.
“It depends on what kind off cars our loads been put in,” Pippin explained with experienced anxiety. “If the cars have a goo set o brakes fited it shoul’n be a problem, but if this load’s as heavy as I think it’ll be, and the cars ain’t fitted, we coul be in a steaming heap o trouble.”
“Wait,” Apple Bloom said as her young mind found a gap in the explanations logic. “Why the hay wouldn’t all the cars have brakes? They gotta be safe to be used right?”
“Ose are the rules,” Pippin admitted before his tone turned sour. “Leas they are here. Knot all the other railways safety regs are as strict as the ENER’s, and technically, it’s knot illegal to run a train without end to end brakes, long as you ave a brake van or som’n o the sort behind. I tell ou what thoug, it nevah fails. All it takes is one tricky car, one bad linki, and you gots yourself a runaway fit for a wreck.” Silver Spoon looked away as the tram started in on a long winded indignant rant, walking over to the opposite end of the carriage and back to her seat at the cabooses bench. She started reading back over her class notes, and only looked up when Pippin began to chime his bell. They were coming into the yard.
Silver Spoon of course knew why the mainline seemed unfamiliar to Pippin. Many years ago Canterlot Yard had been located at the base of the mountain, sprawling out where it had grown up around the mainline from Canterlot to Baltimare, but a rockslide twenty years ago had forced them to move the facilities further south. Now the yard sat away from the mainline, isolated from sight by a high row of craggy rock outcroppings and short trees. They were switched across the tracks and off the mainline, Pippin grumbling under his whistle and chiming bell when he had to puff up the incline that marked the entrance to the yard. It was a deliberate feature, a hump at both ends to keep trains from running away out the yard without somepony at the controls.
Silver Spoon was about to explain why the yard looked like it was sitting in a giant bowl, when Pippin and his driver launched a whole new line of complaining when the switches took them not to their cars, but to a short stump of a siding that ended at the base of an old Pransylvania signal box. Before Pippins brakes had even brought the old tram to a creaking halt, his driver was hopping down from the cab toward the signal boxes stairs, grumbling the whole way.
“Hey,” Scootaloo called, already bounding her way back onto the cabooses deck. “What gives? I thought we were here to get some rocks not tea time.”
“Well,” Apple Bloom shrugged. “Unscheduled visit means unscheduled wait’n I reckon.” Scootaloos reaction was as predictable as it was instant.
“Wait-smait! There’s stuff to do here and I’m not sitt’n around for some grown up!” She turned to jump down from the caboose and onto the tracks beside them, only for a freight train to roar past them on its way out the yard. After that, Scootaloo bravely decided to stay right where she was.
Pippin couldn’t help but chuckle, knowing the orange filly’s foolhardy courage would be tempered eventually. His smile though became concerned when he saw Silver Spoon sitting off by herself near the back of the caboose. He spared a glance up at his firepony where he stood checking his pressure gauges, and that was all it took to let the stallion know Pippin had a plan.
“Girls?” He called from Pippins cab, earning the attention of five quickly boring fillies. “What say we get back on at less’n ou started wih Mickey eh?” Pippin doubted He’d ever seen a filly move faster than Diamond Tiara when the pink filly practically teleported out the caboose and into his cab, followed swiftly by Apple Bloom. Sweetie belle however seemed reluctant to leave the sulking Silver Spoon, but a wink from the old tram let her know he’d take care of it. So as The white unicorn hopped down the cabooses steps and Scootaloo began to drag herself away from her own perch on the footplate, Pippin set his plan in motion.
“Old up ere ou,” he said, stopping Scootaloo in her tracks. “Now it might be a slight much, but I’m fraid I need te ask ou two a faver.” He saw Silver Spoons ears and head perk up, but kept his serious tone. “It’s very impo-ant, an it needs done right quick.”
Even as she stood from her seat and walked toward the door Silver Spoon looked nervous, while Scootaloo was all but standing at attention.
“What is it?” She asked eagerly, cheat puffed and fluffed at the idea of being important.
“Well see’n as ou spent most oh the trip complain’n bout me speed, I figured ye jus the pair o hooves to get at pesky limiter o mine switched off. Tween you an me, it’d make gett’n ease trucks back to Ponyville go much fasta.” Even with his accent in the way, Scootaloo immediately recognized her second favorite word, and quickly threw of hoof around Silver Spoons shoulders, the other snapping up in a salute.
“You bet your boiler we can! Come on Silver, it’s time for some mate-nance!”
“Don’t you mean maintenance?” the grey filly squeaked against the little pegasi’s grip before the orange filly dragged her out of the caboose and into Pippins front cab, the old tram now feeling slightly sorry for Silver, but still very pleased with himself.
“Now,” he said as he began to wrack his old steam powered brain. “I can’t say fo sure, but I think it was somewhere on me left side.” “Got it,” Scootaloo said, eyes scanning up and down the trams inner workings, as Silver Spoon cringed. Like all steam trams Pippins side walkways were narrow cramped spaces even for little foals, with pipes, pumps and gauges covering his boiler and making the space quite difficult to navigate. Thankfully his workings were relatively clean and despite his age, well looked after, but they were still looking for a needle of a component in an industrial haystack.
“Okay,” Scootaloo huffed as her tongue stuck its way out one corner of her mouth as she set to searching. “Any idea what this thing looks like Silver? Shiny, round, square?”
“Um, not really,” she admitted shamefully, looking anywhere but the orange filly’s face. “Diamonds always been more into the technical aspects of the engines. All I know is their history.” She sighed, falling back on her haunches and staring at the floor, feeling as useful as an extra piece, when Scootaloo surprised her.
“Just the history?” she asked with a laugh. “Come on Silver, that’s over a thousand years you’re talking about! I mean hay, ain’t steam trains been around since before Nightmare Moon?”
“Yeah,” the grey filly admitted, sagging shoulders inflating ever so slightly as Scootaloo climbed onto Pippins boiler. “But, how is that going to help find Pippins limiter? Maybe you should just get Diamond to help. You two already work great together anyway.”
“Nah,” Scootaloo scoffed, reaching her hoof into the nook of a pair of tubes near the top of Pippins boiler. “Diamonds smart and all, but she ain’t an egg-head like you.” Before Silver had been startled, but now she was completely flabbergasted.
“Bu, but I thought,” she stammered, swallowing to get her voice back. “I thought being an egg head was … wasn’t.”
“What, not cool?” Scootaloo asked rhetorically, earning a numb nod from Silver. “You’re right. It’s not cool. It. Is. Awesome!”
“Whaaa?”
“Helloooooo? Have you met Twilight Sparkle?! She was the biggest, smartest eggiest-head of them all, and now she’s a Princess!” Silver Spoon didn’t know what to say. Scootaloo of all ponies, the self-proclaimed future Wonderbolt lieutenant, had just given her the biggest complement the filly could have imagined.
“Th-thank you,” she finally managed, the metallic fur of her cheeks now tinged a bright crimson.
“No problem,” the little Pegasus shrugged. “Now where could that limiter?” Before she could find the answer though, Pippins driver had climbed back in the cab, and started the old tram rolling back through the yard. At Pippins back, Diamond, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle watched as the firepony moved a few light shovel fulls of coal into Pippins firebox, just enough to keep the flames burning hot. Further along his boiler, Silver Spoon and Scootaloo watched steam come hissing and spurting from the odd loose pipe, or force water to drip free of the surfaces it had started to gather on while the steamer sat idle. But more importantly, it let Scootaloo notice something.
“Hey Silver,” she said slowly, gears turning behind her eyes. “Pippins limiter only works when he’s moving right?”
“I suppose so,” the grey filly said adjusting her glasses. “I don’t see the use of having it on when he’s just sitting. Why?” Scootaloo’s smile became triumphant as she pointed a hoof up.
