I tried to make this story as realistic as possible by including some real history. I had to tweak a few things here and there to make the story work, so don't try and use this story to do research. I used Boxcar Willie's versions of "The Wabash Cannonball" and "Wreck of the Old 97," but, once again, I tweaked the lyrics just a tad to better fit the story.

Sorry for the slow beginning, but there was a lot of background that had to be given. Once the train actually leaves the station, the story is gonna move really fast.

P.S. For those of you following my P&F Industries series, episode 7 is about 3/8 of the way done, and I know exactly what I want to write for the other 5/8, but the creative juices just aren't flowing. I'm hoping that by writing this short songfic, I can figure out where all my creativity went, for I seem to have misplaced it. Plus, I think I just needed a break from that story. So much detail to keep track of, all those characters… This story was much simpler and easy to write.

Part 1

The Wabash Cannonball

September 27,1903
Grand Central Station; New York, New York

For about the millionth time in the last half-hour, Phineas Flynn checked his pocket watch. Ferb saw him do this and frowned at his partner.

"Stop."

"Stop what?"

"Stop checking that damn watch. It's just gonna get you more worked up."

Phineas scoffed at his fireman. "We haven't been late…ever! We've been early every stop on the way up and I do not want to break our spotless record."

Phineas Flynn had been an engineer on the Southern Railway for eleven years. Ferb Fletcher had been his fireman for the last nine. Since they had paired up, every train they operated had been on time. Just a few months ago, their former locomotive had been replaced by engine 1102. The brand new little 4-6-0 "Ten-wheeler," built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works, had been delivered on August 21 to the Southern Railway, and it was assigned to Phineas and Ferb.

The Southern Railway's line was not quite as expansive as Southern Pacific or Union Pacific. However, nearly all standard gauge railroad track in the United States is connected somewhere, usually at large rail hubs, such as the one in Spencer, North Carolina or the one just outside New York City. In an attempt to expand their reach, the Southern Railway had been granted permission to run a special long-distance passenger service extending onto other railroad's right-of-ways. The train ran as far south as Atlanta, Georgia and as far North as New York. From there, it would travel west along New York Central tracks to Chicago. This train's call number was "Train 38."

Since acquiring their new engine, Phineas and Ferb had become the regular operators of Train 38's eastern seaboard leg. They would run the train from Atlanta to New York, where a fresh locomotive and crew would take the train to Chicago. The men then had a day and a half break until the train returned to New York, and then engine 1102 would pull the train back to Atlanta.

The train had become nicknamed "The Wabash Cannonball," because even though the train belonged to the Southern Railway, it utilized a lot of track from the Wabash line on it's trip. The "Cannonball" part came from its speed. It only stopped at major stations, so its would continue for long stretches at high speed.

Ferb picked up his shovel from were he had leaned it against the bulkhead. As he turned to shovel a load from the massive pile of coal in the tender, he asked, "How many minutes?"

Phineas flicked open the cover on his pocket watch again as Ferb slung the coal into the firebox. "Fourteen minutes and thirty-three seconds."

"We've recovered from worse."

"Yeah, with a much shorter train!"

Phineas had good reason to doubt their ability to make up time today. The train usually consisted of one baggage car, two sleepers, three Pullmans, and a lounge car. This train, however, had an extra baggage car that had been mistakenly shunted from an earlier train headed to Atlanta and two more sleepers that were being taken to Spencer Yard for a refit. While their new "Ten-Wheeler" had more power than their old 4-4-0, an eleven car passenger train was almost unheard of.

Phineas checked his watch again. It was 10:32am. They were supposed to leave Grand Central Station at 10:15, southbound. Unfortunately, a broken signal had rerouted an early north-bound freight train onto their track, so the "Cannonball" was stuck until it reached the side track that led to the New York yard. This side track was visible from the cab of engine 1102.

"Grrrr!" Phineas growled to himself, returning the watch to his pocket.

