Chapters Magic Carpet Made of Steel
What the-
The slow chug of the Baltimare and Appleloosa railroad (for some reason called the B&O) 4-4-0 locomotive , witch was rather colorful was heavy in the chilly night air as it backed into the siding behind Appleloosa’s only train station. Inside the cab was a dark grey, almost black earth pony wearing an engineer’s cap and a Steam cutie mark, although he was so covered in coal dust he could’ve had any coat color and still been dark grey. He gave a heavy sigh as he pulled the lever to neutral, he would’ve PAID to do what he did he liked it so much, but that didn’t change the fact that he had worked 14 hours, and without a fireman too.
After checking that all the gauges were in order and putting on the breaks, Blast Pipe finally let the long day catch up to him.
The long haul was never easy, as standing up and paying attention for 14 hours was never easy for him, and the lack of a fireman, and thus requiring him to shovel coal as well, didn’t help. Having gotten off the dual track mainline, the brakemen and conductor had long since left, with tired and dull “ ‘night’ and ‘see ya in the morin’ “ said in his general direction as they left.
Actually, he could really use some sleep, just a short power nap before the next engineer came for the 3rd shift. That and a nice, long, shower, he thought to himself as he shook some coal dust out of his coal-dust colored fur. But could wait until home.
With a bed.
With his bed.
He pulled out his golden pocket watch and saw it was 10:00 on the dot. The next fireman and engineer weren’t due until 10:45. May as well get some shut-eye. So, with one more shovel of coal to keep the boiler hot, he pulled his cap over his eyes and laid back….
“Nice to see yer back mate!”
….and immediately jumped up, banging his head on the roof of the cab.
“Damn it Willie!” Blast Pipe swore, glaring at the bright orange-red earth pony.
“You ‘k?” Willie asked, the concern in his voice rather obvious.
“I’m fine.” Blast Pipe said while rubbing his head. “What are you doing out here anyway?”
“Can’t somepony come to see his best friend?” Willie replied. “Thought you may want to have me keep you company.”
Blast pipe rolled his eyes before facehoofing “I was about to get some beauty rest before you showed up.”
“Ah’m sorry. Didn’t mean to wake ya or nothin’.”
“Sure, sure” Blast Pipe said (in a very snarky tone), before getting up. “I thought you were going to the studio tonight after helping at the farm.”
Actually, I need to go to that. See ya tomorrow.”
But before he could do that, Willie was cut off as a navy blue pegasus with a gold pocket watch and a ticket puncher cutie mark flew right out of the sky, landing right next to the steamer. “Conductor? What are you-?” Blast Pipe stopped, noticing the fear in her eyes. His nerves were immediately put on edge, as Conductor was panting like she had tried to race Rainbow Dash, and the 20-year railroad veteran had never looked even mildly anxious.
“We’ve got a runaway on the mainline.”
Blast Pipe felt his blood run cold. A runaway was rare, but very nasty usually had an empty cab, and was NEVER slow, and could cause thousands of bits in damages, and a derailment would mean shit had REALLY hit the fan. The next question ment either panicking a little but putting it the the 50-mile long 4% grade, “son-of-a-bitch hill”, as it was called by literally every fireman on the line, or hauling ass to stop it. “Coaster or under steam?”
“T-t-that’s the thing.” Conductor said, taking a deep breath before calming down considerably. “ERA* doesn’t know.”
“Doesn’t know?” Those words both confused and terrified Blast Pipe. Even Willie paled at that. “The hell? It’s a steam engine damnit all, either it’s under power or not.”
“Ya, isn’t that really easy to tell? Willie added.
“Tell me something I don’t know!” Conductor said, raising her voice in frustration. All I know is that Signal Control got a telegram to haul ass and get all opposing traffic off the mainline. When I tried to get details they said that it was coming our way and to move.”
Blast Pipe frowned, and glanced up to see that all the signals were up and red. “What about air protocol?” Knowing that if there was runaway train the first thing they’d do is have a pegasus with engineering experience fly in and put on the breaks.