“Because that thing there wasn’t turning until we started moving again.” Silver spoon looked up to see she was pointing to a strange turning mechanism sitting just aft of Pippins steam dome. It was mounted to his boiler and connected to his dome by two thick valved iron tubes. It seemed to be a short pole on top of which a diamond shaped frame rotated. On the two outer points of the diamond, two round metal bearings spun around and around.Silver spoon realized the frame was actually a flexible spring loaded mechanism when Pippin’s braking caused the bearings to come closer together. Silver couldn’t believe her eyes.
“That’s it! Scootaloo you found it!”
“Was there ever any doubt?” she asked, positively smug, until she tried to fly up to it. Even with her exercises, her wings it seemed weren’t quite as strong as her ego yet. “Aw horse-apples not again.” Silver couldn’t help but laugh.
“We should probably wait until we stop to mess with anything.”
“Yeah, probably,” the orange filly admitted. She nearly reached for it again when Pippin came to a slow stop, only for Silver to call her back when the tram began reversing onto a siding. The two fillies peeked outside and saw they had arrived at their train, and that Pippin was working as fast as his limited top speed would let him.
The old tram meanwhile was still grumbling about new ways. The Canterlot Yard he remembered had been a sprawling forest of gantries and frames holding dozens of colorfully banded signals high against the sky. Now however his driver had to squint and stare to see the distant pin pricks of light from multicolored gem light signals spread like weeds throughout the yard, making it hard to tell at first which points were for and which were still against them.
Thankfully the siding the trucks were on had an open line next to it, allowing Pippin to easily shunt his caboose onto the end of the train and run back around to the front. But their load was making him and his driver re-think a few things.
It seemed to them that Mr. Top Hat was determined to win the citizens of Ponyville over with the new railroad, because he had certainly spared no expense on the latest building materials.
The paving stone loaded in their trucks was no less than Imperial Rose Granite, only found in mines nestled amidst the glaciers of the Frozen North, and until recently, exclusively available to the stone masons of the Crystal Empire. Pippin however was less concerned with the stones quality and more with its weight. Each truck was a standard seven plank two axle wagon, a car Pippin had been pushing and shoving around for as long as he dared remember, and this time they were loaded to well past their tops with thick red and pink slabs.
“I’m not so sure about this old boy,” his driver admitted as they buffered the caboose onto the trains end, wincing as the cars wheels barely budged.
“We’ll be fine,” the old tram said as they heard the coupler click into place, though he may have been reassuring himself more than his driver. Regardless of what was coming, he had five other concerns at the moment. “All-right ou lot, back in e ole brake van ou go.”
“One sec!” Scootaloo shouted from inside, her tiny wings still buzzing uselessly as she tried to scale Pippins boiler.
“Here,’ Silver said kneeling down beside the wall of curved metal. Scootaloo carefully stepped onto the grey filly’s back, reaching for the valve knobs until she managed to land her hoof on one. A few turns later and she used the now closed valve to climb over and reach its twin, effectively removing the suspected limiter from operation.
“Got it,” The orange filly and her grey friend grinned together as they darted past Pippins driver and back into the caboose. The old stallion looked after them for a moment, sharing a confused glance with his firepony where the other was uncoupling Pippin. As soon as that was done, Pippin reversed away back across the points, back around the train and finally backed down on the trucks. As soon as they were secured to the train, his driver turned to him.
“Well old boy, here goes everything.” They only had to wait a moment more before the signals ahead flashed to green, signaling the all clear for their departure. Pippin set his bell chiming as his driver eased the throttle open, and both hissed at the rattling ring that answered. Pippin was immediately thankful for the trucks old design, their loose chain link couplers letting him use the momentum of their heavy loads to start the next car rolling. In the cab his driver maintained a delicate balance, trying to keep the train rolling while building up the steam they would need to pull the train up and over the hump at the yards exit. He honestly doubted the old tram could do it, but Pippin knew otherwise.
As soon as his driver had backed them off of the caboose to run back around their train, he had felt the difference. His puffs came more easily now, quicker too, and each turn of his hidden drive wheels felt only half as difficult as before. The old tram felt stronger than he had in years, enough to make a point. He held back, waiting until their caboose cleared the last switch before the hump. By then Pippin had a good head of steam waiting for his cylinders, and he was ready to give his crew and passengers alike a show.
When his driver finally opened his throttle, Pippin charged. Unbidden by the limiter, steam came roaring from his cylinders, spewing out the grates in his sideplates, and launching the old tram and his train forward as if on a spring. The noise alone was tremendous, carrying across the yard and out over the countryside for miles, echoing loud and clear off the slopes of nearby Canterlot. And as Pippin pulled his train over the hump and onto the mainline, his smile was as bright as Celestia’s sun.
It almost compared to the grins worn by two fillies as the proudly pranced around the caboose, especially that of a certain orange Pegasus.
“And that, my fellow fillies, is how you turn slow into awesome.” Apple Bloom just rolled her eyes over at Scootaloo’s reinvigorated smugness.
“Yeah yeah, ya got yer fast train. Now we can get home in time fer chores. Hoooo- raaaay.”
“Oh quiet,” Her orange friend scoffed through her smile. “This happens to make two things we’ve done right, and I’m not about to let you spoil it.” Apple Bloom couldn’t help but smile, the sweet taste of success slowly overpowering the dread of whatever chores her big sister might have in store on their return. Even Diamond Tiara couldn’t help but bask in her friend’s victory.
“I still can’t believe you found it,” she said hugging her best friend. “How in the world did you find Pippins governor in all that mess?”
“It was Scootaloo actually,” Silver Spoon admitted bashfully. “She noticed how it was only moving when Pippin’s throttle was open.”
“Aw come on,” The orange filly laughed, throwing a foreleg around Silvers neck. “I couldn’t have even reached it without you giving me that boost.” Before Silver Spoon had blushed, now she was beaming with pride, but also something that brought more than a few tears to the little filly’s eyes.
“Th-thank you,” she stammered, taking off her glasses to wipe her eyes. “It’s really nice to be part of the group.”
“Hold up,” Apple Bloom said as the grey fillies tone clicked with the bits she had been gathering in her head all afternoon. “Is that why you’ve been so mopey today?”
“Well, kind of,” she admitted, looking up guiltily at Scootaloo and Diamond. “I guess I saw how nice you guys were being to each other now, and thought that you might not, well, need me anymore.’
“Are you kidding?” Diamond laughed. “I’m always gonna need my best filly friend forever!”
“Yeah!” Sweetie Belle cheered. “You’re a crusader now Silver!”
“And never forget,” Apple Bloom chimed. “Once a crusader.”
“Always a crusader!” Scootaloo finished with a flare of her wings. Silver Spoon almost couldn’t believe her ears, so when the next cheer went up, and never hesitated to join in.
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS FOREVER! YAAAAAY!” Pippin did his best, but even the shriek of his whistle rolling over the rocky hills couldn’t drown out the five ecstatic cheers from the caboose.
The next day was a Saturday, and for Apple Bloom that meant an early rise to get her chores done in time to meet her friends at the station. The second her alarm clock rang she was out of bed and galloping toward the bathroom. After combing her teeth and brushing her hair at the same time she quickly tied her bow into place and zipped outside. She immediately had to all but shut her eyes against the glare of Celestias sun rising over the hill that bordered the east orchard, but her smile never left. As she began checking on the saplings that made up the front half of the orchard, she couldn’t help but think of what she and the rest of the crusaders would be able to do when they got to Pithsburg.
After Pippins triumphant return with the paving stone trucks, Mikaela had of course promised the crusaders an early morning ride to Lilly’s station, and hadn’t stopped fussing and complaining until her driver and firepony set to work cleaning her tubes from fire door to smokebox. By the time Luna lowered her moon below the horizon for a new morning, Mikaela’s crew was exhausted, and the insides of her tubes shone like glass.
