Ch 7: 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.

Since planes are not such environments, interactions between passengers are often curt and sometimes non-existant. 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.

Still, Brenda Munroe was a very, very attractive woman. A nice bust, cascading blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes- she had the body, figure and beauty of the model she was. Not only was she a model, but she was a horny nymphomaniac who never could get enough time in bed. And to her, Barry was one hot number. She always had a thing for men like that- and sometimes sported the bruises to prove it.

She intentionally set out to arouse him. Little things like touches, smiles, the eyes, and so on were continually applied. 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.'

She could see success- it was rather obvious if you looked at his pants.

Barry was sitting next to one hot little woman, and it wasn't how he was expecting the fucking flight to go. 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.

"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?"

"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.

"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.

"WHAT?"

"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."

"None whatsoever," she told him, "and I have a really nice TV in my bedroom. We can watch a movie or something."

"Sounds good to me," Barry 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! That was all Engineer James Tiberius could think at the moment. Last night, about an hour after he had assumed control of the train in Lincoln, NE, the head engine's prime mover had cut out. 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 9-40DCP/P40DC/AMD-103/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 P40s. 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. 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. In fact, 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, 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 it not running according to schedule. So they continued along. He had radioed ahead to Amtrak, which had informed them that they had a spare engine in Denver, and another in Salt Lake. So the train should have been able to continue, albeit running late.

But hell, this train was already so late another few hours wouldn't make a difference. That 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.

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.

After informing dispatch that they were dead on the tracks, James had little to do but sit and wait.

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 black 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 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 20 minutes before dispatch finally responded.

"Amtrak 35, this is dispatch, we're awake, go ahead."

"Amtrak 35 is dead on tracks. We have a dead prime lead, unresponsive traction on the trail, and a failed traction on our 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 was in no condition to accept an Amtrak train at this point, let alone room for one to sit dead on his track.

Amtrak told him they could potentially send an engine out after it, but it would take almost six hours for them to start the train moving again. He wanted a faster solution and looked at his board. He found a pair of GP38's waiting in a siding in Palisade, about 17 miles away. While the plant that wanted them to haul stuff could use them, frankly, BN needed to get that confounded Amtrak train off their mainline even more. Besides, he had a freight he could divert to pick up the cars later.