A/N: This will be brief, as I only have two things to say. 1: I'm still working on The Slipshod Collection and have a story in the works at present. 2: I sincerely hope you enjoy the story I've slowly begun concocting in my head.
Here's hoping it looks as decent to you all as it does to me. Will be a multichapter story.
04:47, Arendelle Switcher's Yard.
The murky twilight permitted a low-hanging fog to waft over the ground amid a series of trees and rail ties. Rails forged from heated iron and pressed into their characteristic shape lay in a linked line, spread exactly one thousand four hundred thirty-five millimetres apart in parallel lines tied by two hundred millimetre spikes driven through rail ties to anchor the lines to the ground below. The track, originally laid a mere twenty-six years prior, served as the heart of Norway's new mainline for railroad transit, an icon in modern technology.
At the head of the track, a short one mile north of Arendelle Station, lay a roundhouse full of steam-powered rail locomotives. Each stall was assigned a number, all corresponding to the massive iron horse housed beyond. Turnstiles one, two, and three were unassigned, as more engines were yet to be built or imported for use on the line. Turnstile four, the last of the stalls in the small but proud roundhouse, housed the only engine ever to gain enough precedence to deserve a protected shelter from the harsh elements outside.
Slogging through the frigid winter air at the unsightly hour so early that Tuesday morning was a small team of only three individuals, each bundled up under heavy furs gleaned from their shared home that morning. They were due to partake in a long leg of transit that would expend nearly a full day's worth of hours before acquiring a scheduled rest stop near Norway's southern shore, right at the boundary between the motherland and Sweden to the east.
Leading the crew was a dark-skinned man with a long, heavy stride. The man, decked in thick winter clothing but with shoddy boots in need of replacement, carried a large, red toolbox, as agreed upon by the others in the group. The man, given the name Sven at birth, hefted the box with ease, crunching through the crisp fog of the biting morning. He would be the conductor of the entourage, ensuring that everything to the rear of the convoy would hold the same attitude as that in the front.
Immediately behind the large, dark man was one of only slightly less build and stature, though with fair skin and light hair to reflect his Swedish heritage. He carried a crowbar in one hand and a large satchel over his shoulder, burdens that unfortunately would fail to fit inside the toolbox. His christening, Kristoff, was one often confused with the more Western homonym of Christopher, a fact he was all-too-willing to impress upon those who would slight his name. He would be the fireman of the group, seeing to it that the engine would be well fed and kept moving so long as was deemed necessary.
The final member, lagging by only a step, had hidden a shock of tumultuous red hair inside an insulated bonnet lined with fox fur and goose down. She stood only at the chests of her two companions, carrying nothing in her hands but a meek pair of black rubber bands concealed within her thick gloves to keep warm. She, the engineer, would be leading the crew through a successful run from Arendelle Station south through Skymning Station, into Omsorg Abbey and finally out to the outpost of Svart. Each of the three legs of the journey would consist of nearly eight hours of transit from station to station, despite having the advantage of modern steam propulsion and a well-respected downhill grade to their advantage. The uphill journey, to take place after regrouping for four days in Svart, would take a further two days with a stopover in Omsorg to prepare for the hillclimb ahead. Anna had already calculated the amount of wood that would be necessary to run the consist down the hill, having spent a handful of hours the day before making sure everything would be smoothly arranged for the run.
04:49, Arendelle Switcher's Yard.
The crew arrived at the roundhouse, noting that all four sets of the massive double-doors were closed to shield against the snow. They also noted the snow drift piled some four feet high from the precipitation that had fallen overnight. Sven groaned.
"Great. Now we will have to dig her out before we can get going."
Kristoff sighed as he stopped beside his conductor, looking up at the man with empathy etched into his face. "It shouldn't be very long. We can get this cleared up in about fifteen minutes. It'll keep us warm, too."
Anna marched past them, heading for the unblocked side door of the shed. "We can't stand out here in the cold bickering about what ought to be done and what not ought to be done. Sven, pop the key and open that lock. Kristoff, come help me run the preliminaries. Once that door is unlocked, we can nudge it open with our girl."
"Won't that break the doors?"
"Not if I have anything to say about it. Hop to it."
Sven strode toward the door and keyed the lock open, recuperating the frigid steel clasp and the chain it congealed. He added it to the ten metres of chain already housed within the toolbox, kept close by in case it should be needed. He then joined his crew mates inside the engine shed, lighting a cigarette in the corner as he watched the two engine workers run their checks.
"Okay, Kris, the firebox looks okay. How's everything in the cab?"
Anna had slid between the rails to enter a pit four feet deep beneath the massive steam locomotive and her tender, scanning the bottom of the vehicle manually to check for leaks or damage. Kristoff, from the cab, set about testing valve handles and levers to validate the integrity of the controls.
"Everything seems functional up here."
"When we get back from Svart, we'll need to get some new brake shoes on this one. She's looking a bit slippery."
"Should we do it now before the journey just in case?"
"There will be plenty of reserve shoe left to slow us in case of trouble. I don't think we'll need to be using them all that much, all things considered."
At the ripe age of just four, Anna had managed to learn from her dearly departed father how to operate and maintain a rail vessel. He had been lead engineer on the Swedish mainline for years, a position he had relinquished to a younger official only upon death due to what physicists had determined was a heart failure. Anna had then gone through formal training and had passed exams with flying colors, marking her Norway's first female engineer. Kristoff had become her subordinate when she was asked to take on an apprentice, and Sven had requested permission to join the team due to his longstanding friendship with the blonde. All three had formed a diligent, working team that had served the mainline of Norway for four years, and the twenty-year-old engineer had not once missed a deadline or violated a schedule.
"You can control her that well?"