Apple Bloom couldn’t wait to see her tank engine friend again, and did her best to blitz through her chores as quickly as she could. She checked the mail, made sure Winona’s food and water bowls were full, fixed herself a hoof-full of snacks for the day, cleaned the tiny mess making said snacks created, and finally zipped back upstairs to make her bed. With nothing else she could think of that needing doing by a little filly, Apple Bloom picked up her saddle bags and headed back towards the kitchen. She could already imagine her big sisters shock when she woke up and saw everything she’d done. Instead Apple Bloom was the one surprised when her front left hoof didn’t quite land on the staircase’s second step.
“WhuuAAAAAAAHH!” In an instant Apple Bloom went tumbling end over end down the stairs, over and over until she landed on the rug at the bottom, only to go sliding across the living room like snow on ice, spinning and skidding before slamming back first into the family’s coat rack. The tall wooden post tilted over, and Apple Bloom heard a crash far too loud to be just the coat rack. As soon as her world stopped spinning she looked up, and her previous excitement turned to horror. When the coat rack had fallen, it hadn’t just taken a few stray hats and scarves down with it, but actually cracked in two. Now the lamp post like piece of furniture was lying in the same corner it had guarded for Apple Bloom didn’t even know how long, snapped in half like a twig.
Thankfully she didn’t see her sisters prized Stetson among the fallen, but Apple Bloom’s relief was short lived when it dawned on her that dawn was nearly over. Applejack and Bic Mac could be back from the fields for second breakfast any minute, and even if she was headed for Pithsburg by the time her big siblings returned, she would still have to face AJ’s fury when she came home later. So Apple Bloom did what any child in trouble would do. Thinking and panicking all at once, she clutched the larger of the broken pieces in her mouth and quietly hurried back up the stairs, running back down to grab the other half as well. She then shoved both under her bed, silently promising all the while that she would fix them when she got home.
She had to fight the urge to run all the way from her room to the gate, doing her best to keep her muzzle pointed down the road even as her eyes darted every which way, looking for any sign of her older siblings. It wasn’t until she was out of the gate and out of sight of the farm house that she finally broke into a run, and she didn’t stop until she was jumping and skipping over train tracks. Panting and nervous, she slowed to a trot as she approached the Ponyville carriage shed, her anxiety replaced with excitement when she saw her friends already gathered around Mikaela’s front beams.
Like her they all had their saddle bags, and probably a feast of snacking goodies between them. The exceptions of course were Scootaloo and Silver Spoon, the later sporting an extra bag of drawing supplies, while their orange friend had neglected any kind of bag, snack or plan all together. And if the way she was eyeing Diamond Tiara’s snacks was any sign, she hadn’t included breakfast in her morning routine either.
“And I said forget it,” The pink filly snapped hugging her saddle bag closer as Apple Bloom walked up. “If you’re so hungry then you should have eaten before coming all the way here.” Scootaloo must have been starving, because as Apple Bloom reached back she actually looked to be on the verge of begging.
“Here ya go Scoots,” The farm filly said, passing her orange friend an apple, only for the ripe red fruit to vanish down the little pegasi’s throat.
“Wow,” Sweetie Belle gasped as Scootaloo inhaled the apple, eating so quickly she made Apple Bloom thankful for her habit of removing the stems from her apples. “That was like one of Trixie’s magic shows.”
“Yeah,’ Diamond scoffed. “But instead of poof it went,” she made an obnoxious chomping sound, and chewed loudly, and Apple Bloom couldn’t help but laugh at the silly face that resulted. Even Scootaloo was laughing when she finally came up for air.
“Sorry. Breakfast at home didn’t really work out. The toaster kind of decided it wanted to try making barbecue. Bleh, toast does not taste good smoked.”
“You too?” Sweetie Belle asked, only to shrink under the curious looks from her friends. “I tried to take a shower this morning and it well, sort of …. broke.”
“Heh, that makes three of us I reckon,” Apple Bloom added, relieved just a little that her morning wasn’t the only one with screw ups. “I missed the top steps and snapped the coat rack.”
“Well,” Mikaela huffed from above them. “At least you’ve gotten to do something this morning.” The big Mikado had none of the excited anticipation of a freshly cleaned engine. Instead of warming up for her return trip to Baltimare, she was sitting in the coach shed, and the only thing steaming was her temper.
“Come on, where are they?” she grumbled looking around, as Pippin puffed past with a line of empty trucks.
“Blimey are ou stil whin’n over ere?” He groaned. “Your driver’ll be ere when he’ll be ere, so it’s no use gett’n yer vaccum’s in a twist.”
“But I’m going to be late!” She groaned. “I swear if he doesn’t hurry his hairy hind parts up I’m leaving without him.”
“Careful love,” Pippin warned, knowing full well a steam engine couldn’t go anywhere without a hoof on their controls. “You ne’r no when ou might run into dan-ga, an chances are ole Casey Bones won be ere te save ya.” Mikeala went eerily quiet at the trams warning, making The five fillies at her front curious.
“Who’s Casey Bones?” Apple Bloom asked looking up at the heavy Mikado as Pippin shunted his empties across the yard.
“That,” she said looking to the opposite side of the shed. “Is Casey.” The fillies followed her gaze, up to where a large painting hung on the shed’s wall just in front of Filthy Riche’s private coach. The painting displayed a black and grey steam engine with the same short pilot truck and cab as Jedidiah, but with a taller boiler and a slim stove pipe funnel. He had six tall driving wheels instead of four, and his tender was taller and had the number 382 painted on its side.
“You know how the Elements of Harmony bearers are for ponies?” Mikaela asked as her firepony slipped into her cab unseen.
“Yeah,’ Silver Spoon said quickly. “They’re incredible!”
“Awesome,” Scootaloo added.
“Heroic,” Diamond supplied.
“Annoying,” Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle answered together, earning them three scathing incredulous looks. “Big sisters remember?”
“Well,” Mikaela laughed. “That’s what Casey Bones is for us: The bravest, most heroic engine of them all.”
“What did he do?” Scootaloo asked, sitting back on her haunches in the gravel in front of the heavy Mikado. Diamond Tiara looked at the orange filly as if she’d grown a second head.
“What did he do? What DIDN’T he do?! He made the Canterlot-Fillydelphia express run in four hours, set the top speed record for a mixed traffic engine, and completed a round trip from Tall Tale to Ponyville hauling the load of TWO engines!” Scootaloo actually recoiled, leaning back and away from the excited pink filly. Seeing Diamond geek out was still new for the crusaders, but it was a gleeful kind of pure excitement they already liked more than her old bullying self.
“Got that right,” Mikaela beamed dreamily. “It doesn’t matter if he’s three minutes or three hours behind schedule, Casey always brings his trains in on time.”
“Nevah had an accident neither,” Pippin added as he puffed past with four more empty ballast trucks. “Cheerful bloke. Lit-le on e quiet si but fairly nice once ou get’m talking.” Mikaela’s eyes got so wide, Apple Bloom thought they’d split her boiler apart.
“You’ve actually MET him?!”
“Indeed I ave,” The tram smiled. “Course back en he was work’n small express freights n locals through whitetail. Las I eard he was working on e coast, pull’n surfliners tween Filly’n Baltimare.”
“Fella sure gets around,” Apple Bloom noted, as Mikaela’s firepony poked his head out her cab window, making sure everything was sorted outside, an orange glow now painting the tracks around the mikados firebox. As Mikaela’s crew waited for her fire to build up her steam, the heavy Mikado told her filly friends all the stories she knew and had heard about the almost mythical Casey. Pippin chuckled to himself as he continued to sort the tender engines train.
