Dear 9952-A,

May I call you Silver Pilot? I think numbers are a little impersonal when you have a name.

Congratulations on your acceptance to the Illinois Railway Museum. And to pull the Nebraska Zephyr no less! That’s a magnificent train. (Don’t tell my cars I said that though, haha!) I was very happy to hear that another of us has been returned to service.

And it is service, have no doubt. I think when we were thundering down the tracks at a hundred miles an hour, it was hard to see it that way. The idea that it was also work to stand still and be looked at by visitors sounded quite preposterous to the other engines when I was new.

Preservation is a responsibility is what I’m getting at. It’s not just standing there and being inspected. Back then, it was to get people excited about my train. Now, it is to remind them of why they were. We were both part of something important, something that mattered. It’s our job to see that it’s remembered.

I have no doubt that you will perform that duty admirably.

Your friend in service,

Pioneer Zephyr

Dear Silver Pilot,

I was astonished to get your reply so quickly! The guides had warned me not to expect it immediately. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure whether to expect one at all. It’s not exactly your volunteers’ job to keep their engines up on their correspondence. I’m relieved that they were willing to indulge us. I quite like the idea of being pen pals! I enjoy writing letters, but I don’t get the chance that often.

Names, I think, give you a sizable advantage when it comes to this type of work (999 and 2903 certainly think so!) Not only does your train have a name, but you’ve also got your own name and so do each of your cars. They hadn’t thought of that when my train went into service, but that’s the thing about being the first: they have to work out the kinks on you. In fact, they had to change my train’s name to the Pioneer Zephyr because they didn’t know they were going to end up making so many Burlington Zephyrs. They had to differentiate me – again! It’s a good thing though. A name is the start of a story and a story is what keeps us interesting.

I’d be happy to tell you any of my stories, but being a Zephyr yourself (and the C&S was a subsidiary of Burlington so the Texas Zephyr does count), you probably know all my usual yarns. I wouldn’t want to bore you with the stuff I tell the guests! I could tell you about the museum though.

I live on the lawn in front of the east wing. They have me and my cars arranged next to U-505, a German U-Boat. He was captured during the war so he’s technically a POW, but he says he is treated well considering. The idea is that we are both examples of diesel technology so they have us contrasting each other, but I think it’s just that I make him look bigger.

At an angle behind us, they set up the steam engines, 999 and 2903. 999 used to pull the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad’s Empire State Express. She’s famous for being the first locomotive to go a hundred miles an hour (the claim is disputed, but she says that just adds to her mystique). 2903 worked for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway pulling their express. He’s the biggest engine I’ve ever seen! He’s both strong and fast. He could go ninety miles an hour pulling passengers or he could pull a hundred freight cars at once.

There’s a Stephenson’s Rocket around here too, but I’ve never met him since he’s set up indoors. I’ve never heard a bad thing about him though. Apparently he’s quite charming. From what I gather, he’s a replica built specially for the museum as a display so he never saw rail work. The steam engines are a little dismissive of him for it, but I can’t say a word against that. The first year of my service life was standing there and letting people look at me too. He comes from the same Works as the original Rocket so he has that distinction going for him at least.

I’d love to hear about your Texas Zephyr and about your museum. I’m sure you’re sharing that yard with some personalities, even beyond your cars.

Speaking of them, you may have to give them time to get used to the idea of you (but you will have time in abundance!) They were built for 9904 – her name was Pegasus – so they’ll feel obligated to stay loyal to her, even if she’s no longer with us. Have I heard it right that they’re missing some of their consist? They used to be seven cars, I remember that much. If they’re stand-offish at first, that’s to be expected.

They’re still new to preservation too. The guides said they were only bought by your museum near the end of last year so they won’t know how lucky they are yet. I’m told you’re still in working order. They’ll get to go out on a run every so often then.

This job demands a change in perspective. It’s difficult at first because one compares how things are to how they were. It can feel like a demotion in the beginning. It took me a few years before I realized the difference is between how things are and how they could have been. Once you understand that, then you can see what you’ve got to be grateful for.

It might take them a while and they might not all come around at once. I have no doubt though that they will eventually consider themselves fortunate to have you as their engine.