"I learned to operate this exact model of engine, Kris. Papa used to drive one and taught me how to use the boiler to keep speed rather than the brakes."
"I sure hope you know what you're doing."
"I wouldn't be driving her if I didn't."
04:54, Arendelle Switcher's Yard.
The brief checkup completed, Anna clambered into the cab to observe the dials. The train indicated a half-full supply of water, and the nearly-empty tender behind mandated the necessity of refueling before the journey. She stacked kindling in the firebox, starting a small but sure blaze that would eventually roar to life. She turned to Kristoff.
"Now we give 'er a few minutes to thaw out and she'll be ready to go."
"Is it strange for you to call a steam locomotive a female when you are one as well?"
"My gender and my engine's gender are independent of one another." She snorted a breath, then spat out a glistening wad of phlegm. "But for all intents and purposes of this vehicle, I should like to think I have enough masculinity over her to call her a girl, wouldn't you think?"
Kristoff shrugged. "Just an observation." He hefted a log from the depths of the tender and slid it into the firebox, feeding the kindling. The blaze began to burn a bit brighter.
"Sven, you may wish to join us lest we leave you behind."
He laughed, a loud bark that echoed in the near-silent shed. "Leave me behind? You'd have better luck pluckin' the scales offa fish when it's swimmin'"
Anna laughed. "Can't fault me for trying. Get on."
Kristoff hefted another log into the firebox.
05:01, Arendelle Switcher's Yard.
The fire had begun to roar, prompting Anna to release the boiler's water supply into the heating chamber. The thawed ice slowly gurgled into the heating chamber, melting into warm water that quickly rose to beyond boiling temperatures. Pressure began to build, prompting Anna to release a second valve and allow the heated steam and air to flood the main cylinder chamber, where the mechanically-operated valves under the force of a linked pivot arm would open and close, directing the train's pistons to push and pull in their housings and drive the wheels into movement. The beast began to hiss as pressure continued to mount.
Anna gently coaxed the steam to build tension in the pistons until the engine began to ease forward. The coupling handle at the rear of the locomotive cinched up with the tender, and the two-unit consist crept toward the doors. Two piloting wheels on a single axle under the snowplow, followed by four sets of driving wheels each standing at two thousand millimetres tall, taller than all members of the crew, all turned in perfect harmony as the gleaming drive rods attached to the massive driving wheels began to push. One massive machine, all parts working in unison, the pinnacle of modern innovention.
The front buffer plates, designed to keep other parts of the attached consist from getting too close to the engine during transit, lightly kissed against the massive wooden shed doors, the slats creaking from the slight pressure. Anna decreased her steam pressure allowance, and the doors began to groan.
"Low speed, low power, maximum traction…the doors should open with no trouble."
Both of the doors, sentries to guard the inside of the shed from the outside, began to seam at the center and gradually let in the pervasive layer of fog as they parted. The engine puffed and began to hiss at the mounting pressure, leading Anna to recycle the water through ducts outside the boiler to prevent it from getting too hot and bursting part of the structure. The snow began to crunch and crackle as it became compressed away from the doors and track, and with a final shudder the rift parted, allowing the enormous black locomotive the clearance necessary to push onto the turntable outside. The table groaned as the locomotive passed its heft onto the turntable and crossed the span. The doors clattered shut as the tender passed onto the table.
"And that, gents, is how you use a train to move some snow. Work smart, not hard."
The iron wheels crept slowly forward, permitting the train to cross the main switching point between the engine roundhouse and the switching yard across the line.
"We'll just do a once-over on the cars and then we should be good to go," Sven said. Kris nodded.
"Let's go start on that. Anna, when you get past the point I'll reverse it for you and guide you to the coupler."
Both men slipped from opposite sides of the engine, Kristoff moving toward the point adjuster while Sven headed to check on the consist. The tender's four axles crept over the switch, squeaking and clacking as the track joiners depressed lightly on the frozen rail bed and earth below.
As soon as the rear bogie crossed the point, Kristoff rotated the catch and set the guide rail into place. Anna flipped the valves controlling the pistons and began applying reverse pressure to the drivers, slowing the train to a stop to begin creeping backward. She watched Kristoff adjust two more switches and the first of the five passenger cars came into view in the murk.
"Open that coupling," she called. Kristoff raised a thumb and wrenched on a steel lever, the coupling handle sliding open. He then jogged to the tender and forced a similar lever to open, and the mating halves closed around each other with a grating clunk. Anna had dropped all pressure and set the valves back to normal, letting the locomotive come to a halt. She checked to make sure the boiling water was circulating to and from the boiler, using the near-freezing air to regulate the temperature and keep the engine from getting too hot.
"Alright, so, what's the final?"
"Everything looks good down here! Emergency brakes are ready, bogies look good, cars are all clean and ready to go. I'm headed for the caboose; I'll come running if anything goes wrong."
"Keep in touch, Sven. Kris will be around periodically to give you updates. Blondie, get up here! Let's get going so we can finish setup at Arendelle!"
Kristoff leapt aboard the train as Anna tugged the whistle cable, letting a shrill, piercing blast of sound echo throughout the twilight. At 05:11 hours, Anna and her crew in a train of six cars and one massive, powerful steam locomotive set out on the short journey to Arendelle Station to continue the preparation of their train's cars in anticipation of the long journey ahead.
I can't recall if anyone has done a story with either character as a railworker, but this is my attempt at it. I've outlined the entire work, and I'm partway into Chapter 4 at the moment. Chapters for this one will sadly be left untitled, which means no hints at what follows. I'd offer traditional versus non-traditional pairings, but I presently don't think they will become relevant or important in this story.
Thoughts? Questions? Comments? I'm all ears...eyes...whichever. ~Kyttin