He remembered when most of those stories happened, and he definitely remembered the ruckus that engulfed the roundhouses and sheds when news of one of Ole 382’s latest exploits came down the line. Unlike most steam engines however he had met the legend buffer to buffer, and though there was one story he could honestly say only a few even knew about, it also wasn’t his place to tell it.
He also wasn’t about to tell Mikaela just why her driver and firepony were so late to get her ready. After the heavy mikado’s breakdown yesterday, she had been unable to return to Canterlot Union Yard with her empties, allowing them to pile up in the yard. Ponyville could certainly boast its fair share of storage when it came to rolling stock, but the truth was that the station was at most meant to let two short passenger or freight trains sit off the double track mainline before it split between Whitetail and Appleoosa, with just enough siding space left over for a dozen or so odd trucks.
Now the empties from Mikaela’s last train, the stone trucks, and the ballast cars Pippin and the track layers were quickly working their way through had all but choked Ponyville station’s yard with rolling stock that had nowhere to go. With the sidings close to overflowing, Pippin had no choice but to marshal the cars on the new branch, leaving him to silently pray the workers had done their job right as he pushed and shunted cars across the freshly laid rails.
However, it appeared to have worked out. As he pulled the last of yesterday’s flatbeds over the points before reversing them toward the rest of the empties, he realized that Mikaela’s front found just barely stick out from the yard once she coupled on. Still, that meant from the moment she was attached to the moment her train left they would be fouling the mainline, so they had to wait for a gap in the traffic scheduled on the north line between Appleoosa and Canterlot.
But while Mikaela was anxious to get going, she was also very nervous. While they were all empty, the accumulated stock made for an awkward mix of bogied boxcars and flat beds with a long tail of empty two axle trucks trailing behind, not a load the heavy Mikado was looking forward to dragging all the way to Baltimare. But she put on a brave face, not wanting her driver to worry after spending all night cleaning her boiler tubes.
Pippin had been around stubborn engines long enough to recognize when one was putting off a trip to the shop. A slight random hiss, a low creaking moan, and the slightest of delays between the driver pulling back the reverser and the next turn of the engines side rods. It wasn’t long after Mikaela’s fire began producing steam that Pippin realized she still had a lot of issues, mainly a number of leaky valves and pipes, but his biggest concern came from the dancing light on the ballast around her cab, a sign her firepony kept adjusting her fire. Before Pippin could bring the Mikado’s troubles up with the station master, he and Mikaela’s driver walked out of the station building, time sheet in hoof.
“Okay then, as soon as the express comes through, the next train won’t be for another hour and a half, and even then it’s the Dodge connection, so it’ll stop here. Plenty of time for you to be off and down the line.”
Pippin tried to ring his bell to get their attention, but Mikaela was already chuffing round to the front of her train, the five fillies trotting toward the caboose.
“Bull eaded li’l,” Pippin grumbled as his frames shook. “Why do all e ole PR engines ave to be such stubborn bothers?”
“Maybe it has to do with how she was built?” his driver suggested, even as the crusaders piled into the trains brake van, which was becoming an adventure in itself. Between the stacks of rails, ties, and all the crates and barrels of supplies, the Ponyville station was becoming more cluttered than the filly’s rooms.
“At’s my theory at leas,” the old tram sighed. “I ope she don try’n hide at wheez’n from her crew, otherwise they’re in a heap-ah trouble.” He managed a smile when applebloom turned back for a moment to wave, answering with a quick chime of his bell before the farm filly joined her friends inside.
She climbed aboard to find her friends already in their seats and waiting. They didn’t have to sit long however. Not ten minutes later the rapid fire click clack of an express train zoomed past, followed by the clunk of Ponyville stations lone signal gantry showing the points were for them. As Mikaela puffed out of the yard in a cloud of steam and morning dew, Sweetie Belle contented herself with drawing for a while, until a certain farm filly decided it was too quiet.
“It’s getting colder.” She thought out loud as she poked her nose out one of the cabooses half open windows, filling the cabin with a definite, but not unpleasant chill. All five fillys were seated at the cars long bench and table, and on Silver Spoon’s insistence, trying to get a head start on their new projects. For the crusaders it was now clear the grey filly’s family had railroads in their blood, as Silver didn’t want to waste a second. But that didn’t stop Apple Bloom from wanting to make conversation.
“Do ya’ll think Lilly’ll like Pippin?” she ventured, eying her fellow crusaders.
“I don’t see why not,” Silver Spoon chimed from her seat on the other side of Diamond Tiara. “He’s certainly nice and doesn’t seem like someone who’d get angry easily.” Scootaloo’s bored stare turned just slightly as she looked at the little white unicorn sitting quietly beside her.
“What about that kicking thing your Dad did to him?” The white filly squeaked and flinched in place, and she immediately set to correcting the error her start had caused on her drawing.
“He said he was just saying hello,” Sweetie Belle supplied as innocently as possible, erasing and fixing her creation. “He said he used to know Pippin when he was still working in Ponyville before.”
“And so did my dad apparently,” Diamond added with more than a hint of suspicion. She wasn’t quite at the point to give her deepest worries voice around them yet, but she was starting to see the Crusaders as friends. Her thoughts were interrupted before she could think too deeply on them however, when she saw Sweetie Belle’s drawing.
“Um, Sweets,” She started, having unknowingly adopted the same nickname the other crusaders used for their unicorn friend.
“Yes?”
“I think you messed up on your drawing,” She answered, as politely as could be expected from a filly of her former schoolyard role. “There should be more tracks going through the station platforms and connecting back into the mainline.” The drawing was the first draft of their combined class project. Silver Spoon and Apple Bloom had partnered up on designing the new Saddle Lake Bridge, leaving Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Diamond Tiara to work together on the new Ponyville passenger station. But right now, Sweetie Belle’s drawing had the tracks leading into the station and dead-ending inside.
“But they can’t,” She replied matter-of-factly. “Remember where Ms. Cheerilee said they think the best place for a new station is?”
“Yes,” Silver Spoon answered, pointing a hoof to the map, just down the line from the old station. “Right here, just before that little stream.” This caused a light to go off in a little orange filly’s head.
“Oh yeah! Now I remember,” Scootaloo said looking at the map. “We tried to get our stunt mares cutie marks jumping over it on my scooter and Bloom’s wagon. This side’s fine,” She said pointing toward the bank nearest the proposed station site. “But the other side is all loose and crumbly and muddy. Like those tiny cakes Pinkie Pie leaves with Fluttershy.”
“Plus,” Sweetie Belle reasoned, “If this is going to be Lilly and Pippin’s station, why make it so other engines would use it more than them?” Diamond Tiara was shocked: not only did that make a lot of sense, but Sweetie Belle of all ponies had said it! Diamond had been convinced the little unicorn was a dumb little cry baby, but the white filly had just thrown all that off the hoofplate and left it on the tracks behind them.
“That … makes sense,” She said meekly, not about to give voice to her sheer astonishment, instead turning her attention to Sweeties sketch.
“But if the tracks dead end, how will the engines get out when they pull in?”
“Oh,” Apple Bloom pipped up. “What about the turntable?” This gave Diamond an idea, and she pulled her own paper alongside Sweetie’s, a handout from Ms. Cheerilee of the Ponyville station’s current track layout.
“If the trains turn in here, go and turn on the turntable, then they can push their trains in.”
“Naw,” Apple Bloom said shaking her head and bow. “That seems like an awful lot of work for gett’n inta a station. Hmmm, wait, what if the trains pulled in first?” They kept tossing ideas and problems back and forth until they had nearly reached Canterlot. While only trains destined for the Equestrian Capital had to travel the winding tracks up the mountain itself, the line still climbed as they approached the yards at the mountains base. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the grueling four percent grade of Kate’s Hill, but it was a climb that continued all the way to Fillydelphia, enough to have Mikaela huffing and hiccoughing as her train began winding its way through boulder spotted hills.
