The Red Street Accident

4/17/10

8:34 AM

Arron stood in the behind the open door of his truck it’s interior somehow still warm despite the near freezing temperatures however this and his jacket still did little to relieve him of the cold air, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his cellphone using the arrow keys to select Celestia’s number.

Celestia’s phone rang from its spot on her desk she picked it up and answered it with her usual “hey Arron” she almost always did this with a cheery voice and a bright smile “What’s going on?”

“I’m probably not gonna be back in Canterlot for a few hours of course that shouldn’t be to big a deal since you’re at work and i’ll probably be back before you get off anyways since i’m gonna be in Meridian for a few hours I just wanted to call and check up on ya.” Arron usually kept a serious tone of voice in his training he had been taught to stay serious this rubbed off into his daily life but however he didn’t always act this way he can barely remember several times when he would call Celestia saying he was drunk, today was no exception on his tone.

“Well I got to the school with no problems I wish you’d stop worrying so much about me.”

“Well it’s just I mean you actually love me unlike my bitch of an ex-wife Annette” Arron’s face turned to a smile before “alright I love you talk later by.”

Arron shut his phone and put it in his jeans pocket and looked up at the clouded sky the cold wind turning his fair cheeks red making his face feel cold to the touch, he got in the truck and started it the heat coming from the vents a welcome feeling to his face he turned on the radio where a weatherman was speaking.

“Today’s forecast shows that later today will be warm and sunny with light scattered showers expected at 7:30 PM tonight.”

“Sunny and warm my ass” said Arron chuckling as he grabbed the stick shift of his Ford and putting it reverse so he could back out of his parking place. Arron had a radio in his truck with which he could communicate with trains, dispatch, and his brother Blake’s black 2005 Dodge Ram 2500.

“Hey Arron you need to meet me by the station” said Blake through the radio.

Arron picked up the handheld speaker “why do you need me to?”

“To make a transfer run to Whynot.”

“Not a fucking chance on my day off” said Arron somewhat annoyed.

“Dude it’ll just be to Whynot and back you don’t even have to wear a uniform just take a cut and put it in the siding outside Whynot Yard and then take the engine back then you can go back and fuck your wife or whatever you do on your day off these days since you ain’t drinking no more.”

“Alright fine i’ll do it just let me get there first and i’ll meet by the cut anyways what we taking?”

“An M&D ALCO S2 and a cut of ten MQRR tippers drop em off at the yard entry and take the S2 back to Meridian.”

“MQRR tippers? we’re pretty far from Mattandale aren’t we?” said Arron jokingly

“Well they’re here for maintenance and painting so we gotta pull that up to Whynot like I said it’ll take maybe an hour or a little less depends.”

At CHS Fluttershy was standing in front of her locker grabbing her history book for her second period class her bag hanging from her shoulder tugging at the strap on her bright pink dress, when she shut the door she was greeted by Sunset she had a secret crush on her for a few weeks and by secret she meant secret no one knew about it she was still in the closet and didn’t feel like exposing it anytime soon.

“Hey Fluttershy after school you wanna go see that punk band that’s calling themselves Salad Snake?” said Sunset smiling Salad Snake was a local punk rock band that wasn’t well known by anyone outside of Canterlot barely anyone knew the names of the group

“N-no I have to study for a test tomorrow” said Fluttershy nervously before walking off leaving Sunset confused.

“Hey Fluttershy can you come here for a sec?” said Vice-Principal Luna.

“Oh s-sure” she walked over to Luna “What is it?”

“We need to talk about your grades they seem to be dropping please come into my office” they both walked towards the front office.

It has been an hour since S6754 departed and it was being held up at a signal waiting for a train of loaded tippers that was being pulled to Meridian Concrete Plant from Mattandale Quarry being lead by three MQRR GP9’s pulling 23 loaded tippers and a red breakbox it was another six hours away from Canterlot.

“If we keep waiting it’ll be next week before we get to Prescott.” said Eric angrily whilst stroking his beard sitting behind the controls that looked almost exactly like that of an SD40’s though the emergency brake was next to the window and had one of those pieces of metal that had to be pulled on to pull the brake and instead of a lever the horn was operated by a cord instead that was pulled down from the ceiling of the units cab it had three doors one on the front, and two on the back of the cab its engine sounded similar to a bears growl on takeoff and when doing so it belched smoke not as much as older models but still a lot this earned them the name “Smokey Bears”. The tracks were surrounded by trees on each side the tracks heading north and south the signals were older searchlight signals having been used for many years by the many railroads that operated that line.

Tommy was reading the newspaper while they waited when he said “So there’s a new locomotive coming into service on the WM&T looks like the E60’s.”

The radio on Tommy’s vest crackled saying “hey we clear up there?” it was Thomas speaking from the helpers two M&B GP38-3’s number 508 and 502.

“No we ain’t you idiot.” said Eric angrily

“What did he say?”

Tommy spoke into the radio “uh no we’re not” just then the train sped by clearing in 2 minutes allowing them to continue further down the line to Prescott.