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