Ferb had never seen him like this. Phineas's normally sunny disposition had turned moody and dark since they left Atlanta two days ago. He had asked Phineas what was wrong, but the triangle-headed man refused to open up.

Meanwhile, in Atlanta…

Isabella Flynn sat the on front porch on the wooden swing Phineas had built for her, knitting a small blanket. They had been married six ago, and their first child was just two months away.

The pregnancy had completely changed Isabella's personality. The young girl was always sweet and happy as could be, until about a month into the pregnancy. Her hormones had been thrown incredibly out of balance, and she always seemed to be angry. She took that anger out on her husband.

Phineas was the perfect scapegoat. He was nearly always gone for three days at a time, and though he would be able to spend at least two days at home with her, Isabella's out-of-whack brain saw his constant extended absences as the perfect reason to blame Phineas for everything.

As she was knitting, she was thinking about him. Specifically, about the last time she saw him. She had yelled some very unkind things at him, cursing him out to the point that he actually started to cry. So, she then yelled at him for crying, too, calling him weak, and unworthy to be her husband.

Phineas had left the house at a dead run. He could not wait for that kid to be born. He needed his old sweetheart of a wife back.

He needed his old life back.

Isabella missed a stitch.

"Grrrr!" she threw the blanket, needles and all to the rickety hard wood floor that made up the porch. "This is his fault! I HATE YOU, PHINEAS FLYNN!" she screamed at the sky.

She sat with her arms folded for a minute, before picking up her work and fixing her mistake.

"Damn. I need to get this kid out of me."

Back in New York…

"Seventeen minutes!" Phineas yelled. "We haven't even left the station yet and we're already seventeen minutes late!"

Ferb decided it was best to just ignore his partner and check the gauges again. He talked too much, anyway.

Phineas sighed. He rested his elbow on the window sill and leaned out into the warm September sun.

Suddenly, a whistle called out in the distance. Instantly, Phineas perked up.

"Finally!" he cried. "Get ready to ship out, Ferb!"

Soon, chugging could be heard, and a slow moving freight train appeared around the curve. The shrill whistle cried out a few more times as it approached the station.

Two hundred yards before it would have crashed into Train 38 head-on, the freighter passed over a switch and rolled onto a side-track that lead to the freight yard.

As soon as Phineas saw the train clear the switch, he turned and looked back at the train behind him, focused on the vestibule between the last two coaches.

Django Brown, the conductor, extended his arm out from between the passenger cars and giving the "all-clear" signal to Phineas by waving up and down twice.

"Thank God," Phineas said, reaching up and grabbing the whistle cord. He gave the whistle two short blasts, signifying that the train was about to move forward, and pulled down a handle. A loud whoosh escaped from the brake lines. Phineas pulled open the throttle rather roughly.

The six huge drive wheels failed to grip the steel rails and they spun wildly, the locomotive struggling to move the heavy coaches. The train moved forward slower than the wheels were spinning.

"Come ON!" Phineas yelled in frustration. "Get MOVING, you!" He grabbed the sander valve and wrenched it open.

Sand sprayed on the rails under the drive wheels. The wheels briefly gripped, but started to spin out of control again very quickly. Phineas calmed down just enough to realize that he had advanced the throttle too much. He eased it back and the wheels gripped again. A thick, continuous cloud of smoke and ash trailed along the wheels from the front of the train until Ferb closed the cylinder cocks.

Slowly but surely, the heavy train began to accelerate out of Grand Central Station. Once it had gained enough momentum, Phineas was able to open the throttle wide.

"All right, Ferb," he called over the chugging of the pistons, "Let's make up for lost time!"

From the great Atlantic Ocean to the wide Pacific shore
To the green of flowing mountains by the south belt by the shore
Hear the mighty rush of the engine, hear the lonesome hobo squall
We're riding through to Dixie on the Wabash Cannonball

Soon, the train was flying along. The wheels still didn't quite grip the rails and the locomotive was struggling a bit, but as long as the train kept it's momentum up, there weren't any uphill grades steep enough to hinder it's progress.

