Dawn, November 10, 1457
Moored at the Hoofington-Northern Railroad dock in Superior, the SS Everfree was bound to catch the attention of anypony looking in its direction. At 729 feet, the Mighty Free, as the ship was often called, ranked among the largest vessels to ever sail on the Great Lakes, and even seasoned veterans were impressed by the ore carriers size. The Everfree was a blue-collar vessel, capable of hauling mind-boggling tonnage around the lakes, but with its handsome red-and-white paint, beautiful pilothouse and twin staterooms, state-of-the-art equipment, and comfortable living quarters, it also boasted a modern beauty that other big freighters could only envy.
The Everfree, one of the hardest-working ships in the business, had been at the Superior dock for only a few hours, and it would be gone in a few more. Over the past week, it had sailed from Toledo to Silver Bay, a port about fifty miles north of Superior, where it had picked up a full load of taconite ore pellets and taken off for Ashtabula. Then it was back up the length of Lake Celestia for another cargo here in Superior.
On this early Sunday, the Everfree was waiting to be loaded for a routine run to Great Lakes Steel, a Zug Island processing plant near Detrot. The day looked promising. The upper Midwest could be frosty at this time of year, but today's weather was unseasonably moderate, as if fall were determined to hold off winter just a little longer. This was a relief to the small dockside crew, who had endured their fair share of raw northern Equestrian weather. Any decent day was a bonus.
Hoofington-Northern's first shift had just reported for duty. Long Shore, a white pony who's coat was often stained red with iron dust, picked up the paperwork for his day's first assignment from his boss "Grey" Streak, so named for the grey lock of hair in his mane, Hoofington-Northern's general foreman, and he would be supervising the loading of the Everfree. As he walked across the deck towering over the docks, Shore tried to to place the ship at Dock Number 1. He had been a boat loader for fifteen of his thirty-four years at Hoofington-Northern, but had never loaded this ship before. Not that it mattered: the Everfree was a traditional straight-decker, and if all went well, he'd have it ready to go within five or six hours.
The Everfree, in fact, rarely loaded at Hoofington-Northern. It usually picked up its taconite at Silver Bay and wound up in Toledo, earning another nickiname, the Toledo Express. This was its first visit of the season to Superior.
Down below, on the spar deck of the Everfree, First Mate Pipsqueak supervised the removal of the ship's hatch covers. He'd already delivered the loading order to Grey, and he was eager to get started. His crew was on the clock, and since it was Sunday, they'd be payed overtime-not an agreeable situation for Calm Seas, the Everfree's cost-conscious captain.
One had to be careful when removing or replacing the rectangular, 7-ton hatch covers. Pipsqueak had been through the process on countless occasions over his forty years of service on the Great Lakes, but he knew, all too well, that a blunder could seriously damage the hatch combings, or seals, and threaten the ship's watertight integrity. Only a year earlier, in September 1446, the crew had tried to lift a hatch cover before all the clamps had been unfastened, damaging the cover, the combing, and a few clamps. The Free had twenty-one 11' X 48' cargo openings running down its spar deck, each opening covered by, in effect, a large, flat lid. Each of the Red covers was fastened down to a combing by sixty-eight clamps. The covers, constructed from thick sheets of steel, were taken off and replaced by a hatch crane that moved up and down the length of the ship on tracks.
The Everfree's cargo hold was divided into three sections separated by screen bulkheads; by the time this particular loading was completed, the Free would have taken on 26,116 long tons of taconite pellets. The distribution of cargo was critical, and Pipsqueak had carefully drawn up a loading sequence that assured the Free would stay on on an even keel throughout the loading. Uneven distribution of cargo could place too much stress on the ship's hull, and, in the worst-case scenario, could crack or even sink the ship. The middle of the Free was especially vulnerable. If the ship "hogged"-bent downward at the bow and stern ends-during the loading, the hull could be seriously damaged. Poor loading had caused countless vessels to bottom out in shallow docking waters, leading to costly damage and delays. Fortunately, the Free had so far escaped such mishaps.
While Pipsqueak and his crew worked on the hatch covers, Shore maintained his station several stories above them, on the deck near the massive bins, or "pockets," each of which contained 100 to 300 tons of taconite pellets. The pellets traveled to the ship's hatches by chutes lowered from the pockets to the ship, and there were 187 chutes on this dock alone. Shore directed his small Hoofington-Northern dock crew on the positioning of the chutes and the flow of the cargo.
The marble-sized taconite pellets had become a vital part of this region of Equestria's iron ore production. During the first half of the century, taconite-which contained only about 30 percent magnetite and hematite, the principal ores of iron-had been discarded by the mining industry, but the increased demand for iron during the Changeling War had depleted ore supplies to the extend that the iron companies faced desperate times, if not extinction. The demand for steel increased throughout the 1430s, as baby boomers were born, airship and automobile production reached all-time high levels, and suburbs sprouted across Equestria, creating new demands for building materials. Fortunately, Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia's star student, working with other researchers and scientists, developed a way of separating iron ore from taconite. A lucrative new industry had been born.
The process, called beneficiation, was neither simple or cheap. Taconite was tough, resilient rock, and the first step of mining it involved boring into the rock and using explosives to blast it into pieces that could be hauled, either by rail or by enormous trucks, to processing plants. At the processing plants, crushing machines and rotating mills ground the taconite into a powder, and the magnetic iron ore was separated from the rest of the rock. The iron-rich powder was then moistened, combined with clay, limestone, and bentonite, and rolled into marble sized balls, between 3/8" and 5/8" in diameter, which were eventually fired at temperatures of 2,200 to 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit and then cooled until they became easily loaded and transported product. Huge ore carriers like the Everfree then moved the pellets to ports near steel-producing cities, which melted the taconite down for badly needed steel.
The Everfree's crew finished removing the hatch covers. Pipsqueak shouted up to Shore to indicate that he was ready to begin loading. The dock crew positioned a chute over the Everfree's Number 21 hatch-the last hatch at the stern of the ship-and loading commenced. Thousands of pellets spilled out of the pocket, rolled down the length of the chute, and dropped noisily into the Everfree's hold.
The ship's last full day had begun.
Author's Note: I couldn't figure out a ponified name for Toledo or Superior, sorry. My place names will be the American names, since it will help you get a handle on what part of North America this is taking place in.