“Blast it all,” She wheezed. “This wasn’t so hard yesterday.” The cold weather was doing nothing for her chuff, and she was now puffing so hard, her firepony was having trouble keeping her fire going. With every turn of her eight driving wheels it seemed a piece of her fire was sucked up out her funnel, and by the time they passed the white post marking the edge of the Canterlot’s Union Yard, Mikaela was feeling very stopped up indeed. She tried her best, soldiering on toward Pithsburg, but no matter how she tried her boiler couldn’t raise the pressure, and her driver knew better than to try forcing his dear engine on up the line toward the infamous Horseshoe. For the five fillys in her trains caboose, the sound of a new whistle signal was the first sign they heard that something was wrong.
“What’s that one mean?” Apple Bloom asked as Silver Spoon scampered out of her seat and up to the window. The grey filly’s answer was equal parts confusion and surprise.
“We’re stopping,” She said hesitantly. “At least that’s the pattern for stop, but the tone is off.”
“Why?” Sweetie Belle asked. “Is Mickey having trouble?” Any answers her friends had changed when the caboose shuddered and rocked horribly, sending pencils clattering and snacks bouncing out of open saddle bags.
Up front Mikaela was now well past wheezing. With every turn of her side rods the Mikado felt like she was moving Canterlot Mountain itself, and when she did manage more than a few turns at a time, her drivers spun on the slick cold rails. Her driver and firepony swallowed and bit back curses as another round of wheel slip sent their train shuddering and shaking all the way down to the caboose. It didn’t end until Mikaela found Pithburgs southern platform creeping up alongside her, and her wheels and train finally clanked to a stop.
“Oh my aching parts,” She groaned as five worried and quite shaken fillies hopped down from the caboose to check on their friend as her crew began to look her over. They had to step carefully though, as the platform was now covered in wood, tarps and paint cans, all laid out and ready for renovations.
“Stopped up again Mickey?” Scootaloo asked, hover hopping up in front of the exhausted Mikado as her driver climbed to the top of her boiler.
“Yeah,” she sniffled with equal parts annoyance and misery. “It was easy at first, but then it just became harder and harder to keep going. Like my boiler just, shrunk all of a sudden.” Diamond was about to give her own theory for Mikaela’s problem, when from atop her boiler there came a clang and a curse.
“Consarnit all!” Her driver shouted through his own echo, now firmly stuck in Mikaela’s funnel as her firepony pulled on his back legs. He finally came free with a pop, now covered in soot from his ears to the middle of his barrel.
“Yep,” he grumbled as he coughed out a thick cloud of coal dust. “That’s done it. Sorry Mickey, but looks like it’s back to the cleaners and the shops for you.” Mikaela could only sniffle.
“Aw bolts, and of all the places to stop. I’m sorry girls,” She groaned. “I didn’t mean for our first trip together to go like this.”
“It’s okay Mickey,” Scootaloo said, her tiny wings buzzing as she hopped up onto the mikados running plates in front of her cylinders, the other crusaders gathering round. “I don’t think anypony can have every day be a good day.”
“I know,” she sighed, “but it still doesn’t do for my schedule. Between my leaving Ponyville a day late and now this.” She sunk into her wheels, making the crusaders worry for their friend. Being on time was everything for trains, and the last thing they wanted was for Mikaela to get in trouble for being late. As usual, it didn’t take the Cutie Mark Crusaders long to get an idea in their heads, or for one of them to act on it, even as a lighter whistle rang out. Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, Silver Spoon, Scootaloo and Diamond Tiara looked away from the ailing Mikado just long enough to see Lilly puffing backwards, pulling a line of what looked like three of Terrance’s coal cars into the train yard, each filled to over flowing with clipped branches and bushes, save for a fourth rusted empty car.
“Hey Lilly!” Scootaloo waved.
“Hi girls!” The mulberry tank engine whistled back, pulling her small train across the yard and into a track near the station platform. She was clearly in a good mood, and a deserved one. The formerly overgrown railyard was now almost devoid of tall grass or weeds, and in several places new rails and switches were gleaming in the sunshine. It revealed a swath of sidings much longer than any of the fillies had been expecting, and it looked like some workers had begun digging away an embankment at the back end of the yard, their shovels already revealing yet more tracks burried beneath the earth. Apple Bloom couldn’t help but imagine what it must have looked like filled with loaded cars from the mine.
Lilly was rightly proud of how things were coming along, but her good mood vanished when she saw Mikaela sitting on the mainline side of the platform, replaced swiftly with warried concern.
“Mickey? What’s wrong?”
“Clogged tubes,” The Mikado sniffled, as what little steam she could muster wheezed from her boiler. “Driver says I pulled my fire through my funnel, now the ash has stopped me up.”
“Ouch,” The tank engine winced in sympathy. “That couldn’t have been nice coming up the hill.”
“No it wasn’t,” She groaned in misery, reminding Scootaloo of what Rainbow Dash had been like after she brought a mild case of bird flu back from Griffonstone.
“Lilly,” Mikaela’s driver sighed turning to the little tank engine. “You mind getting Mickey off the mainline? I’d rather not leave her there to surprise Cathrine when she rolls through.”
“Of course,” she smiled, looking at her filly friends. “But I might need some help with the signals.” But before Apple Bloom or Silver Spoon could say anything.
“On it!” Scootaloo snapped a wonderbolt salute and zipped right off the platform. Lilly was uncoupled from the cars, and two flipped switches later, gently eased her buffers up to Mikaela’s pilot truck. Once she was uncoupled from her train, the tender engine helped as much as she could, but even so Lilly was panting as she pulled and pushed the Mikado across the points and onto one of the yard’s empty tracks.
“We can go ahead and marshal those empties,” Lilly’s driver shouted over the tank engines hissing cylinders. “Two of them are for us to use getting the old rails out of the mine. We can tack the rest of them onto the freight when it drops in.” Lilly gave a quick whistle before leaving Mikaela on her siding to fetch the empty flat cars off the mainline.
“So Lill,” Scootaloo called as the tank engine reversed the cars over the points and into the yard. “Looks like you guys are getting things done.”
“Yep,” Lilly smiled, pushing the line of cars onto the same track as the debris filled coal cars. “We’ve got almost all the line from here to the tunnel trimmed, but driver says the next bit is the hard part. And we still need a station master to run this place.”
“Wait,” Apple Bloom piped up looking across the tracks to the station building opposite the mainline. “I thought this and that was all one station.”
“It is,” Lilly’s driver said from the tank engine’s cab. “But as nopony’s really used it for passengers in years, management let this side of the line run down while the Foal Mountain Mine boys run the other building.” Sweetie Belle listened carefully, but couldn’t help but notice how Scootaloo seemed to be wandering around the station. Her wings however were the telling sign, twitching open and closed, almost fluttering.
“Silver,” The little unicorn called as Lilly pulled two of the flat cars away and began to move them across the yard.
“Yes?”
“Um, I thought you should know something about Scootaloo, since you’re working together. She …” Sweetie Belle stumbled looking for the best, gentlest description. “She’s uh … she doesn’t like homework. At all. Whenever we have to do a project for class she always waits until the last minute, and if it’s a group project.”
“You and Apple Bloom end up doing most of the work?” The metallic grey filly guessed. Sweetie Belle could only nod, but to her surprise Silver simply shrugged, explaining: “Diamonds the same way. Unless the homework is something she’s reeeaaaaaallly interested in, she always waits until the last minute.”
“I thought she got Pipsqueak to do it for her?”
“Well,” Silver said with a cringe that was both embarrassed and sympathetic. “She did but … her Dad kinda found out.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah,” the grey filly sighed before from across the tracks.