“Like I said, they didn’t tell me anything.” Gotta wonder….. the pegasus stopped short, and it took Blast Pipe less than a second to figure out why. He felt it before he heard it, a vibration in the tracks that shook his locomotive, went up through the cab and this hooves. Then he heard a fast-paced chugging that grew in volume, as did the shaking. All at once all three of the ponies looked at the mainline track and looked up them.
A set of lights pierced the darkness, and the shaking grew so much that Blast Pipe clenched his jaw lest his teeth fall out. Then what must’ve been a whistle sounded, but it was so deep that sounded more like a horn than a whistle. Blast Pipe wondered what in Celestia's name was coming.
Less than a second later, his question was answered. By Luna’s mane it was huge. To call it just a locomotive was like calling the Everfree just a forest or Celestia just a queen. Even that was an understatement. It DWARFED any other locomotive he had ever seen in his life, a monstarus monodepressent grey/black machine. Time seemed to slow and Blast Pipe finally got a good look at it. It had a huge amount of drivers, 2 sets of 8, when the most he had ever seen was 6. They were each HUGE, probably twice as tall as he was, and that wasn't it either. It also had 4 leading and 4 trailing wheels, just like everything else, were huge, about as large as his locomotive's DRIVERS.
Time slowed to a croll as the monstrosity and it’s hopper cars neared, before it hurtled past followed by a seemingly endless amount of iron ore cars. Even his locomotive rocked from the sheet power of it.
Conductor was the first to recover, pulling Blast Pipe out of his daze.
“You!” She said as she pointed a hoof towards Willie
The shellshocked earth pony jumped, not even noticing his hat had been blown off. “Y-yes?”
“Go to the signal house and tell them to throw the switch for Son-of-a-Bitch hill and siding number 4,014! She ordered. Hurry!
Willie needed no further motivation and he ran off into the night.
Then Conductor moved a pipe over the 4-4-0s tender, and then started to shovel more coal into the firebox, much to the shock of Blast Pipe. “What are you doing?”
Conductor stopped shoveling to reply. “If you don’t get this train moving I’ll kick you ass so hard that YOU will pull it! She said in a tone that begged more discussion. Then it clicked for Blast Pipe. Conductor’s unspoken plan.
Run that thing down.
There was a metallic click and Blast Pipe saw the switch move to the mainline. The train was on the right-hoof track, luckily,or else they’d have to wait for the rest of the train to pass.
“Why are we going after it? Shouldn’t we clear the track?”
“Because”, Conductor said, “If we don’t stop it before it derails or hits something, and we catch it on the incline…..”
Are you sure a 4% grade will even slow it down? Blast Pipe said, thinking of the giant that could barely be called a locomotive.
“Not really, but I’m praying it does, because just imagine when it hits the downgrade.”
“Fuck” was all Blast Pipe could say as he opened the throttle wide.
Magic Carpet Made of Steel
How do you turn this damn thing off?
“Can this piece of scrap go any faster!?”
“Hey! In case you didn’t notice, this isn’t exactly the The City of New Orleans , now is it? , Blast Pipe snapped back as he threw on the sander to try and get extra traction, as steel on steel isn’t very good at that. “This was designed for cargo, not speed, and the wheels can only go so many rpm.*”
It had only taken about 10 minutes to get up to speed, but they were really pushing the locomotive, and based on the amount of hopper cars they had passed, they still had a lot of catch up to do.
Although pushing a locomotive wasn’t easy with only a 1 second nap and no other sleep for 16 hours, Blast Pipe could tell the stress on the loco was far worse. With every chug of the 4 driving wheels, there would be the usual hiss and chug sound, they would be accompanied by an unnerving pop. It was bluntly obvious that the locomotive was being pushed far beyond what it had ever been designed to do in its long service, and if anything broke, well, you never heard about survivors of a boiler explosion for a reason.
This didn’t seem to matter much to Conductor, however. She just kept shoveling in coal, turning the appropriate knob, and pulling the correct lever when necessary.
Slowly, however slowly, they started to gain on the men among giants, and considering its speed, that was no small feet. The trail of smoke was getting thicker and somehow darker than the jet black shade it already was as they passed the slightly rust iron ore hopper cars.
“Well now that we’re gaining now. What’s the plan?”, asked Blast Pipe.
