Dear Silver Pilot,
Please do not apologize. I wrote you in the first place because I know firsthand that the transition to retirement is difficult to come to terms with. I just hadn’t realized you had circumstances that would put you further along. I imagine it’s a lot harder to feel slighted by preservation when you’ve literally looked the smelter in the face first.
I suspect it is still quite easy to feel undeserving of it though. My guides say it’s called survivor’s guilt. You know that there’s nothing you could have done to save Mate so I don’t need to tell you, but I know I still get the feeling that other engines deserve to be here more than me sometimes.
I once knew an engine called The City of Salina. When we were new, he was called M-10000, but Union Pacific gave him a proper name like all their other streamliners once they had them. He was the first of their fleet, the way I was for ours. He was very modern looking, all rounded around the edges with a bright yellow and brown livery. We were both built the same year, but he came out first. He broke the land speed record at a hundred and ten miles an hour, which I then beat by two a few months later.
Aside from that first stunt, Union Pacific didn’t go to the same sort of lengths that Burlington did for me though. We sometimes appeared together, as a show of both competition and cooperation, but outside of that, Salina never had the sorts of events built around him that I did. If there’s one thing to be said for Ralph Budd, the man knew how to get people excited about a train. I probably wouldn’t still be here if he didn’t.
I sometimes wonder if Salina might have been preserved too (or instead) if I hadn’t beaten his record so quickly. I don’t think my record alone is why I’ve been preserved, but 999 says that’s why she was and I’m told that’s true of a few other engines out there too.
You know as well as I do that even if I hadn’t beaten his record, it wouldn’t have saved him from scrap. Most engines get scrapped; even the best. They say they used Salina’s aluminum to make airplanes for the war. It’s nice to imagine him getting a second life as an airplane, although I’ve never known a scrapyard to say what a specific engine’s parts are used to make otherwise. At least he was deemed worthy of a story.
I’m getting away from my point.
There’s no use in worrying about whether we deserve to be preserved when Mate and Salina were not because what people think is important and worth saving changes on a whim. It’s never been about who actually deserves it. The only thing for it is to make sure what’s important to us is not forgotten either.
Mate and Salina would both be lost to time like so many other engines are, except for that you and I are not. We are still here and they are part of our stories. There is no Pioneer Zephyr without The City of Salina and there’s no Silver Pilot without Silver Mate.
It is part of our service then, to see that they are remembered for theirs.
Your friend,
Pioneer Zephyr