Phineas knew the line like the back of his hand. He knew all the places where the speed limit could be exceeded safely to make up time and all the spots were curves or down grades made slowing down necessary.

By the time the train rolled into Philadelphia, they had made up seven minutes, still late, but pretty good considering the circumstances.

Our eastern states are dandy, so the people always say
From New York to St. Louis and Chicago by the way
From the hills of Minnesota where the rippling waters fall
No changes can be taken on the Wabash Cannonball

"Let's try and start just a bit smoother this time," Phineas said, "Wouldn't want the passengers getting bounced around like ping-pong balls."

"Has ping-pong been invented yet?" Ferb asked.

"I don't know, and right now, I don't particularly care."

Phineas had put the sander on when they pulled into the station so that there would already be sand under the wheels to help the train start. He turned in on again, gave the whistle two blasts, released the brakes, and very slowly opened the throttle.

The wheels spun only once before solidly gripping the rails.

"Okay, okay," Phineas said to himself trying unsuccessfully to remain calm, "Easy…easy…easy."

Finally, the speedometer read twenty miles per hour.

"Close enough!" Phineas yelled out, and he increased the throttle to three-quarter power. The train accelerated easily now that the heavy passenger cars had gained some momentum.

They crossed the bridge over the river to Maryland and rolled along the coast. Phineas loved running this close to the ocean. It used to be because he loved the cool sea breezes and the intoxicating smell of the clear salty air. Today, it was because the track was perfectly level and the curves were gentle. The train glided along, and Phineas was able to keep the throttle wide.

They passed a mile marker sign. The top number, 243, was the mile. The bottom number, 40, was the speed limit.

"Forty, huh?" Phineas chuckled almost manically to himself. "We can make fifty easily and still be traveling at a safe speed." He grabbed the throttle. "Heck, we can get away with fifty-five."

Ferb froze mid-scoop. He was used to Phineas exceeding the speed limit when it was safe, but he was not used to Phineas completely ignoring the signs.

"Don't you think that's a bit excessive?" he asked his partner.

Phineas checked his pocket watch for trillionth time that day. "Nope."

Eventually, the tracks left the ocean and headed into the mountains. Thick forest surrounded the line, the trees a blur as the little locomotive and its heavy consist flew past. They passed through the little station at Harper's Ferry without stopping and continued on to Baltimore.

Well, listen to the jingle, the rumble and the roar
As she glides along the woodland by the hills and by the shore
Hear the mighty rush of the engine, hear that lonesome hobo squall
We're traveling through the jungle on the Wabash Cannonball.

"Phineas?"

"What, Ferb?" Phineas responded, annoyance present in his voice.

"Isn't it time to slow down?"

"NO," Phineas said, a little bit louder than he meant to.

"But we're two miles from Baltimore and we're going-" Ferb leaned over to look at the speedometer. "-fifty-seven miles per hour. It's going to take even longer to stop with the extra weight behind us."

"Ferb, I know what I'm doing." Phineas wasn't even looking at his fireman. He was looking at his watch again.

Django Brown had been the conductor on Train 38 for as long as Phineas and Ferb had been the operators and had gotten to know them pretty well, and he knew exactly how Phineas drove.

Which is why today he was confused when he didn't hear the air brakes come on when they passed mile marker 304. Django had been confused since they had left New York. He wasn't used to Phineas driving so recklessly.

When he didn't hear the brakes come on, he quickly ran through the baggage cars and climbed over the tender.

"Guys, would you care to explain to me what's going on?" he asked.

"Making up for lost time. I will not be late," Phineas snapped.

Django frowned. "Are you aware that you're almost a mile from Baltimore?"

"Yes, yes I am."

"So why aren't you slowing down?"

"I already told you. I'm making up for lost time."