“Hey-o Silver!” Apple Bloom called snapping both filly’s heads around to where the farm filly was waving them toward the end of the station platform. A brisk trot later Silver and Sweetie Belle had rejoined the other crusaders, who were standing around what looked to them like a giant hoof-print in the platform. Where a trio of shrubs had been growing before, the workers had clipped and cleared, revealing a long hoof shaped hole in the stone surface. It wasn’t empty though, and where Apple Bloom would have expected to find small stumps, there were instead a stubby forest of short metal poles rimming the edge of the shallow pit, none of them taller than the filly’s ankles.
“What is it?” Scootaloo asked, kneeling down to get a better look at one of the short poles. “And why are there all these metal things in it? Did somepony try to plant a rust bush?” Luckily she was so focused on the pit, she didn’t see the deadpan glare Diamond Tiara sent her way.
“It’s a hoof-bridge,” Silver Spoon supplied matter-of-factly. “Er, it was a hoof-bridge.”
“And that is?,” Scootaloo asked, tediously, earning an eye roll from the pink filly beside her.
“Duh, a bridge you walk on. It’s so ponies who can’t fly can walk from one platform to another without having to step on the tracks. Like you.”
“Hey!”
“Girls,” Sweetie Belle whined, fearful the two stubborn fillies were about to start arguing again. Unlike her unicorn friend, Apple Bloom had already learned to ignore the gathering storm clouds. Instead she was still learning all she could from Silver Spoon.
“So there’s another’n just like this on the other side?”
“There should be,” The grey filly answered as she adjusted her glasses and looked around the station yard. Rails and old bridge remains were not the only things the worker’s efforts had revealed. What had before appeared part of a hill and ridge the railroad had cut through, covered in vines and young saplings, was now looking more like a wall of earth. It ran along the edge of stations sidings, gently sloping down until it almost met the branch line. Silver Spoons mind was already running up to speed, imagining the hill on the other side of the mainline cleared in a similar fashion, trying to be sure if it was stone she saw peeking through the overgrowth, and imagining a short bridge between the two hills. She was interrupted though by the long blast of a two tone whistle, one that drew Lilly’s attention away from her train and toward the mainline.
“Is that the freight?” She asked in disbelief.
“Early if it is,” Her driver noted, shutting her throttle as they shunted the flat cars into a siding and uncoupled. “I could’ve sworn I saw Nick on the roster for it, but the whistle’s wrong.” The five fillies hopped back across the platform to see the arriving train, not realizing at first they had seen this engine before.
The train was long and varied. Three short two axle vans followed by a trio of bogied metal hopper cars, and then four longer bogied box cars. Behind these were coupled a line of six green tank cars, each resting on three axels, and a short two axle caboose bobbing behind. But the engine up front though was the star of the show.
His emerald paint and red stripes gleamed like fresh candy in the sunshine, and every single one of his wheels, from the two wheeled guiding truck and his six tall drivers, to the three sets under his tender were painted a bright matching red. Even his side rods shone, new steel gleaming like silver. The engine though looked very nervous, glancing this way and that even as his crew brought him and his train to a halting stop.
“Hello,” Lilly chimed as she approached from across the yard, while Mikaela only managed a congested groan. The greeting made the new engine nearly jump off his frames, startling him so bad he let off steam.
“Oh, uh, Hi,” He stammered quietly, but loud enough that Lilly recognized his voice, and when she did her eyes went as big as her driving wheels.
“Mike?!” She gasped, looking the engine over once more even as he groaned. “Is that you?”
“No, it’s Princess Cadance,” he grumbled, before giving out a sigh, “yes it’s me.”
“Oh my gosh look at you,” She cried excitedly. “You look great!”
“Thanks,” He blushed, smoke box starting to go red in spite of the black paint there. “You uh, you’re looking pretty swell yourself.” Lilly giggled at the complement, and Sweetie Belle couldn’t help but squee when she saw how the two engines acted around one another, but her orange feathered friend was blind to what the little unicorn saw.
“Hold it,” Scootaloo pipped up when a thought and memory clicked in her head. “Do you mean Mike as in the engine whose wreck we saved all those passengers from hitting?” The tender engines face fell faster than a rock in a lake, and he quickly went back to looking nervous and guilty.
“…Yeah,” he swallowed in shame, looking down at his rails sullenly. But instead of the reaction he expected.
“Dad-gum,” Apple Bloom gasped. “Those shop ponies sure don’t waste any time do they?” Mike looked up hesitantly at the sound of what he could only assume was a complement.
“No kid’n,” Scootaloo added. “And look at those wheels! Now that’s what I call hot-rod red!”
“Th,-thank you,” Mike stuttered, timidly taking in the fillies complements as his driver and firepony stepped down from his cab. They were approached by Lilly’s driver, who quickly explained the situation with Mikaela.
“I really am sorry for the trouble,” he said only for Mike’s driver to brush it off with some coal dust from his overalls.
“Don’t sweat it. Granted the Horseshoe ain’t exactly a trot in the park, but Mike can handle a few more empties, and ther's always the banker. Hey,” He shouted forward to his engine. “What say we take a little rest here eh Mike?” he asked casually. “We’re not due to head through the Horseshoe for another half hour anyway.”
“Oh, um, sure why not?” the tender engine stammered quickly, trying poorly not to seem nervous. Soon his driver and firepony were back at his controls, and Mike’s train was uncoupled from its brake van. He slowly pulled forward until he was past the points to enter the yard, while at the same time Lilly’s driver made his way across the yard on hoof to set the switches. Once the end of Mikes train was past the main switch, Lilly’s driver waved his hoof, and Mike began reversing into the yard, and onto the track where Lilly’s debris cars and Mikaela’s empties were waiting. A bump and a clang later, the cars were coupled, and the length of Mike’s train had almost doubled, but it wasn’t quite long enough that he struck out on the mainline. He needed only reverse a little further back, and soon he was sizzling between Lilly on one track, and Mikaela on the other.
“Mike?” Mikaela started with a sniffle. “Not that I’m not glad to see you back on your wheels so soon, but what are you doing here? I thought Nick was supposed to pull this train.”
“Uh, schedule change?” He answered weakly, only leaving both female engines suspicious. Lilly looked like she was about to ask something herself, but a white filly’s curiosity rescued the nervous tender engine.
“Who’s Nick?” Sweetie belle’s question was simple but it saved Mike, if only for the moment.
“He’s an import,” Mikaela explained, pausing to try and clear her clogged tubes. “A big decapod freight locomotive built in Griffonstone that Mr. Top Hat bought to help with freight between Fillydelphia and Canterlot.” The fillies couldn’t help but notice the disdain in the big tender engines voice, even as she suffered through a clogged boiler. “He’s good with hills so he mainly works the Horseshoe.”
“Did he do something mean?” Sweetie Belle asked innocently.
“Oh not all!” Lilly added quickly. “He’s actually really nice! Sure he has this weird accent and he sometimes yells things in, uh, Mike? What’s the name of that language Nick speaks?
“Griffish I think,” The smaller tender locomotive provided. “He had an um, mechanical issue this morning and asked me to take his train.” Mikaela of course didn’t look like she believed any of it.
“Do you mean the engine who has only ever needed maintenance once, the engine who was cast in a single piece, the engine who on his first day, pulled not one but two failed engines and their trains through the Horseshoe?” Mike didn’t bother trying to stutter an answer, just looked down at his rails in shame. “That Nick?”
“… No,” The smaller tender engine answered weakly. “He gave me his train. I just had to get out of the yard after …”
“After what Mike?” Lilly asked, looking more afraid for her friend than hurt for his lie.
“Well, I just got back from the works in Fillydelphia last night, so the yard manager in Canterlot wanted me to take it easy.”
... Earlier that morning ...
Mike was sizzling nicely, his new paint and eager smile brighter than celestia’s sun. He was steaming up in the shop building, just a short trot away from the roundhouse. The shop ponies had delivered him yesterday afternoon, and the yard manager had promised him a full day of work in the morning.
