Dear Silver Pilot,
2903 and 999 had a great time teasing me about my “distinguished” edges. I think they’ve forgotten that it is perfectly normal to admire other engines’ shapes since it’s only been the three of us out here so long and we’re all used to the sight of each other. U-505 normally does not involve himself with rail matters, but this time he made the point to say he likes my edges too. He says they are “utilitarian”, which is something Germans value in a shape (and makes me think he knows more English than he’s letting on). I’m sure he only actually said it to annoy the steam engines because they were forced to agree with him or else they’d be saying they don’t like my edges. They went awful quiet about it after that.
So yes, everyone’s getting along for the moment, thanks to you!
As to your vandals, they all seemed to think I was overheating about it too. 2903 said it was something only a vain little passenger train would worry about. I have to wonder if he’s right, but 999 didn’t agree with him like I expected her to. She didn’t exactly agree with me either, but she knows how important presentation is to our work. 999 pointed out that it’s easier for 2903 to think it’s silly to worry about looks when he could pull freight instead if someone decided to deface him. Passengers don’t like graffiti or broken glass.
U-505 says he was vandalized right after he was captured too and that it certainly wasn’t the worst thing that’s happened to him. Our seamen painted “Can Do Junior” on his conning tower in red paint to add insult to injury. Then later they painted him in our navy’s colors to hide him from his own. He’s more unhappy about that actually. He’s painted that way still, but at least he’s not vandalized anymore.
He says it’s normal for things like that to happen in wartime. Submarines do not take prisoners, but he tells a story about his own crew making victory pins out of an airplane that attacked him but accidentally blew herself up in the process. There were pieces of her fuselage all over his deck with her yellow paint on one side, so his crewmen cut them up into little axes like his old emblem and wore them on their hats. That’s war though. People here should know how to behave themselves.
My museum must know they can’t trust some people to act right though or there wouldn’t be a fence. I’m glad you have a fence now too.
You’ve got such a variety of cars! It must be a challenge – but an enjoyable one, I hope – to head their train. It sounds as though they’re all doing their best to be helpful, in their own ways.
I don’t mind admitting that when Pegasus and Zephyrus were given their trains, my coaches and I were a little jealous. We had only been renamed the Pioneer Zephyr a week or two before and the novelty was cut a bit short when my new brother and sister were put into service with not only names for their train, but also for themselves and all their coaches. Granted, the Mark Twain Zephyr did it first but that felt different, maybe because their train wasn’t on theme with the Greek god names (and because they didn’t come out right after we only just got our own name).
My coaches are a bit scandalized to hear how forward yours are with you. Coach decorum was a lot more strict when we were built. I would imagine they would like to be so outright with me, if I wasn’t so careful not to give them reasons to want to. We’ve all been together our entire service lives though, so we know how to mind each other. We mostly had each other figured out in the year before we went into revenue service. I have hope yet then that the rest of our yard will fall in such order before too long. It’s been thirteen years so it should be any day now.
We did realize pretty quickly that we’d always have to say U-505’s ‘U’ when we talk about him because he and my first car, 505, have the same number. It’s an amazing coincidence that he came halfway around the world to end up in a yard where he has to share a number with a train car!
505 is quite sensible like your Venus is. She’s a full baggage car now, but when we started out she carried passengers, their baggage, and the buffet grill. It was a lot of responsibility and things to be aware of at once. 570 is my observation car. She keeps an eye on things behind us and she takes care of passengers the way your Juno must. 570 always gave 505 credit for keeping on top of everything else because the fancier passengers were quite demanding on their own. You have to be diplomatic with them, she says.
For a time, we had a fourth car in the train, No. 525. She was a 40-seat coach and we’d needed her because we were doing so well. 505 and 570 didn’t much care for her though. They thought she was too lively for a coach and she was placed between them so they couldn’t whisper about her. 525 was with us for about a year, until she was moved to my brother 9902’s train, one of the Twin Cities Zephyrs. Later she was brought back on and so my coaches said she was flighty too. This is the only thing I ever remember us arguing about. I told them that 525 must be doing a good job if the railroad thought she was needed elsewhere. It’s no small feat to add or remove a car from an articulated trainset, so they wouldn’t reassign her lightly. Her being so friendly must be why they chose her to move as she must find it easier to join a new train than they would. But they told me – and they are telling me again now – that I just don’t understand that part of coach work.
525 was taken off my train after about another year and half and they replaced her with 500. Overall, 505 and 570 got along better with 500, but it was hard at first. 500 was a 40-seat coach with a dinette, you see. The train didn’t need a dinette and a buffet grill, but with 500’s added seats, we did need more room for the passengers’ baggage. 505 was not very happy about having her seats and buffet removed. 570 and I tried to console her. If they were making her into a full baggage car, we said, it meant 500 was going to be permanently added to the train. If she was permanent, it meant we were doing really well and they wanted us to be able to carry more passengers and more passengers meant more baggage.
I think it was the only time she was ever “forward” with me! She told me just what I could do with the extra baggage!
Once everything was said and done, though, 505 and 570 liked 500 quite well and she stayed with us for nearly the rest of our revenue service. Near the end, 500 was taken off my train and added to the Mark Twain Zephyr for some event in Mount Pleasant. Last I heard, she was still with them.
Injun Joe and his coaches haven’t been scrapped, but I’m not sure they’re being preserved either. It’s a little worrying, if I’m being honest. No one wants to be scrapped, but it is decisive. I hate to think of them just sitting on a siding somewhere waiting for something to happen to them.
One time, a little after that birthday party with the big cake and knife, we were rear-ended by one of those new FT units and 570 was so badly damaged we were worried they might decide to scrap her. “Telescoped” was the word they used for it. It was awful. Four passengers died and she’d been halfway torn apart. (The FT came away from it with just a smashed headlight and a bent grill.)
It took the railroad a while to decide what to do because not long after that, 9901 caught fire and had to be scrapped so they had thought about replacing 570 with his observation car and scrapping her too. There was some ownership complication though that made it too expensive to do that so they took the time, about five months, and had 570 repaired instead. 505 and I were very relieved not to lose a member of our original consist and 500 was glad to see 570 back in service too. None of us relished the idea of having to learn to work with a new car.
It sounds selfish now that I’ve said it that way, especially since that left 9901’s cars in the lurch. They spent a couple years in storage before they ended up getting scrapped too. Changes to our train are more difficult for us articulates though. It’s not just a change in the dynamic, but also an ordeal to get cars swapped in and out. Looking back, I think half of the dislike for 525 was just that adding her and removing her meant we had to get hoisted off our trucks to have it done.
It’s not surprising to me that Venus would be the most willing to help you acclimate to the train since she’s the only one with a coupling. She’s probably been the ambassador for your train since their first day of service. Or a good buffer, if the rest of them did not like the engine! It sounds like she may not be having to buffer as much these days, if you can find so many nice things about each of your cars. Once you get that valve spring fixed, I bet you’ll all be running as smoothly as me and my coaches used to.
Your friend,
Pioneer Zephyr