Django looked at Ferb. Ferb looked at Django. "BUT YOU'RE GONNA OVERSHOOT THE STATION!" they yelled in unison.

"I know what I'm doing," Phineas said through gritted teeth. "I will slow down when I am good and ready."

Django exhaled, anger building. "Alright, I didn't want to do this, but you leave me with no choice." He took another step towards Phineas. "You are the engineer. I am the conductor. You may drive, but this is my train! Now stop this train right now or I'll report you for disorderly conduct!"

"Fine! Have it your way!" Phineas screamed. He slammed the throttle shut and forcibly pulled the brake handle down against its stop.

The locomotive's wheels locked up. The tension between the eleven passenger cars vanished as their momentum slammed them into the slowing locomotive and each other. The force was enough to knock anyone standing off their feet, including Ferb and Django, the latter of which hit his forehead against the steam pressure gauge.

The train slid along for a long distance before finally coming to an abrupt stop that jolted the train roughly once again.

"Happy?" Phineas asked.

Django rubbed his bruised head and stood carefully, bracing himself against the control panel with one hand. He looked past Phineas out the window. Only the last passenger car was actually in front of the platform. All the other cars had slid past.

"Smooth stop, genius," Django snapped. "You overshot the platform, anyway."

"What?" Phineas's tone suddenly became anxious and his expression became softer. He looked dumbfounded.

Ferb stood up as well. "It is taking all of my willpower to keep from closing the firebox doors on your head," he said in his thick English accent. He placed his hands on Django's shoulders and helped him onto the ladder out of the cab. "Come on, Django," he said, "Let's get that head checked out." Then he turned back to Phineas. "Could you pretend to be competent for just a minute and back this thing up to the platform?"

Phineas barely noticed them leaving. He could not believe that he had actually overshot the station platform. "What?"

Ferb and Django walked through the grass beside the track bed back to the station. There seemed to be some sort of commotion on the platfrom.

"What's going on?" Django asked. "There seems to be an awful lot of excitement up there." Behind them, the locomotive's whistle blew three times and the train slowly started to back up.

"Well, to be fair, a train did just slide through the station," Ferb reminded him. "It's not something that happens everyday."

"Except that their attention seems to be directed on the other side of the station, away from the tracks."

"Good observation."

They walked up the ramp onto the platform and tried to see past the crowd of excited people. A young women in a lacy black dress with a large black hat and a black parasol was climbing from a horse-drawn carriage. Django didn't understand what everyone was so excited about, but Ferb knew.

"I know who that is!" Ferb said, becoming excited himself.

Django gave him a skeptical look. "Really?"

"Yes! I hope she remembers me."

Ferb left Django and pushed his way through the crowd. The woman was looking around nervously, searching for a way to avoid all the people. Her eyes widened and her mouth curved into a smile when Ferb emerged from the sea of faces.

"Ferb!" she called to him.

Ferb broke free from the crowd and ran up to her. "Vanessa!"

She opened her arms to give him a hug, but he stopped. "You don't want to do that. I'm drenched in sweat and covered in coal dust," he said, motioning to his blackened overalls.

She narrowed her eyes, but her smile only grew. "Will you quit your blubbering and give me a hug?"

Ferb hesitantly put his arms around her, trying not to get her too dirty, but she just pulled him in and held him tight.

After a few moments they reluctantly pulled apart.

"What are you doing here?" Ferb asked.

Vanessa held up her ticket. "I'm riding home to Virginia. I just finished the shooting for a new motion picture here in Baltimore and I am exhausted. I can't wait to get home to Danville."

Ferb smirked. "Sounds like being an actor isn't all it's cracked up to be."

Vanessa smirked back. "Especially when you've been in town for this long. I think everybody here knows who I am. They're so excited to have a motion picture set in their city that they hound me every time I try to leave the set." Her gaze softened. "But enough about me. I haven't seen you in ten years. How have you been?"