“Easy boy,” His driver laughed as the tender engine’s boiler pressure climbed. “What would Mr. Top Hat say if you blew your safety valve on your first day back?”
“Sorry,” Mike smiled nervously, unable to contain his excitement.
“It’s okay. Come on, let’s see how those shop-ponies did on your repairs.” He opened Mike’s throttle and the tender engine rolled forward out of the Canterlot Engine shed, side rods turning his wheels smoothly as they gently clicked over the points into the yard. Mike was so happy; he didn’t even mind his first job of the day was switching two of the bigger engines out of the roundhouse. His new two-tone whistle chirped as he came to a halt, then reversed back toward the turntable. His driver eased him slower, until Mike was crawling along, over the turntable, and into the stall directly behind, where Cathrine the express engine was still sleeping soundly.
“Wakey wakey!” Mike whistled as he coupled up to the pacific, who made no effort at all to wake herself up. She barely blinked the sleep from her eyes before looking down at the engine in front of her.
“Hm?” She groaned sleepily before looking down. “Oh, it’s you.”
“Nice to see you to Cath,” The smaller tender engine smiled sarcastically, waiting as his crew checked Cathrine’s coupler. “Now hurry and wake up lazy bones, it’s time for work!”
“Work?” She scoffed as Mike started forward, pulling the pacific out of the shed and across the turntable toward the water tower. “What would you know about work? It seems to me all you know how to do is crash.”
“Hey! That wasn’t my fault!” But Catherine only laughed at him.
“Oh really? Tell me, what kind of engine can’t even handle a few freight cars? Or going down a hill for that matter?” Mike grumbled and tried to concentrate on the rails ahead. He brought Catherine to a stop at the water tower, and uncoupled as her crew started to fill the pacific’s water tanks.
“And do be careful with my coaches,” the fuchsia tender engine chimed down her nose. “I would hate for my passengers to be delayed by another accident.” Mike hissed steam back at her, and reversed back to the roundhouse and pulled the second engine from its stall, a sleek streamlined pacific that didn’t even bother to open his eyes.
Once both express engines were drinking their fills and being checked over by their crews, Mike puffed over the switches into a different part of the yard, to the long curved sidings where the coaches were stored. He knew from the shop ponies talk that his accident had cost the railway thousands in bits, not only in repairs and clean up, but from the delay his accident caused the Sun Racer Limited. The end result was a free round trip for the passengers, hundreds out of pocket for Mr. Top Hat, and Cathrine being transferred from The Sun Racer to the Fillydelphia Flyer. By the time Mike found the set of gold and fuschia coaches he was looking for, he wasn’t smiling anymore.
“I can’t mess up again,” he said to himself as he buffered up to the coaches. “No more delays.” As the waited for the points to change in their favor, Mike got an idea. Canterlot Union Station has seven main platforms, each with three tracks between: two on the outside for the coaches to be lined up and boarded, and a middle with dual switches so engines pulling in can uncouple and reverse out of the station. Cathrine, important as she thought she was, liked to get to the station before her coaches and sit on the middle track, where light from the stations overhead lanterns could best catch the shine of her gold and fuscia paint.
If Mike could get the coaches to the platform before Cathrine could take up her usual beauty spot, then it would look like she was making the passengers wait.
“Come on,” he grumbled impatiently as he waited for the switch points to let him out. “Come on this is my chance to get her back.” His driver tried to check him, but the moment the points were in his favor, Mike surged backwards, steam whooshing from his cylinders as he gave a hard pull on the coach’s couplings.
“Whoa! Easy boy!,” His driver shouted as the small tender engine shot forward. “The stations not going anywhere.” As the last coach cleared its siding and he brought the train to a stop, Mike started to think his plan was a bad idea, until a steam whistle echoed across the yard. Fearful Cathrine could be starting toward the station, Mike puffed harder, pushing and spinning his wheels before they found traction again, and leaving his driver and firepony stumped.
“You ever seen him like this?”
“Never,” His driver admitted as Mike hurried his train across the yard. He made sure to whistle loud and clear as Mike clicked his way across the various junctions, all while making sure their train didn’t exceed the yards speed limit. Mike meanwhile was trying his hardest to push the coaches faster, but there was something besides his drivers brake holding him back.
“Why does my train feel like it’s getting heavier?” Every puff felt like it did less and less, and anypony nearby would have noticed a high pitched squeal growing over the sound of Mike’s puffing. By the time he rolled into the station there was no ignoring the near deafening shriek coming from the coaches. Mike no longer cared that he had beaten Cathrine to the platform, now his main concern were the worried glances his crew were trading.
“Oh Celestia,” His fire pony gulped, looking at his driver. “Brake lines?”
“Probably,” He huffed glaring at their engine. “Mike certainly bashed them hard enough.” The mogul’s eyes darted around the station in fear, looking for anypony who might have noticed his mistake. Thankfully none of the guard or porters seemed to be looking at the wheels, just going about their normal business loading the baggage car and getting the coaches ready to receive their passengers. He thought he was in the clear, and breathed a sigh of relief as one of the guards uncoupled him from the coaches, when he saw none other than Mr. Top Hat walking down the platform toward him, and that is when it all went wrong.
Mike had been sitting still longer than his crew realized, so when his driver opened the throttle to reverse away, a torrent of steam and cooled water erupted from Mike’s pistons like a pair of geysers, completely drenching anypony nearby.
“Yeeeesh,” Scootaloo winced. “You really stepped in it didn’t you?” Mike sighed dejectedly, sinking into his frames as those around came to see the scope of his screw-up.
“Yep. I high-balled it out of there as fast as I could. I tried to hide shunting in the yard but I was afraid Mr. Hat would find me, so when Nick was getting ready I asked him if I could take his train instead.”
“Well,” Lilly said trying to make her friend feel better. “It is your first day back right? I’m sure they don’t expect you to get everything right. And remember what Terrance always says; sometimes the only way to get it right.”
“Is to stop getting it wrong,” The mogul sighed. “Doesn’t matter how many times he says it; it still makes no sense.”
“It means,” Mikaela sniffled. “That you can’t give up because of a few mistakes. Terrance learned that the hard way.”
“Really?” Mike asked, looking at the Mikado. “But I thought Terrance was one of the smartest engines around.” The fillies weren’t quite ready for Mikaela to laugh as hard as she could with a stopped up boiler.
“He wasn’t always! I remember back when he was just starting out. Oh you should’ve seen him! Causing accidents left and right. Terrible Terrance we called him!”
“All right enough chit-chat,” Mikes driver smiled as he ambled up between the engines. “Time we be head’n out. You ready Mike?”
“Sir yes Sir!” The mogul smiled, letting off steam as his crew climbed aboard. Lilly’s crew were also preparing for a new journey, but the tank engine looked very nervously at Mikes train.
“Are you sure you don’t need any help? It’s a steep climb through the Horseshoe.”
“He’ll be fine,’ Mikaela sighed, rolling her eyes up and away from the little engine. “I was built and bred for this line. I’ve seen older and smaller engines take plenty more up that hill, no problem at all.” But Mikes driver wasn’t so sure.
“Better to play it safe though,” he said, looking over to Lilly’s driver, who nodded his agreement as Lilly beamed. Sour mood or not, nothing got the little tank engine excited faster than a chance to run on the mainline. Her enthusiasm was only matched by five other small hearts.
“We’ll be right behind you,” Her driver smiled, only to find five pairs of big eyes staring up at him. “… Very well, come on then.”
“YES!” They cheered together, clambering into Lilly’s cab. The firepony immediately gave them each a harness and rope that was tied to Lillys hoofrails for safety, and with a whistle from Mike the cavalcade set off. Diamond had to resist the very real urge to climb into the driver’s lap, and Silver Spoon quickly set to scolding Scootaloo when the Pegasus filly insisted on sticking her head outside Lilly’s open cab, but it was soon apparent the main one that had to be watched was Lilly.