The job is to mind the past, but there’s still a present and a future, you know.

Your friend,

Pioneer Zephyr

Dear Silver Pilot,

A postcard? How odd. I seem to recall being asked if I wanted to include a photo and saying no, as I am writing to a friend, not an enthusiast asking for an autograph. The guides insist they only did it because they doubted you’d ever seen a submarine before. U-505 was quite flustered at being told he looked “dashing” once we explained to him what it meant. One can imagine he doesn’t get that sort of compliment very often.

I haven’t asked – for the same reason you haven’t asked your Goddesses, I imagine – about Silver Mate. I wonder if you might want to tell me about him? I hadn’t realized how everything would have happened for you as it has.

It was all arranged so the transition went easily when I was given to the MSI. As easily as being retired can go anyway. I finished my last run and then a month or so later, I was set up here in the yard. I knew exactly what was going to happen the whole way through. I hadn’t been told about how you’d been to a scrapyard. My guides seemed a bit iffy on the details, but it sounds as though it’s been much more difficult for you in just about every way it can be from there on.

When they suggested writing to you, I had to think about it first. I wasn’t sure if engines really ought to be writing letters. The only other time I’ve written one, I didn’t receive a reply. I had hoped, though, that reaching out might be useful to you. When I was a new engine, I had other engines to show me how to do the job, but there wasn’t anyone to show me how to do this one.

If my letters have done more than that for you, beyond just telling you what to expect… Maybe I’ve been at my standstill for too long and am overestimating things, but it seems a more important service than any I’ve yet done.

I think you are probably through the hardest of it now. Your mechanics know precisely what your limitations are. In a museum, they will not ask you to do anything beyond your ability. They wouldn’t want to risk damaging you. And once your cars remember what it’s like to travel again and they see how magnificent their train is – the whole train with you at the head – everything else will work itself out.

You are going to be the shining star of that museum. Us Zephyrs always are.

As to whether we can weather the weather, my exterior’s starting to loosen up again now that it’s getting warmer. The steam engines are happier since they’re meant to run hot, but U-505… he doesn’t complain, but he’s supposed to be underwater so he prefers cold to heat. He worries that he might spring a leak if his exterior expands too much. I think it’s kinder not to point out that he’s not in any danger of sinking if he did.

Your friend,

Pioneer Zephyr

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

Dear Silver Pilot,

I’m glad that you wrote again despite not receiving a reply. I know what that’s like and I’m sorry you were left waiting. That letter would simply have said that I was happy for you to be running again and that you were going to be a big hit for your Members Day. It’s for the best perhaps. That message might have been disappointing after such a setback.

A broken valve spring isn’t too bad though. It should be an easy enough fix and you’ll be pulling your train again soon.

In the meantime, being a static display isn’t the worst thing in the world. It’s not as good as taking visitors for a proper ride, but they get to spend more time with you when you don’t have anywhere else to be. Here at the MSI, they can tour my cars and look at us more closely. If they were still able to eat their lunch in Ceres, maybe they could let visitors tour the rest of your cars too? Sometimes people even squat down to look at our trucks and get up close to our wheels. They couldn’t do that if we were moving. It’d be too dangerous. Being static lets them admire you in ways they can’t otherwise.

Being stationary can be good that way. It’s a lot like when I was new and we went on tour to let people inspect us before we went into regular service. If you spend a good long while looking over a train, you’re likely to remember him!

I’m sure your volunteers are eager to get you repaired though. You’re so close to being operational and they’ve put so much work in already, they’d be foolish to put it off any further. I’m sure they won’t keep you in suspense like I did.

Your friend,

Pioneer Zephyr

Dear Silver Pilot,

You were left out in the open with vandals? That sounds terrible. We might not have sheds here, but at least there’s a fence to keep people who would be up to no good out.

Venus sounds quite sensible and loyal. Even if she’d only said it was improper to be pulled by anything but a Burlington out of vanity, she should know at least that my cars agreed. They went on for quite a while about it actually, the very idea of being pulled by anyone but me. “Preposterous,” they said! It simply wouldn’t be done. We’ve never been separated so it makes perfect sense for them to feel that way. But then, that’s the trick: they can’t be pulled by anyone but me because of our articulation.