“Shimfal.” Conductor replied. “Simple,” she said again,spitting out the coal shovel, her teeth now black with coal dust. “We’re on parallel track, so you’re going to get our cab and that….thing’s adjacent, and I’ll fly over.
Blast Pipe felt a twinge of nervousness, a jump from a moving train was obviously very risky, but of all people to know this, it would be Conductor, so Blast Pipe simply nodded. As he reassured himself with this logic, he checked the speedometer. “Oh HELL NOT
“Too late” Conductor replied, and just as Blast Pipe noticed that they were starting to PULL AHEAD of the titanic locomotive, he cried out as Conductor jumped out of the cab. He gave the biggest sigh of relief in his life when he saw her head, now almost coal black, pop up in the window, wearing the biggest shit-eating grin Blast Pipe had ever seen on her face.
Equestria! Fuck ya! Was running through her head, if her face was indicating anything going through her head.
However, their victory was short-lived.
Blast Pipe’s thoughts froze as a loud, low, metallic groan sounded from the engine. He ran over to the backhead and checked the water levels.
“SHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT
Blast Pipe had wanted to go for the anti-climatic ‘just take that piece of wood in the corner and walk over’ ending, but he knew he didn’t have time for that.
Conductor shouted what Blast Pipe needed to do anyway. “JUMP!”
He didn’t hesitate. He ran to the edge of the plate form, and jumped with all his might. The air ripped around him and a shot of terror and adrenaline shot through him as gravity started to remind him that he was making its job harder.
“Got ya!” Conductor said triumphantly as her hooves wrapped around one of Blast Pipe’s forelegs. With a grunt and a hard pull, she pulled Blast Pipe into the colossal locomotive’s cab. Now outside the engine Blast Pipe could see the red glow from the other locomotive. It have a shutter, and then jumped the tracks, falling over, before suddenly Exploding 18 seconds later
Blast Pipe knew that there wouldn’t be anything left to speak of the Locomotive [2nd picture]
His locomotive
“I swear to Celestia herself that I’m taking all my vacation and sick days after this.” He said after a long moment of pondering his loss.
“Behind you all the way. I hear there are some good places to go sightseeing in Canabra.” Conductor casually said, turning to the backhead. “Ok, how do we stop this damn thing?
Blast Pipe turned to the controls, and, not for the first time that night, balked. There were what seemed like dozens of knobs and levers, and many of them were far out of his reach. It was as if it was designed for a short mintor. There was a chair next to a window on one side, however, so that would be a minor problem.
“I don’t know,” Blast Pipe admitted.
“Better learn quick.” Conductor said as she leaned her head back into the cab “The peak’s coming.
“What?” No way, not this fast, the record was 2 hours, and it had scarcely been 40 minutes. He jumped onto the chair and peaked out the window. There was a sudden part of the horizon that seemed to go lower^, and it only got lower and lower.
Quickly, he ran a through scenarios in his head. “Ok, we’re going to have to ride this out until Ponyville station, maybe even Grand Central.”
“What are you crazy? That’s a 9 hour trip away!” Conductor responded. “We need to sto-
“We need to stop argueing about this, just clear the mainline and figure out where the hell the Celestia-damn brake lever is, unless you want to see this on a downhill grade!” Blast Pipe said, cutting her off. Conductor stopped thinking for only a fraction of a second.
“Fine, but damnit find that lever!”
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
It was a peaceful morning in Ponyville, and Twilight, much to her number one assistant delight, was making breakfast. Now, Twilight would the first in a LONG list of people to say she wasn’t a great cook, but she had (*ahem* finally) nailed pancakes, which was thankful considering some of the… results of her experiments in the kitchen.
This was not one of those mornings, thankfully, and her horn softly glowed as she cracked eggs, measured milk, added butter, and the various other things you do when making eggs from scratch. (although in her first attempt Twilight managed to completely ruin Fusseaz “just add water” mix.) She did it with an impressive amount of finesse, even for she was a princess.
“Wow.” was all Spike could say after leaning his head in the kitchen door.
Twilight didn’t miss a beat, nonchalantly saying “Good morning Spike, go get the Syrup and silverware, I’ll have something done in just a second.”
“That….practice is really paying off, eh?”
