As the crew of Naruto, Sakura, Suzanna, Kiba, Colby and Ino enjoyed their pepperoni pizza in Concourse Two of Union Station. A few of the road engine crews came walking down the causeway stairs. Suzanna and Colby smiled as they recognized the incoming crews. There were three crews made up of three people per crew. The crew walked past the group and went straight to the pizza counter. Colby got up once the crews finished ordering and went over to them to catch up. Ino finished her slice and darted over to him. Ino latched on to Colby's arm as she join the chatting group.
"Guys I'd like you to meet my girlfriend Ino. Ino these guys are the three main road crews of the railroad." Colby introduced Ino to the three crews. "The first crew we got. The prestigious engineer Jackson. Who is the holder of the fastest run between the Hidden Cloud and the Hidden Sand Villages. At twenty six hours and thirty six minutes. That's with making all his station stops, coaling and water stops. We all swear he was taking hyper pills to keep him alert. Next to him we have his equally prestigious fireman Noah. Noah was the fireman on that record run. Lastly we have Luke. A former freight conductor, couldn't switch his way out of a paper bag. Hence why he changed his ways and came to the dark side." Luke just smiled and shook his head at the friendly insult.
"The second crew is known as the 'Hot Shot Trio'. They seem to always be the crew for crack express trains. The tall monkey of a guy is throttle heavy Timber Tim. He has a reputation of making even the most seasoned fireman break a sweat trying to keep steam pressure up. The other tall monkey of a guy is Blast Furnace Ferdinand. He is known for keeping the fire white hot year round. You fry on even the coldest winter nights and die from heat exhaustion just by walking past the engine in the summer. From the other side of the yard. The short brunette one next to Timber Tim is his daughter, Whistling Melissa. She can make any whistle scream for mercy and crews working from ten miles away can hear when this crew is approaching because of her." Melissa puffed out her chest with pride at the comment.
"Last but not least. Is the only all female engine crew on the railroad. The skinny red head is engineer Fireball Bridget. There have been unconfirmed stories that on a few of her runs. She melted the inside head of the rail on a few curves out towards the Hidden Stone Village. She was running so hot. The equally skinny blonde next to her is her firewoman Moonlight Laya. Her firing skills are as well known as Noah's and Blast Furnace Ferdinand's. Rounding out this one-of-a-kind crew is Laya's daughter, Hotbox Hellinia. She is a firewoman and aspiring engineer. On a few of her training runs for engineer she got numerous hotboxes on some freight cars. A few cars had hotboxes on all four axles. A feat that no other engineer trainee nor full engineer has ever done" Hellinia pouted as she glared at Colby for bringing up her hotbox record in front of the other crews.
"Don't let him fool you. You are dating the one and only Collision Colby." Laughed Timber Timer. Ino raised an eyebrow and looked at Colby with an intense interest.
"What's the story behind that name?" Ino asked.
"Oh boy." Colby chuckled as he covered his face as an embarrassed blush came across his face.