There’s no need to be modest about your advantages on my account. If it’s hard to beat the original, you and your siblings have done so in about every way. It’s just the way of things; your design was made to improve on mine, same as all my siblings’ were. The articulation makes my train lighter and faster since my cars share trucks between them. I think if they’d not decided to let that go on us engines at least by the time they made Pegasus and Zephyrus, neither you nor your train might have made it to preservation. A train who needs an engine made special for it, beyond looks alone, is a train at risk of being retired before its time. It’s a limitation and the novelty only takes you so far.

I met your sister Silver Bullet once. It was at her debut as the Silver Streak Zephyr to replace me on the Lincoln-Kansas City service. They named her train after that silly movie I was in. They were making a big to-do about it and they had given me the day off to attend the celebration for her. I remember thinking that they were asking a lot of me to go to this event and pretend not to be bitter that she was taking over my route because she was stronger and could pull enough cars to meet demand. (I could pull three in a pinch, but her train was six cars right from the start.) But they were asking because they knew I could and would do it.

When I actually saw her though… You could see all the little things they’d done to make her look like us shovelnoses. The stainless steel and fluting obviously, but also the slope of the nose and the striping to mimic my windshield. They even painted on false grills. And she was so tall, practically towering over me! Truth told, it was a little intimidating. At the same time, one couldn’t help remembering Zephyrus and I both had head-on accidents that our engineers might have survived if our cabs had been up higher like yours.

I’ve always thought E5’s were a more refined shape too, curves instead of sharp edges.

Silver Bullet was so gracious about the whole situation too so instead of being jealous of her, I ended up being proud that so much of my design was still being carried through in hers. They let me signal when to smash the champagne bottle on her and by the third blast on my horn, I was pretty well convinced E5’s were a fine successor to the Zephyr fleet.

Suffice to say, E5’s have plenty to appreciate even at a standstill. Your visitors won’t be left wanting.

It’s always slower for us at the MSI during the winter too since a lot of the guests don’t like to come outside in this weather. Especially if we’ve been snowed on! We keep each other company when the guests are fewer and further between. So even though the steam engines and U-505 do not get along, I think they would miss each other otherwise. And now that I have said that, it has started an argument so I’ll close this letter with the hope that your yard is seeing a more peaceful winter than mine is.

Your friend,

Pioneer Zephyr

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

Dear Silver Pilot,

A little teasing is nothing to be concerned about. It’s all in good fun and it keeps the yard lively. I’ve had plenty of practice being teased too! I looked quite strange when I was new, to say nothing of being a diesel when diesels weren’t common yet. Then there was the time I broke down, was late for an inspection, and had to be hauled into the station by a steam engine. The steam crews had plenty of jokes about that.

Still, the guides have included the postcards with 999 and 2903 on them so you can see what they look like if you want to flatter them too. 999’s postcard is quite funny. 2903 is so big that the only way they could get a picture of her without him in the background was to take it from above while standing on his cab. That’s what the black wedge in the corner is. 999 likes it though; you rarely get a photo of an engine from that angle.

Your last letter added to U-505’s English with your talk of philanthropy. It was a word he’d not encountered before, even though the MSI really lives and dies by it. Almost everything here is funded or donated by companies so they can show everyone they support the museum. Even just being here ourselves is a sort of philanthropy since we were donated by our railroads and still have their names on us.

U-505 has also had quite a bit of philanthropy done on him too. When he arrived here, he was missing nearly everything from his interior. The Navy took anything that wasn’t riveted on for research or as souvenirs so he didn’t much look like a submarine inside anymore. That wouldn’t do, so the museum wrote to all the companies in Germany that made his parts and they all sent new ones for him for free. They wanted him to be a credit to German technology and it would only be historically accurate if their company names were on the parts.