"Moved to Atlanta," he said. Behind him, he could hear a faint squeal as the train's brakes came on. He briefly glanced behind him to see that the train was now perfectly aligned with the end of the platform. "Had to. It's just easier when you have to start out there every two days."

"I don't follow."

He pointed at the locomotive. "I'm the fireman."

"Really?" She was surprised. "I find it hard to believe that you work for the railroad after everything you did back when we were kids. You know," her gaze dropped. "Before you moved to Georgia."

Ferb's excitement to see Vanessa vanished and he hung his head, feeling somewhat guilty. "I guess I just found another calling," he said mournfully. "I'm sorry if I hurt you. I had no idea that…" he was afraid to finish the sentence for fear of painful memories resurfacing.

"It's okay, Ferb. You did what you had to." She pulled him into another hug, not caring how dirty he was. When she pulled back a few moments later, her bright smile had returned. "Say…"

"Yes?"

"This is your train here?" she asked, pointing to the dark green passenger cars parked at the platform.

"Yes, yes it is."

"Could you escort me to my seat? Now? Before boarding begins? It would be great to avoid all this fanfare."

Ferb smiled back. "I would be delighted." He held out his arm and Vanessa took it. "Where's your seat?"

"Here." She handed him her ticket.

He didn't respond, but led her through the crowd of people to the train. He saw Phineas walking toward them along the platform from the engine, but he would deal with him later.

Ferb jumped up onto the steps and helped Vanessa step up, her long dress a slight hindrance. He led her through the car to her seat and held her hand to balance her while she shimmied sideways between the seats.

"Thank you, good sir," she said jokingly as she sat down.

"You are quite welcome, ma'am." He handed her ticket back to her.

Vanessa settled into the plush cushion, glad to be on her way home. Ferb looked at her expectantly. "It was really nice to see you again, Ferb," she said quietly.

"It was nice to see you too."

There was silence for a moment, each wondering what to say to the other.

"By the way," Vanessa asked, "What happened when you pulled in? Why did you pass the station?"

That jolted Ferb out of his spinning imagination and back to reality. "Oh…uh, we had a small mechanical failure and had to use the emergency brake to stop. But don't worry, it will be fixed and it won't happen again. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go see if I can get the engineer to crouch down by the firebox doors."

And with that, Ferb quickly left the car.

We rolled in to Baltimore one warm September day
As she pulled into the station you could hear all the people say
"There's a gal out there from Danville," she's long and she's tall
She's a combination on the Wabash Cannonball

Phineas had seen Ferb go into the car with Vanessa and he was waiting for the fireman when he came back out.

"Ferb?" he asked somewhat nervously.

"What?" Ferb asked somewhat angrily. He brushed past Phineas and started walking back towards the locomotive. They had to leave again in five minutes.

Phineas hesitated. "I…I'm really sorry, Ferb."

Ferb stopped and turned to face his partner. "Yeah?" he asked in a disbelieving tone.

"Yes. I know, I haven't been myself lately."

"You can say that again."

"It's Isabella."

"Your wife?" Ferb asked as they started walking again.

"Yeah. I used to be so excited to get back to Atlanta to see her…she used to come and greet me in the yard, remember?"

"Yeah. She doesn't do that anymore. It's because she got pregnant, right?" he asked, remembering that Phineas had told him he was going to be a father.

"It's not just that. Obviously, she shouldn't be running around like a teenager with the equivalent of a cinder block in her belly. But…ever since she first found out she was pregnant, she's been getting progressively…angrier, I guess, for lack of a better term."

"Hormones?"

"Extremely. She's so mentally unwell from the hormones that she yells at me, screams at me! Every little thing is somehow my fault." Phineas looked down at the ballast crunching beneath his feet as they walked. "She was never like that before. In six years of marriage, I don't think she's ever once blamed me for something, let alone been angry with me."

They reached the tender and Ferb headed up the ladder secured to the back. Phineas followed.

"I don't quite recall," Ferb said, "How far along is she now?"

