Chapter 15: Burlington To The Rescue

March 16th, 8:45 AM CT; Delta Flight 1238; Somewhere over Nebraska

A train is well known to be a place of social interaction. People meet, talk, chat, have fun, play cards, and even fall in love. Something about the close quarters, relaxed atmosphere, and the nature of the people who ride them makes for a place where friendships form quickly, and spirits run high. Where on a plane delay can lead to anger, on trains severe delay tends to lend itself to a party atmosphere. It is one of the major attractions of train travel, and why perpetual hours-long delays on Amtrak’s long distance trains do not dissuade their usual ridership from riding.

Since planes are not such environments, interactions between passengers are often curt and sometimes nonexistent. Rather than get to know the person jammed into the seat next to you, more often you sit and resign yourself to putting up with them for several hours, knowing in just a few hours you will be rid of them forever. The ever decreasing space available to coach-class passengers, in fact, have served to exacerbate this already distinctive facet of flying.

Still, Brenda Munroe was an extremely attractive woman, by any reasonable standards. A nice bust, cascading blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes- she had the body, figure and beauty of the model she was. She was a very successful model, presently returning from a shoot for a popular lingerie catalogue. She had that perfect combination of facial beauty and fantastic figure that such companies seek out for their full spreads.

Not only was she a model, but she was a horny nymphomaniac who never could get enough time in bed. Many a worker in the modeling world- photographers, lighting people, and the like- were always glad to have her on their list of participants in a shoot, because they knew their night would be a good one. For reasons that are unclear to the sane man, Lance was one hot number. She always had a thing for men like that- and sometimes sported the bruises to prove it. She was that kind of woman- a masochistic lunatic.

She intentionally set out to arouse him. Little things like touches, smiles, the eyes, and so on were continually applied. She knew exactly how to work up a man like Lance, and she used that knowledge to the fullest extent she could. She took off her sweatshirt, very intentionally accidentally lifting her t-shirt off almost completely in the process. And not being very fast to correct the “blunder.”

While she was actually annoying some of the people in the first class cabin- particularly the women traveling with their husbands- she could see success- Lance was clearly responding to her.

Lance was sitting next to one hot little woman, and it wasn’t how he was expecting the fucking flight to go. He had been expecting to chiefly be bothered by his seat mate- hot and bothered would be more accurate.

Goddamn slut, he thought, Fucking trying to tease me and turn me on. Fuck, though, she has some nice tits. And a fucking nice figure. Bet she’s good in bed. I could fucking wipe that smug fucking smile off her arrogant little face. I bet I could talk her into shacking up with me sometime, and without much effort at all. I am the best looking man on the plane, after all.

“Sorry for being so nasty earlier, miss,” he said sweetly, “I was just grumpy because of the airlines and so on. Would you believe this ticket cost me $4200?”

“Jeeze, no.” Brenda said, “Why would you pay that? That price is absolutely absurd.”

“I have to get to Salt Lake City to catch a train, and this was the last possible plane I could get,” he sighed.

“Really? I know somebody who paid a lot less for the flight that goes out after this one.”

“Well, like I said, I have to catch the train,” he said, with a plastered on smile that he had honed to looking real through years of practice- or so he thought.

“Yeah, but that plane comes in at like 3:30PM-” she asked.

“Sure, but the train leaves at 12:45,” he told her.

“Yeah, 12:45 AM. You know, 45 minutes after midnight,” she giggled.

Rage exploded in Lance’s head. If this was a cartoon, not only would his face be turning red, as it was, but you’d be seeing smoke coming out of his ears. All the muscles in his body tensed, and the big vein in his neck bulged out like a tree trunk. His body started shaking uncontrollably with the rage he was feeling; it was enough to actually scare his seat mate a little. The rage was so acute it took a few moments before he could speak again.

“WHAT?!” He roared loud enough that everyone in the plane compartment looked at him in either annoyance or shock.

“Yeah, 12:45 AM. I know because it rides by my house every night and wakes me up,” she groused.

“Well, fuck,” he said. He wondered if the person at the flight desk had intentionally let him keep his myth. He had gotten the impression she hadn’t liked him, although he couldn’t figure out why for the life of him. “I supposed you’re going home to Salt Lake?” he asked.

“Oh yeah, first time home in a while,” she told him.

“Got any plans?” he asked, “I seem to have some time to kill.”

Lance was hopeful that he could salvage his unintentional spare time in Salt Lake City. He could use it teaching this little harlot some lessons about her place in society. The idea of putting her in her place and having her whimper for mercy from him turned him on distinctly. He’d show her who was boss, he’d make her fall in love with him; maybe he could make her be part of a manage a trois with his Jilly baby. They’d both love that, especially Jilly. She liked it the sicker he made it, he knew it.

“None whatsoever,” she told him, “And I have a really nice TV in my bedroom. We can watch a movie or something.” Brenda was being turned on thinking about what she was setting up.

“Sounds good to me,” Lance said, his cock throbbing at the prospect.

March 16th, 9:40 AM MT; Mile 795; 11 miles west of McCook, NE

FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK! thought James Tiberius.