Speaking of historical accuracy, I have a small confession to make. Not all of us shovelnoses did have names. In fact, I don’t have one. The Pioneer Zephyr is the name of my train, not me particularly. When I wrote that first letter all those years ago, I was told to sign it “Pioneer Zephyr” because it was more personable than No. 9900. So when I wrote to you, I signed it the same way. It’s never been a question before because we’re a trainset. If you are speaking of me, you’re almost certainly speaking of my coaches too. Neither of them mind if I borrow the title for a name since they think it’s proper the engine should be the face of the train. It’s not like I could run off on my own with it anyway!

I’m lucky though. My first brothers, 9901 and 9902, never received names and they couldn’t even cheat by using the name of their train like I do. The Twin Cities Zephyr was the name of their route, not the train itself, and they had to share it besides.

After them came 9903 “Injun Joe” and his Mark Twain Zephyr, which is when they started naming the train itself and everyone in it. Mark Twain is a famous writer and all the cars in the train are named for characters in his books. Injun Joe is supposed to be a bit of a joke since it sounds like “engine” and they must have thought it was very clever because every piece of stainless steel that came after him was given a name too.

My guides did try to find out how any of my surviving siblings might be doing but as you can imagine, it’s hard to get definite answers when everyone’s so spread out. They say Injun Joe and his coaches (Becky Thatcher, Tom Sawyer, and Huck Finn) as well as our 500 are still in Mount Pleasant, but no one’s sure what’s being done with them. As you understand, the uncertainty is troubling but it does mean there’s still hope they’ll find their way back into service eventually.

Then there’s The Flying Yankee. He’s a peculiar case.

He was built right after me but before 9901 and 9902. He is a shovelnose and we do consider him a brother, but he’s not a Zephyr like the rest of us. He was sent to the Maine Central – Boston & Maine Railroad so he doesn’t know our Ways. Despite that, he must have made the same impression on the New Englanders as we have in the Midwest because he retired in ‘57 and was immediately donated to the Edaville Railroad in Carver, Massachusetts. He’s on static display, but they’re a working heritage railway not unlike the IRM so he’s in good company.

Lastly, there’s No. 9908 “Silver Charger”. He pulled the General Pershing Zephyr and was named for the General’s horse. Another play on words, although he is obviously not an iron horse but stainless steel one. He doesn’t have his cars anymore unfortunately (his cars weren’t articulated like the rest of ours so they were easier to misplace), but he himself has been preserved. He’s at the National Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, Missouri. He’s also on static display, but I’m told he sits next to a Frisco 2-10-0 and they’re thick as thieves. His museum is about transport in general so they’ve got planes, boats, and autos as well as rail engines. I wonder if he’s actually met many though? The MSI has all those things too, but they keep them inside so I’ve never met them.

I’m pleased to hear that your museum is bringing in more stock. It’s always good to know that more of us are being kept and appreciated, even if we’re not taking revenue. In my experience, “it’s complicated” means there was some mischief involved, but mischief can be forgiven if it means we stay in service. It makes for a good story too.

I don’t think I ever did meet your new PCC car. We didn’t really run on the same tracks. My guides tell me that the IRM was originally just for interurban cars though so she’ll hopefully have plenty of company who did.

That’s a nice fact to know about the IRM actually. Us engines are more likely to be considered for preservation than other kinds of stock, but we wouldn’t be very interesting without the trains we pulled. The cars that make up the trains are often overlooked. Obviously I’m happy that your museum broadened their interest enough to rescue your train and then you yourself from scrap, especially since even us diesels are still new enough that not everyone sees the point in putting us in museums. It’s just also good to know that your museum started out with the intention of preserving stock that doesn’t usually get the sort of attention we engines do.

I quite like the rain. We don’t have a washdown here so if they wanted to wash us, it’d be a bit of a project (and a rather pointless one at that). I don’t exactly miss the days when they used to scrub me and my train down with Ajax every night either. A nice rain shower leaves us a little shinier than we were and we don’t have to stay up late for it!

Please tell your new yardmates that I hope they are enjoying their new assignments!

Your friend,

Pioneer Zephyr

Dear Pilot,

U-505 is taking the summer heat as valiantly as he always does. He says the heat expands his metal and can make him three inches longer than his specifications. Three extra inches doesn’t sound like much since he’s as long as he is already, but he says three inches is very big when it comes to keeping water out. He doesn’t need to worry about being watertight anymore, but they did have to build rollers into his concrete foundations for him to sit on top of. Otherwise, they would crack under him when it got too hot out.