"Seven months," Phineas said.

Ferb reached the top looked back down at Phineas as he climbed up. "Hang in there, man." Phineas crested the ladder and Ferb gave him a hardy pat on the back. "You're almost there, now."

Phineas sighed. "I just don't know how much more I can take. The day we left Atlanta, she called me weak and unworthy to be her husband."

Ferb crouched down and opened the water tank. There was a water gauge in the locomotive, but he liked to see for himself just how much water was left when the stop was long enough. "I can see why that would change your entire disposition."

Phineas looked Ferb in the eyes. "Can you forgive me for being such an idiot?"

Ferb didn't respond. He stuck his head down into the huge water tank and checked the level by the tiny shaft of sunlight that slipped in through the hole past his head. Satisfied, he emerged and closed the tank while Phineas watched, anxious to hear his reply.

Ferb secured the latch on the tank cover and stood up. "I will forgive you on one condition." He stepped right in front of Phineas and jabbed the man's chest with one finger. "Get us home in one piece, please. My medical insurance won't cover another trip to the hospital."

Phineas smiled. "Deal."

They climbed down from the tender.

"Has medical insurance been invented yet?" Phineas asked.

Ferb stopped in his tracks and stared off into space. "I don't know. I don't think so."

They started walking again. "The author should really do better research," Phineas said.

Having apologized to Django, too, Phineas and Ferb returned to their cab. Somehow, it was hotter than it had been when they had arrived at the station.

Phineas took his seat in the engineer's chair on the left side of the cab. Out of habit, he placed his left hand on the throttle. He looked back for Django's signal, and when he was given the "all-clear" he faced forward again and took a deep breath. The stretch of track where the station sat was a on a slight uphill grade, almost unnoticeable unless you're trying to start a very heavy train.

"Okay, here we go." He reached up with his right hand and gave the whistle two short blasts. He turned on the sander valve, and then slowly released the brakes. The air hissed out of the brake hoses as the ejector came on and Phineas carefully opened up the throttle.

The great driving wheels turned in unison, driven by the side rods, driven by the pistons, driven by the steam that was building in the boiler. They advanced a full turn, enough abrasive sand built up to provide sufficient grip, before they lost traction and began to slip, spinning faster than the train was moving. With a lack of momentum, the train nearly stopped again.

"Come on, come on," Phineas chanted calmly to himself. He decreased the throttle a hair and the wheels regained traction. A few more turns and the wheels briefly slipped again before friction took hold and the train crept forward.

"Here we go, here we go, come on…"

Ferb tossed five successive shovelfuls into the huge firebox and slightly increased the water flow to the boiler.

Phineas leaned out the window and watched the drivers turn. Thick, black smoke poured from the smokestack, the chug, chug, chugs becoming louder as the ten-wheeler struggled to start the heavy train. They were going no faster than four miles per hour and the eleventh car had just cleared the platform. "Yes, yes, yes…"

He increased power a fraction of an inch. He watched the drivers for wheelslip, but the sand was enough, and the speedometer slowly crept toward ten mph.

"Yes! Yes! Yes!" Phineas called out, "Here we go! We got it now!"

The speedometer registered twelve, then fifteen, then twenty, Phineas slowly increasing the throttle with every advancement of the needle.

Soon, the ground leveled out and the train was cruising along again at fifty mph. Phineas held his head out the window again, enjoying the cool wind on his sweaty face.

Ferb looked over at his partner as he tossed in more coal. He seems more like his old self, now. Somehow, overshooting that station helped him.

Listen to the jingle, the rumble and the roar
As she glides along the woodland by the hills and by the shore
Hear the mighty rush of the engine, hear that lonesome hobo squall
We're traveling through to Dixie on the Wabash Cannonball

Django climbed into the cab about two hours later. "We're almost to Monroe, Virginia, boys," the conductor said. "Halfway home, now."

Part 2 and 3 coming soon!

Review Please!

EDD17SP