“I would hope so”, she said, pouring some mix onto the hot pan, as it gave a satisfying hiss. “You can only screw up as many until you’ve perfected whatever you’re doing.”
“Hopefully it won’t end up like yesterday’s experiment.” Spike muttered under his breath, “I didn’t know you could burn gems like that.”
Twilight pretended not to hear the second part as she pulled out 2 plates and stacked each high with pancakes before setting one down in front of Spike and herself.
“You take the first bite.” was the first thing Spike said.
“Oh come on it was ONE time.” Twilight responded, sounding just a little hurt.
“Ya, and my stomach got a restraining order on me for the assault.”
Twilight was about to give a nice retort when there was a crash, and a coal black pegasus with teal blue poking out in a few places flew in the room. “Twilight, we’ve had a problem.”
“R-Rainbow!?” Twilight asked, she recognized the fur and voice, but she knew that, while RD wasn’t much for looks, she wouldn’t be caught dead looking like she did now. “What happened?”
“What happened?! What happened?! Some metal monster…..thing just blew my house apart, that’s what happened!” She almost shouted, and was very agitated by it. “It’s in the station now.” She said, calming down a little.
It took a second for Twilight to process the second part of Rainbow’s message. “Wait a second, a TRAIN destroyed your house?”
“If you can even CALL it that.” RD muttered.
Twilight gave a heavy sigh. So much for breakfast. “Spike, get on my back.” As she followed Rainbow out the door.
Magic Carpet Made of Steel
VERY
When Twilight followed Rainbow Dash out the window, the very first thing she noticed was the smoke.
It was hard not to. On a sunny, cloudless day, the huge, inky black smoke clouds, far darker than any thundercloud, was very noticeable. If Rainbow’s home was hit by that...no wonder she was so dirty. It reminded her far too much of that dragon’s smoke from so long ago. The effect it had on the Ponies of Ponyville was quite apparent. As she flew she could just make out the colors of a few Ponies make their way in the smoke’s general direction.
“Come on!” Rainbow Dash urged. This was quite unnecessary however, as Twilight was already beating her wings a little harder as they neared the station, her mind thinking of different scenarios, and what Rainbow could’ve possibly meant by ‘Monster’. Where they going to need the Tree of Harmony? Or ask Discord for some help? What on Celestia’s green Equis could make that amount of smoke? Was it a dragon? Did it want-
Her mind felt the carpet pulled out from under it and halted when they reached the train station.
There was only one thing Twilight could say.
“Holy Shit!”
Twilight thought she could feel her jaw hit the ground.
It was absolutely TITANIC
As she swooped down with Rainbow and landed on the platform she could really appreciate how BIG it really was. It simply towered over her, a single driving wheel looked to be about as tall as Celestia herself, or just shy of that height. It hit her she and Rainbow were the only two who had approached the, for a lack of a better word, locomotive. Everypony else kept a good distance from it, almost forming a perimeter. You could cut the nervous fear it was so thick, and it was only getting thicker. You could hear a bit drop, and nopony so much as whispered. Nopony was panicking.
Yet.
But they could cross that bridge when they got there, for now they needed to investigate the locomotive. The only sound was the locomotive’s constant hissing. Twilight took off and circled around to first the front, where she landed. From here the loco’s huge size was painfully
X4014.
This meant practically nothing to Twilight, although with some quick logic and reason, she figured that it was the locomotive’s ID or serial number, or an equivalent for those. The 3rd and by far the strangest thing she observed was a dark metal Shield with
Union
Pacific
4014
in raised, blocky letters, the only things on it. Ok, so 4014 was definitely an ID or serial number of some kind, but what in the world was this “Union Pacific.” ‘Union’ was VERY Twilight Sparkle NEVER
as “dead” and other very old languages. Perhaps it was this….mountain of a locomotive’s railroad.
She took off again, and started to fly to the back. Under a window to the cab was, you guessed it, 4014. It was as if this “Union Pacific” had an obsession with that number. As her eyes drifted towards the tender, she noticed the “Union Pacific” printed in the same, blocky, white letters as with everything else. She decided to fly into the cab. Upon doing so, she immediately noted the 2 ponies in there with her, a coal-black, or some color and covered in coal dust, earth pony and a navy blue pegasus mare, also covered in coal dust. The earth pony almost immediately noticed her, and when she got a look at them, she could see the absolute exhaustion in his eyes, and the bags under them.