“Easy girl,” The tank engines driver said, checking her speed as another charge by the tank engine biffed and bumped that cars old frames together. “Mike’ll signal when he needs help. All we’ve got to do is keep speed for now.”
It didn’t stay that way for long. The Horseshoe was more than just as curve who’s shape made for an easy name, it was the peak of the longest grade in all Equestria. Mike and Lilly were soon fighting the moguls extended train, and both were seriously doubting Mikaela’s claims, veteran or not.
“Bugger me,” Lilly’s driver groaned as the tank engines wheels spun on the rails, sending the ponies in her cab stumbling. “Older and smaller engines my marked flank.” They had slowed to a crawl now, their speed barely showing on Lilly’s cab instruments. None of which sat well with the crusaders.
“Should we get out’n push?” Appel Bloom asked, when they heard a whistle chime from the other line.
“That’s it you’ve got it!” A large black engine whistled as he steamed past, the fillies only managing to catch the numbers three and eight written on his black tender. “Keep at it! Don’t let those cars beat you!”
“We won’t!” Mike chimed from up front, and Lilly felt the weight on her buffers slacken with the moguls second wind. Before they knew it Mike whistled back to them. They were over the hump and away down the other side, leaving Lilly free to return to Pithsburg. Coasting backwards down the hill was a welcome reprieve from the torturous climb, though it may have been better without five safe and bored fillies on board.
“But why?” Scootaloo asked as Lilly was switched across the mainline to the other set of tracks. “Our stations on the other side, so why do we have to change tracks if we’re just gonna switch right back when we get there?”
“It’s a precaution,” Silver Spoon answered matter of factly. “The whole point of having a double track mainline, is so trains can travel in both directions at the same time without running into each other. This way we don’t need to worry about hitting another train on the way back.”
“Because the only trains on this track,’ Sweetie Belle realized. “Are going the same direction as us. That’s really smart.”
“Yep,” Diamond smiled. “Optimizes traffic and safety. It’s foolproof.” No sooner had the words left Diamond Tiara’s lips than a three rapid shrill whistle cries cut through the air, startling the fillies but confusing Lilly and her crew.
“Odd,” she said. “That sounds like a guard’s whistle, but we don’t have a guard.” And the whistling didn’t stop either. Though it was slowly getting quieter and further away they could still hear the shrill, almost frantic tones.
“Uh, girls,” Scootaloo swallowed nervously. “I still don’t know much about trains, but that sounds a lot like the emergency signal we used at Hoofmouth.”
“It is,” Silver spoon realized, before the friepony’s eyes went wide and his coat paled.
“Sweet Luna look at that!” All eyes immediately snapped back down the line, none quicker than Lilly’s when a caboose and thirteen trucks came barreling around the bend. On their line.
“Horsefeathers!” The driver spat, quickly opening Lilly’s regulator and sending the tank engine racing down the hill. “They must’ve snapped a coupling.”
“H-hurry!” Lilly shrieked, wondering why her driver hadn’t fully opened her throttle. “We have to get away!”
“Easy girl, we’re all right,” he soothed, then turned to the crusaders. “You girls hold on tight. We’re going to stop those cars.” Lilly picked up speed, racing down the line as the trucks came ever closer. Slowly though the gap between them shrank less and less as they matched the runaway cars speed. Lilly’s driver carefully closed her regulator, slowing down until the caboose came to rest of Lilly’s buffers.
“We got em!” Scootaloo cheered just as Lilly’s wheels began to squeal against the new weight.
“That’s it Lilly, steady now.” He closed her regulator, shut off steam and began applying the little tank engines brakes. “We’ll ease em down, nice’n gently.”
“Um, Sir,” Apple Bloom gulped, looking back with wide eyes and trembling legs. “I don’t think that’s gonna be an option!” The driver and firepony looked back and paled at what they saw. Not only were they quickly approaching Pithsburg station, but there on their line, sat in the west bound platform, was a great black steam engine and its coaches.
“Go for it girl!” Lilly’s driver shouted, shifting her reverser and throwing open the throttle as he yanked an emergency signal on the whistle. “It’s all on you now!” Lilly strained, forcing her wheels forward as the trucks forced her racing backwards, every ounce of steam left in her boiler puffing hard against the runaway cars. She already knew they were in trouble, then Scootaloo shouted five words no one ever expected from her.
“We’re coming in too fast!” It didn’t take a genius to see she was right, and though the engine ahead was starting to pull away, Apple Bloom knew they’d never stop in time.
“Everypony hold onta someth’n!” The ponies braced, ready for the impact or metal on metal they could see fast approaching, but it never came.
In their excitement everyone, from Lilly’s driver and firepony, to the crusaders and the tank engine herself had forgotten the switch they would need to cross to reenter Pithsburg yard. Lilly suddenly jerked to the right, her speed lowered enough that she didn’t tip over in the turn, before she and her passengers went screaming into the yard. They streaked past Mikaela, the big Mikado dumbfounded when Lilly and a line of Mikes trucks streaked across the tracks in front of her, through the yard, and out the other side. Lilly barely had time to realize she was on the branch line now, her wheels and bearing red hot from her fight, and only just heard the encouraging words of her driver and friends as she brought the runaway cars to a halt just beyond the yard.
“Owwwwyyy,” She hissed feebly, sinking onto her wheels as five shaken fillies stumbled down from her cab.
“Holy Hayseeds,” Apple Bloom gasped, legs shaking with as much excitement as fear. “Is everypony okay?”
“I think so,” Diamond trembled, leaning on Lilly’s frame until her legs could stop shaking. “That, that was.”
“AWESOME!” Scootaloo cheered, jumping from the cab and flipping twice through the air. “We have SO got to do that again!”
“L-lets not,” Sweetie Belle stammered, knees all but buckled in terror. “P-please? I think I saw my life flash before my eyes.”
“Me too,” Silver Spoon gulped, fixing her glasses with a shay hoof. “Twice.” After a moment to catch their breath and steady their nerves Lilly was puffing back into the yard, the switches mercifully set to let her shunt the trucks into a siding. She brought them to a halt just as the engine across the station called out.
“You girls alright? Nothing bent or broken?”
“We’re fine,” she whistled back weakly. “We stopped the cars so we’re okay I guess.”
“You guess?” He laughed. “What’s your name youngster?”
“Lilly.” She couldn’t see the other engine behind the station building, only the tail end of his black tender.
“Well Lilly, I’m not sure where it is on the railroad you’ve been working until now, but round here there’s a name for what you just did: Heroic, marvelous, and pretty darn brave.”
“I screwed up,” the tank engine sighed. “If I hadn’t bumped the cars the coupling wouldn’t have snapped, and none of this would’ve happened.”
“You’re right,” The other engine said plainly. “But the only way those cars beat you is if you give up. Keep at it, take your time, and you’ll see.”
“Thanks,” she whistled as the mystery engines guard blew their whistle.
“Welp, it was nice talking with you Lilly. Have a good day, and remember what I said.”
“I will.” With that the engine puffed away, black boiler and wheels almost lost within a cloud of steam, but not the white numbering of 382 proudly painted on his tender. None of the crusaders had thought it possible, but Lilly squeaked.
“That … that was.” The tank engine was openly gaping enough to be a bug catcher, and Diamond Tiara was in a similar state, wide eyed and stunned.
“Wow.”
And that was how she stayed until the tail of Mikes train rolled back into the station. Lilly quickly marshalled the trucks back into line, while the workers generously and quietly donated a few extra lengths of chain for the couplings. In no time both engines were ready to climb the hills once again, while the crusaders bravely decided to stay at the station. They had a lot to think about, and more than a few messes of their own to clean up when they got home that afternoon.