999 and 2903 both wish to thank you for your compliments. 999 is quite used to being admired as she’s been famous since her first run. Still, I think we all are a little more grateful for the attention in our retirement. I’m sure I said something to the same tune about her shape when I met her the first time in 1948 at the Chicago Railroad Fair. She wasn’t sure what to make of me though since I was so modern, but she said something… tactful about how shiny I was and how she could see herself in my panels (and by the way, yes, The Flying Yankee is stainless steel too, just as silver and shiny as we are). We couldn’t know then that we’d end up in the same museum and both of us would be thought of as old engines!

2903 certainly had no idea he’d be preserved either. His service life wasn’t full of publicity stunts like mine and 999’s were so he wouldn’t have thought it likely. He’s had a perfectly respectable career, of course, but it’s hard to talk about it to guests here. They don’t appreciate routine but necessary work quite the way they do speed record runs or giant birthday cakes. It’s another thing entirely to have a working engine who knows what he’s looking at recognizing your utility though. 2903 got impressively puffed up about it for an engine who’s not been in steam for twenty years. We quite like him this way!

You know, at that Railroad Fair, I also met another engine named Pioneer. Just him; he had the name all to himself! He was a very old steam engine with one of those tall and wide spark arresting funnels. He’s famous for being the first engine ever to work in Chicago, helping to put the rails down for the rest of us. I had almost wondered if I might have been renamed after him because he also worked for the Q for a time. It was probably just a coincidence though or they would have made more of it. We never let a good story go to waste, especially not if there’s a lineage involved.

Speaking of, Injun Joe was the first train to have all his stock given names, but your Silver naming convention is even older than that.

Before me, the Budd Company worked with a French tire company called Michelin to make a stainless-steel railcar with rubber wheels. Budd made four of them: one for the Reading Railroad, two for the Pennsylvania Railroad, and one for the Texas and Pacific. They… were not very successful engines. They tended to derail and the T&P one ended up getting nicknamed “Silver Slipper” for it. They don’t talk about her because her design didn’t work very well, but without her model first, there’s no Burlington Zephyr, no shovelnoses, no E5’s, and no roster of Silver stock. They don’t say so, but all stainless steel equipment are named in her way, even if it was just a mean nickname. I’d be really proud of that if I were her. It’s an incredible legacy for an engine who only worked two years.

I hesitate to guess at what 9901 would say to being told he was special for not having a name though. I suspect his manners would have failed him.

He and 9902 were a little unlucky to be built when they were. They weren’t first so they didn’t get the benefit of it that I did and they came too early to be themed the way the Mark Twain Zephyr was. Then they got bumped from their route by Pegasus and Zephyrus’ larger, themed trains. Those two became the new Twin Cities Zephyrs and the original twins were given their own separate routes. 9901 wasn’t very happy about it because while he was getting his own route, this was also just after my train had been given our new name. I think most engines would be satisfied to have a named route at all, but with us Zephyrs and how many names we’ve all been given between us, it becomes a sticky subject if you’ve come out short. 9902 was just happy to be able to accommodate his demand again. He was always the more sensible of the two of them.

They were twins, but I do not think this is similar to having a B-unit. 9901 and 9902 only ever operated together on exhibition runs before they entered revenue service. The day before their christening, they did one with forty-four sets of twins riding their trains to Chicago, one half of each pair on each train. Once they were in service though, I don’t imagine they saw much of each other. They’d run the route from opposite ends twice a day, so they’d only have had brief passings.

After Pegasus and Zephyrus took over the Twin Cities Zephyr route, 9901 was sent to Texas to work on the Burlington-Rock Island to pull their Sam Houston Zephyr. From what I heard, he became much less crabby about names when he was actually working a route of his own. You’d hope it’d be the pride of having a named route all to himself that turned him around, but I wonder if it wasn’t actually because he got that special nose herald that said “Sam Houston Zephyr” instead of “Burlington Route”. You know how important identity is for Zephyrs, after all.