“And who the hell are you?” He said, trying to hid the fatigue in his voice, but doing a poor job of it.
“I was wonder just the same thing, and 10 others. To Answer your question, I am Princess Twilight Sparkle, Element of magic, brother of Shining Armor, and student of Princess Celestia Twilight replied in a flat monotone.
The “Princess Twilight Sparkle” registered in both of them, and the earth pony was quick to apologise. “Oh, I’m so sorry I was so crass! It’s just been a LONG” he trailed off, then fell flat of his face. The navy blue pegasus gave an apologetic look and said. “He’s been up and working for….she trailed off as she pulled out a golden pocket watch and read it….about 28 hours. That’s one of the reasons he was rather rude to you. My name is conductor, and this is Blast Pipe, nice to meet you your…” At Twilight’s look she correct herself “Twilight.” The names Twilight was given of the two ponies sunk in, and she gave Conductor an odd look. “Our parents were both had coal and steam for blood. Didn’t help that we both happened to be born on trains.” Twilight still had that odd expression, but it had understanding in it now.
“Well, I have a few questions for you.”
Conductor gave Twilight an annoyed look and said “My friend just passed out and you wanna ask me QUESTIONS?!”
“Well it’s not exactly like he’s going to fall out or anything, and you’re the only one that can answer them currently.”
“Point taken.”
“Good. Ok, so let’s start with the elephant in the room. Or on the tracks. So, where did this come from?”
“I have absolutely no idea, and I think the ERA doesn’t either. All I know is that at 9:26 P.M. yesterday, I got a telegram to halt all opposing traffic and to clear the mainline. When I pressed for more information, they told me to hurry up. I went to Appaloosa, where there was a locomotive that had steam, and after this passed, we- I decided to chase it. We obviously managed to catch up, but the other locomotive had a boiler explosion so we couldn’t go back for the obvious risk. And we were unfortunate enough to catch up on an incline, and hadn’t figured out what was the break before the descent. We’ve spent most of the night since just trying to bring this thing under control again. Honestly, it’s no small miracle that the tracks HELD this thing.”
Twilight nodded her head in understanding, thinking of the size of the locomotive, and of the amount of iron ore it had to have pulled, and the weight of all of it. Whomever, or whatever, had made the brakes, she had a newfound respect for. Then she tried to remember the standard procedures in an event like this, and drew a blank.
“What is the usual thing you do when this, as in a runaway train, and why did they not do it?” Conductor responded, “The first thing we try is have a pegasus fly in from above and put on the brakes. As for why the B&O didn’t, I can only guess extreme incompetence on their part, which is unlikely, as almost everyone is very competent at their job, and we’re not understaffed, so even the incompetent ones
are a small problem, or, and far more likely, but still hard to believe, it managed to get pretty far before anyone noticed, although this would still beREALLY, REALLY hard to manage.”
Twilight sat and stared off in thought, before she realized what she was looking at. She was looking at what seemed to be a slot right under the padded part of the giant chair. She walked over to it, reared up, balancing on her hind legs, and peered in. There was a book. Using her telekinesis, she pulled it out.
“A short history of the Union Pacific Railroad 4000 class “Bigboy” locomotive.” She read outloud. “Bigboy, hu? Creative nickname, isn’t it?” She said. “May as well take a look.”
Magic Carpet Made of Steel
A short history of the Union Pacific Railroad 4000 class “Bigboy” locomotive
By: A lot of people
Dedicated to: All of you steam enthusiasts, and the writers of this book. Though your enthusiasm, steam lives on.
The 4000 class, with the famous 4-8-8-4 wheel arrangement (or what we shall call from now on, “Bigboys”), could trace its roots to the Rocket, all other steam locomotives could, so that speaks little. One could more specifically trace it’s family history to 4 things: demand for larger and larger trains, a more efficient solution to the demand than a double-header, the Mallet type locomotives, and the need to have large, fast, long-distance trains up steep grades, one such example being a 2% grade.
