Chapter Notes: Shelby (Destination Unknown) · 2:11am Dec 24th, 2021
From riding in the cab of a DPU to accidentally boarding a local train that’s picking up grain cars at each elevator it passes . . . at least it’s picking up; if it was dropping off, Sweetsong might find herself stranded in the middle of Big Sky Country.
Thanks to AlwaysDressesInStyle for not only pre-reading, but also pointing out a Sweetsong Action Figure at Trotcon. Did I buy her? Find out below!
One thing you want to do if you’re a hobo expecting to get someplace is know which trains are through trains and which ones are locals. Not only is the through train going to make fewer stops, but there won’t be as many opportunities to be spotted on a through train. Each time the local stops, the conductor will get off the locomotive and if they’re paying attention, will take a look at all the rail cars just to make sure nothing is out of order.
Piping, brake lever, magical flying pony, nothing out of the ordinar...WAIT! Who's the wise guy who left this army surplus blanket in this car? I know we didn't have one of these in here.
—AlwaysDressesInStyle, while pre-reading
I don’t know if this is still the case, but back in the day, pretty much anybody who worked for the railroad was expected to look at passing trains and report any problems they saw.
Then again, a good hiding spot is a good hiding spot, and will stand up to casual scrutiny. It’s not like the conductor’s going to climb onto each grain car and make sure there’s nobody or nopony on any of the end platforms or tucked down into the holes under the slope sheet.
Also, as a hobo, trees and underbrush are your friend. They often grow quite close to the rails (it’s not worth the railroad’s money to clear off anything more than they have to), and you can fade back into them whenever needed. Where there aren’t trees or bushes, well, your options are a lot more limited when it comes to hiding in a hurry. I suppose natural-colored camouflage of some sort, hunker down and pretend to be a lump of soil.
I’m sure that some of you have watched a few Hobo Shoestring videos on YouTube by now, and may have noticed that his favored hiding places tend to be copses of trees near the main line where he knows the train will be stopping or going slowly. While Sweetsong does have the advantage of being able to hide atop a bridge abutment and fly down into the train from there, that requires a bridge on which to hide.
I honestly can’t remember what, if anything Shelby is famous for. I think that it was and still is a sort-of significant railroad town, but couldn’t easily find any information as to why. There is an intermodal yard there (intermodal is trucks riding on trains or shipping containers on trains).
They do, in fact, have a carousel, and interestingly enough not only is it antique, but it’s also (formerly) a travelling carousel, apparently in fair use from 1936 until it was purchased in 2017 by a man who thought his hometown would be better if it had a carousel.
I’ve got to say, he wasn’t wrong.
Back in the day, railroads often built coaling towers above the mainline, allowing trains a place to stop and quickly take on a load of coal without tying things up in the yard (sometimes they were also built in yards). Mainline steam is gone, but many of the coaling towers remain, since they’ve big and heavy and expensive to demolish and, as with keeping trees and bushes away from the main line, railroads don’t want to spend money demolishing them unless they have to—like if there’s a risk the thing will collapse on the mainline.
I’ve never been in one, but I’d assume that generally all that remains is the concrete shell, and I’d also assume that all the easy ways to get into them have been sealed up. I would also assume if you bring a ladder, you can get in. If you’ve got wings, well . . .
This one is in Michigan City, IN, near Michigan City Fire Station #2 (for people who want a closer look on Google Maps). If you zoom in, you can see the afternoon Amtrak en route from Chicago to Grand Rapids just passing under it. You’ll also notice a bunch of open windows in the top which would be perfect for a pegasus to fly in.
I know of several others in Michigan; for example there’s one in East Lansing over the (now) CN tracks that you can see from US-127.
Signal towers or signal bridges are structures over the railroad that holds signals. Typically, a railroad signal is pole-mounted alongside the tracks, but when you’ve got more than two tracks that’s not really an option. Yards might have what are called ‘dwarf signals,’ very short signals mounted alongside the track they’re controlling, but you can’t do that on a mainline; it’s not clear enough from far enough away.
They’re often built with a walkway behind the signals—or between, if the bridge has signals for both directions of travel. This is so that signal maintainers can easily get up there and change light bulbs or make other repairs as needed.
(This one uses position light signals rather than color light signals; maybe one day I’ll give y’all a basic primer on railroad signaling . . . it’s not quite as straightforward as red/yellow/green.)
In case you didn’t know, there is a pattern you typically fly to come in for a landing. In its simplest form, it involves flying most of a circle around a runway before landing on it (in reality, it’s more complicated than that). The downwind leg is parallel to the runway, and the base turn is the turn to final.
This is, I assume (not a pilot) is especially important at uncontrolled airports (ones without towers/ATC); it gives you a chance to check out the runway and lets everyone know what your intentions are. You can read more about them at the tiny link below the image.
I told you that there were references, and here we come to one that’s for an as-yet unpublished story, so no shame in missing this one.
Further down the hallway, I could hear a woman’s voice, and I couldn’t help but evesdrop.
“Cessna, yes, that’s right. No . . . not, I’m not pulling your tail. . . . Do I identify as a Cessna? No, I identify as a mareplane. Cessna’s my name.” A pause, then the distinct sound of a handset being slammed into the cradle. “Crackers, what a bunch of—” she paused. “Is somepony here?”
I believe (but don’t quote me on this) that the wide white stripes are thousand-foot markers, and they’re typically what you want to aim for when you’re landing.
Sometimes the trains are real and sometimes the trains are metaphorical. This one is the latter, and yet, it seemed like the right time to put this song in the notes.*
This time it really is Sweetsong. AlwaysDressesInStyle pointed her out at Trotcon, so of course I had to buy her.
*I also considered if I should put the original music video in, just the lyrics video, or a fan-made video which was more train-themed, but decided that the original was the right choice.
The only thing I know about Shelby MT is that is the home of YouTube channel Welker Farms. They are one of the biggest stars on in the farming community on YouTube. I would recommend checking them out!
Piping, brake lever, magical flying pony, nothing out of the oridnar...WAIT! Who's the wise guy who left this army surplus blanket in this car? I know we didn't have one of these in here.
—AlwaysDressesInStyle, while pre-reading
Spelled "Ordinary" wrong AlwaysDressesInStyle
xoxo, your editor
Unless it was you Biscuit in which case, need me as an editor again?
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Maybe I will, although I have to admit that horse-drawn farming is more up my alley.
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(it was him :P)
If you want to jump in on this, you can
Thanks for writing, as usual. :)
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Well I helped you with that gamer story and if I'm not helping ADIS or writing myself you can always send me a PM to see if I have time Biscuit.