9902 got an “Alton-Burlington” nose herald for his Ozark State Zephyr in Missouri until they sent him down to the B-RI too. He and 9901 had to share routes again, but they had two between them so it wasn’t such a debacle as it had been when they were the Twin Cities Zephyr. One of them would be the Sam Houston Zephyr and the other would be the Texas Rocket, with nose heralds to show which.

Unfortunately, the B-RI wasn’t taking as good care of them as Burlington itself would have. From what I gathered over time (because you know how cagey our people can be when things go wrong), 9901 had a lot of oil build-up under his trucks and something set it on fire. They couldn’t get the blaze under control and 9901 was burnt inside and out, completely irreparable. I mentioned before that this was right after that FT smashed into 570. Because 9901 had to be stricken from the roster but his cars were only a little burnt, they thought to replace my observation car with his. They decided not to do that in the end and instead his cars were kept in storage in case I, 9902, or Injun Joe might need them on our trains.

After all that, B-RI ended up giving 9902 back to Burlington to replace 9901. And ironically, he ended up with a route named just for him! No one ever mentions it really, but he was given a route between Chicago and Ottumwa, Iowa and they called it the Zephyr 9902. When they moved him to the Chicago-Hannibal route, they renamed it Zephyr 9902 too so it was almost like it was his train that had the name. I think if 9901 had still been around for that, he’d have been so jealous he’d have gone up in flames again. But they also sometimes nicknamed 9902 the “Baby Zephyr” because of how big the Denver and California Zephyr trains were by then so maybe not!

I am being told that I have gone on very long about 9901 and 9902, but I almost feel obliged. They get overlooked, but how would we have known we needed a train as grand as yours for that route without their trains on it first? They had the same problem I always did, that our train became too popular to fit everyone who wanted to ride.

I would like it if you told me more about Silver Speed and Silver Power too. The Twin Zephyrs weren’t AB pairs, but I had later siblings who were. It seemed like the dynamic was different for every pair though. The way you speak about Silver Mate makes it sound like the job was so much easier for having him, but Silver Knight and Silver Princess seemed to have very different ideas about how a train should be run. It’s hard to decide whether I missed out or not, being an only engine.

I’m really happy to hear about your museum wanting to bolster its steam fleet too. We diesels were made in a sort of opposition to steam (and I’ve been blamed personally for the decline of steam in our country), but I’ve always liked steam engines. They’ve certainly rescued me from a spot a time or two. We even had steam engines to protect the Twin Cities Zephyr and Denver Zephyr – streamlined and shrouded in stainless steel to match us – and I consider them to have been every bit a Zephyr as we are. I bet your 1630 looks regal and stately on your line and she sounds like she’s going to become quite the attraction.

That trick with your museum arranging that your trolley buses would be notable for being the last to run by scheduling them so that they would be… it’s very Burlington of them. You sound as though you’re all in good hands, white lies and all.

Your friend,

Pioneer

Dear Pilot,

You’d be surprised by the words U-505 does know. His conversational English is still improving, but his guides think it’s amusing to teach him fancier vocabulary to spring on us unexpectedly. It drives the steam engines mad to be sitting quietly and have U-505 remark on the weather with what Injun Joe used to call a “five-dollar word”. Last week, it had dropped down to 40 when we woke up and the steam engines were grumbling about it. He let them finish complaining, waited a beat, and then said, “Mm. Temperate.” They haven’t been in steam for years, but I could swear I heard them wheeshing. He thanks you for the “munitions”, as he puts it.

2903 also thanks you for your continued compliments. You make a very good point about an uneventful work history being a good work history. I’m sure it’s just as much of a struggle there for engines who don’t have a service life full of exhibitions or accidents to talk about as it is here, particularly for us stationary exhibits. Not that we don’t enjoy talking to the guests, of course, but it can be taxing for even those of us who were drawn for it. For engines who were built for labor alone, guests expecting to be entertained can leave one at a bit of a loss. At least your steam engines are getting the benefit of actually running to break up the face time with the public. Certainly no stationary engine – here or there – is truly sitting idle though!