At the turn of the century and throughout the early 1900s, demand, railroads, and trains, skyrocketed. For the longest time, the problem longer and heavier trains was met by a simple solution:double-heading. For those of you less acquainted with railroad jargon, this is when you couple 2 locomotives together. This, however, has a fundamental problem; you need to get more locomotives, which are not cheap, and are only useful for so long, and varies with demand, so when demand is low you’ll be paying to maintain locomotive doing squat.
This was solved by adding more wheels, allowing for more traction and power; 4-4-0s became 4-6-0s and 4-6-0s became 4-8. With larger and more wheels you needed larger pistons to power them, and therefore a larger boiler, with a larger tender and frame. With a larger smokebox and firebox, you needed to have 4 wheels to support them and lead the driving wheels (often simply called “drivers”,) into a curve, and another 4 to support the cab and firebox.
This also has a fundamental problem; as you add wheels, the locomotive becomes like a centipede with a stiff neck. Taking curves is harder and harder, and must be done slowly or be wider.
This problem also had a solution, one made by a certain Anatole Mallet. Anatole Mallet was a Swiss engineer, who one “day” (it took much longer than that, but you never really say that, so you?) took a 4-8-4, and, in layman's terms, then cut the frame in half, put on another set of pistons and driving rods, put a hinge in the middle, and put a larger boiler on it. He made a 4-4-4-4, and invented articulated locomotives, with a hinge in the middle, allowing to make tight turns much more easily.
If you aren’t noticing a pattern already, you should re-evaluate your IQ. This design had its problems as well. You see, it was steam efficient, having high-pressure steam going to the rear cylinders, and the expanding steam going to the front, and having larger pistons to accommodate the lower psi (pounds per square inch, for you Europeans reading about U.S. railroads). This the the source of the problem-Mallet locos, or Mollys, couldn’t go at very high speeds, as the counterweights on their front wheels would’ve beaten the tracks and made maintaining them far more expensive and time-consuming. There was also an imbalance between the front drivers and the rear ones, and could cause the front set to spin out of control and do nothing, a very wasteful and potentially dangerous situation.
The speed problem was particularly acute for UP, whom had shipments that might need to travel very long distances, perhaps 500 or more miles, and slow locomotives were thus very ineffective. So, during the 1920s, UP and other railroads reverted back to the older kind of locomotive, thus causing the 9000 class of locomotives, the largest non-articulate locos ever built, with a 4-12-4 wheel arrangement. They were very successful on the great plains, with very large turns in the track. However, in the Rockie Mountains, they were quite hindered by the sharp curves and much smaller tunnels and bridges. We needed a better solution.
Thus, in 1936 there was what seemed to be a final answer;the Challenger Class locomotive. It had a 4-6-6-4 wheel arrangement, and all 4 pistons were powered straight from the boiler, all high pressure, allowing for high speeds that
become commonplace on the UP that were unheard of for articulated locomotives on other railroads. But as WWII approached, and as the need for a locomotive that could pull longer and heavier trains up steep grades at high speeds without having to have a double-header was needed. Thus the Bigboy was born.
The Bigboy can go up to 80 mph, although it was never intended, and never was, run at that speed. At 35 mph, the maximum hp efficiency, a Bigboy has over 6,000 horsepower.
Although it was a rare thing for a steam locomotive to have anything but a monochromatic black paint job (and even then there was little color), and never at the cost of speed, efficiency or power (the reason being that steam locomotives are like tools; there is little reason to put an engraving or a coat of nice paint on it, and you would not do so if it made the tool less effective at what it did), the Bigboys carried a sense of majesty and beauty with them when run.
In 2013, UP announced it would re-acquire Bigboy No. 4014 to be restored to a fully functional level, in preparation for the 150th anniversary for completion of the first transcontinental railroad in the U.S. in 1869, the very thing that was the reason UP even exists.
For you Europeans
PSI-Pounds per square inch.
Ton (t)-2,000 pounds
Pound-0.453592 Kilograms
1 foot- 30cm
1 mile-5,280 feet
mph-miles per hour.
[url=http://coloradorailroadmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Steam-Engine-Cutaway.jpg ]For those of you less acquainted with the workings of a steam locomotive[/url]