That was all the Engineer of the California Zephyr could think at the moment. It had been one of those trips; the train came in late, to begin with, and he could tell as soon as he took control, something was mechanically wrong. But it only went downhill from there; about an hour after he had assumed control of the train in Lincoln, NE, the head engine’s prime mover had cut out.

These new computerized engines were a pain in the ass; they could make minor repairs, or trick them into running home, even if it damaged it a bit in the process. These new engines were self-protecting, and would shut down the engine to save it, or because a sensor was wrong. Either way, they were much harder to keep moving in poor conditions than the old F40s. In this case, the computer claimed some minor damage to various things, probably relating to the collision. That was a minor problem, though.

It came down to how the GE P40/Genesis (whichever name you prefer) operated. In reality, what you needed to comfortably put to the ground to haul the California Zephyr/Desert Wind and make the schedule was about 6500 horsepower worth of tractive power. In theory (and practice), this could be easily be handled by two P40’s. Each produced either 4000 bhp of tractive effort in traction mode, or 2928 bhp when the head end power generator was in operation.

Since only 3700 bhp is needed to pull the Zephyr and 2600 bhp to pull the Wind, they usually ran three engines on the combined consist. The first two engines would be running in tractive mode, while the third unit would run in strictly head-end-power mode. This arrangement saved fuel, of course, and also provided redundancy- something that had been even more required with the more worn-out F40 predecessors. They would then split the engines in Salt Lake, with two of them pulling the Zephyr and one pulling the Wind.

When the front unit’s prime mover failed, James, after informing dispatch and the conductor, reconfigured the third unit to provide tractive power. The total output this should have produced was 6928 bhp, more than enough traction to make the schedule comfortably. As said, one of the reasons for running the train with this many engines was redundancy. But something strange happened. The traction motors on the trailing unit failed to start operating.

Genesis motors were known for being cranky electronically, especially since the bugs on the design had not bee ironed out yet, but for some reason the computer refused to let power go to the traction motors. That was bad, but not a huge problem. Still having 4000 tractive horsepower would allow the train to continue, albeit not running according to schedule. So they continued along.

This would, however, be a less than ideal situatuation, especially if something else was to fail, so he had radioed ahead to Amtrak, which had informed them that they had a spare engine in Denver, and another in Salt Lake. So not only should the train have been able to continue, but it should only be losing time as far as Denver, when the first spare engine would be connected; and the spare engine in Salt Lake would mean that both trains would be able to maintain full performance because two tractive units would be able to continue to Emeryville, and a third to Los Angeles.

Besides, at this point the train was already so late another few hours wouldn’t make a difference. But that attitude of resigned acceptance to the lateness- and the longer day on the road- was before the stress on the second unit killed the traction in the rear trucks. Bothering to proceed with only 2000 horsepower worth of tractive effort was a waste of time, and it would mainly result in the train killing its last traction anyway. It was time to give up and waive the white flag of defeat.

James brought his train to a halt, then picked up his radio, “Matt, could you come up here? We have a small problem, over.”

“Roger, on my way,” Matt said.

“Amtrak 35 to dispatch,” James said into his radio, “We are stopped at 11 miles west of McCook due to mechanical failure, will advise when we know more.”

“Dispatch to Amtrak 35,” a tired and mildly annoyed sounding dispatcher replied, “Acknowledge you are dead due to mechanical, awaiting advisement of full situation.”

Now James had little to do but sit and wait for the conductor to come up so they could discuss what to do.

Finally, Matt climbed into the engines cab. “What’s the issue, Cap’n Kirk?”

His parents had made the mistake of calling him James. So since Star Trek, his co-workers had taken to calling him “Cap’n Kirk,” “Kirk,” “Cap’n,” or “Cappy,” after Captain James Tiberius Kirk. He bore no resemblance- he was a tall and skinny black guy, for crying out loud- but they still did. He had gotten used to it.

“I told you earlier that the front prime was dead, and the trailing traction had failed to engage, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, the rear tractions on the working middle unit just failed,” James told him with a sigh of exasperation.

“So we’ve got a total of almost 11,000 potential horsepower,” Matt said, “And only 2000 of it is working?”

“Just so.”

“FUCKING HELL!” Matt exclaimed.

“My sentiments exactly,” James agreed.

Matt silently put his radio to his lips without another word, and pushed the transmit button. “Amtrak 35 to Dispatch, do you copy?”

No response.

Matt ended up calling for almost 5 minutes before the absent dispatcher finally responded.

“Amtrak 35, this is dispatch, we’re awake, go ahead.”

“Update on Amtrak 35. We are dead on tracks, we have a dead prime lead, unresponsive traction on the trail, and a failed traction on a third motor. We do not have enough power to continue. Repeat, not enough power to continue, over.”

Matt thought he heard the dispatcher curse. The train was blocking prime track.

“Please hold.”

The Burlington Northern dispatcher was pissed, because this meant his job would be a lot harder. He called Amtrak. Already five and a half hours late, he had been in no condition to accept an Amtrak train at this point, let alone room for one to sit dead on his track. The fast moving Amtrak trains played hell on his railroad in the best of circumstances, and that was when they had actually set up their schedule to deal with them. This far out of the window, they were a Herculean effort to accommodate, even when they were moving at track speed.