To the point, you shouldn’t be so modest about pulling the first Vista-Dome train! Obviously I never pulled one, but I always imagined they’d be quite popular with passengers. As nice as our observation cars are, it’s surely different to be up high and able to see in all directions (and maybe a little scary if you’re going into a tunnel with close clearance). Did you pull the train somewhere scenic to take advantage of it? It’s perfectly Burlington of them to assign you and Silver Mate to the job too, since your names are aviation themed. In a glass dome with the scenery speeding by, it must practically feel like flying.

You’ve also had a perfect safety record, far as I’ve heard, so you two were probably the top choice for a job as important as that. I’m afraid to say that I had heard of the Naperville wreck (indeed, I’m afraid everyone has). One thing that always stuck out to me about it though was that Speed’s engineer survived the crash and his fireman might have too if he hadn’t jumped out first. I’m certain that’s owed to E5’s improvement on the shovelnose design.

I mentioned entertaining guests with stories about one’s accidents, but that’s sort of discouraged here. That’s not to say I can’t talk about my own accidents at all, but it’s not really the thing the museum would like to focus on. Maybe it invites too many questions about how much of me is original. Pretty much everything up to my RPO had to be replaced altogether after I hit that Mikado in Napier. My entire front end was demolished and my engineer and fireman both died. I was rebuilt and back in service in two months, with assurances that the accident wasn’t my or my crew’s fault. They said the other engine’s flagman got confused and threw the switch on my line when he shouldn’t have. Still, the accident was enough for the union to demand that Burlington not make any more of us. Which was fine by them as it happened. We were all custom-built and so we were expensive compared to the new mass produced engines that were coming out.

I won’t say that my brothers and I had a bad design (it’s poor form to admit a flaw in public, you know), but Zephyrus had a crash about three years later that killed his engineer as well. I can’t complain about how things worked out for us in view of that. E5s were a safer successor to our line and even if we shovelnoses were risky for our crews, none of us were retired or scrapped before our time for it. One can’t ask for much more than that.

You said Silver Inn couldn’t be repaired like your brothers were, but I could swear there was a Silver Inn on the Kansas City Zephyr.

At least Speed and Power were repaired and finished out their service lives together too. That they were the only other pair besides you and Mate to do so… I hesitate to ask what happened to the others, yet still want to know about them.

After all this gloom I’ve inadvertently asked for, I’m happy to have reminded your coaches of something more cheerful. I would expect they knew the Æolus better than I did, since they were built to cover their train when their usual engines were due for maintenance, but I’ll tell you what I know and they can correct or add as they see fit.

They weren’t diesel like us, but they were given fluted stainless steel shrouding to streamline them and match our trains. Since the idea was that they would cover the train when the usual Twin Cities Zephyr or Denver Zephyr engines were indisposed, they were named for the mythological Keeper of the Winds. If I remember it right, the Æolus in the story had a bag that he kept the four winds in and he let them out whenever they were needed. The winds all had names too, but I only remember the gentle West Wind was named Zephyrus like my brother.

Usually the Twin Cities Zephyr and Denver Zephyr didn’t need to be covered, so when they weren’t filling in there, the Æolus would pull the Black Hawk. I think they pulled the Overnite Denverite and the Aristocrat too for a season or two? Once they had all you E5’s for coverage instead, they took the shrouds off and mostly did odd jobs around the railroad until they retired. I’ve heard they’d been preserved too, set up outside a baseball field in Lacrosse, Wisconsin. That sounds more like being a statue than an exhibit like we are, but at least people visit for the ball games and they have something to watch to pass the time.

I agree; it is nice to hear how another yard is doing. My yard hasn’t changed much since ‘62 when 999 arrived so I feel I’m bringing less to the turntable than you are. So it goes! If your volunteers are working so furiously as they sound, then your museum is getting better by the day. It must be frustrating that they put up doors on the steam shop so you can’t see though. Everything exciting that happens at my museum goes on indoors too. Maybe they can keep working longer even when it starts to get too cold if they have doors.

I’m sure you’ll be on the service side of the door soon if they’re being so industrious.

Your friend,

Pioneer