"He didn't tell you? Well one day he was working the ground helping out his conductor. They were switching out cars from a mixed freight and getting them ready for the next day's locals to pick up. They were doing the practice known as 'kicking cars'. Where the cars would have their brakes released and they would cut the cars from the train while in motion. Sending the cars rolling free down a track to collide into a set of cars that had the brakes applied. Well it was evening and keep in mind the yard here is at the top of a hill with a level section in the middle. It dips down hill at either end of the yard. Now they had set up a few cuts of cars with their brakes applied at the far end on the tracks they were using. So the cars they kicked would have something to run into and stop them. The train they were switching out was a hundred and fifty car train with it being sorted out over four tracks. Everything was going fine as it was getting dark. They weren't kicking the cars that hard and they were stopping in the flat section of the yard. Well they need a little more room to work with so they pushed the cars farther down each of the tracks to where the down hill grade started. Well Colby sent a few cars down each of the tracks that were rolling a little too fast. The colliding cars jolted the whole string of cars on each track. The momentum was enough to start the cars rolling towards the blocks of cars that were set up to stop them. At this point each track had fifteen to twenty cars on them with a mix of loads and empties. The free rolling cars were doing eight to ten miles an hour. Fast speeds for making a hitch which normally wouldn't be that big of an issue but add the weight of a twenty car block. Better look out! The brakes on the cars that were set didn't hold the weight and all four tracks kept rolling. Meanwhile the conductor and Colby were still sending cars down the tracks with no clue what was happening. Until they heard a massive crash that was much louder than the normal sound of cars linking up. That brought the entire operation to a halt. They were almost at the end of switching out the train and so they dropped the cars they had left. They went flying down track five, which at the time was empty. In search of the cause of the massive crash they had heard. They got to the other side of the yard to find the granddaddy of all yard wrecks. All four blocks of cars had pushed their way through the ladder of switches. The cars on track one and two collided at the switch leading to those tracks but not before the brakes on the track one buffer cars failed. Resulting in those brakes releasing and allowing five cars from track one to clear through the switch before the track two cars collided into them. Track three cars had already been going through their switch when the car from track one collided into them. The cars on track four were mostly empties and had stopped with mere feet to spare before they hit the escaping track three cars. However the collision of the track one cars into those coming off of track three resulted in a few on track four becoming apart of the destruction." Timber Tim explained the details of the incident to Ino.
"Now what happened to the cars from track three that were past track four?" Ino asked.
"A returning local crew saw the cars rolling free and lined them into an empty twenty car stub track. Where they collided with the bumper at the end of the track. It was an impressive wreck. It took crews a week to remove the wrecked cars and fix the track. The following investigation showed that the buffer cars had defect in their braking system that, in the conductor's and Colby's defense, was not apparent when an initial terminal brake test was conducted. However the pictures of the wreck are in the yard office in our yard master, Lucky Lucas's scrap book. He keeps pictures of any and all derailments big or small." The other crews were smiling as the embarrassed look on Colby's face as Timber Tim finished the tale of how Collision Colby came to be. Ino looked at Colby with evil smirk.
"Something tells me there are more stories about you that I haven't heard yet." She said as Suzanna, Kiba, Naruto and Sakura came walking over to them.
"Oh there are. There are enough stories we could tell you about him from when he was little to a few months ago. To make a five book series." Laughed Moonlight Laya. Colby's face turned cherry red as the numerous stories that could be told flashed through his head.
"So enough about me. What's the telegraph report saying?" Colby asked trying to change the topic of the conversation.
"Well the hot topic is the cute little blonde you got hanging off of your arm." Hotbox Hellinia pipped up. "and how you are once again off the market."
"Colby was a thing among the daughters of the rails?" Suzanna asked in amazement.
"He was a thing but not a hot commodity." Hellinia said as she crossed her arm.
"In other news, a masked guy from away by the name of Kakuzu has taken over the underground. Rumor has it he is looking to get control of the village and the railroad. Supposedly so he can use it as a source of constant income to fund whatever it is that he does." Jackson said as the clicking of the boarding board got Noah's attention for a moment.
"Also word has been going around about you six as well. Especially the blonde fella in the orange jump suit and the cotton candy haired chick." Melissa pointed to Naruto and Sakura before pulling out a dirty red bandanna from her back pocket and used it to wipe her hands. "You two stick out like a flare on a long tangent (straight section of track) in the middle of the night."
"Umm... Excuse me, but your food is ready." Bri interrupted as she and one of the other girls from behind the counter came over to them with trays carrying brown paper bags.
"Hey guys. Thanks for the info. Looks like our mission just got clearer." Suzanna said. Melissa just about dropped her bag when she recognized Suzanna.
"Suzanna!? Is that you!? Oh. My. God! It is you! I thought you were dead!" Melissa shouted as she ran up and hugged Suzanna. Hellinia did drop her bag of food as she also ran up to Suzanna and joined in on the hug.
"We have missed you!" Hellinia and Melissa cried together.
"I've missed you too!" Smiled Suzanna as Laya looked at her watch as did the other members of the three crews.
"Ok girls. Time to go. The train isn't going to run itself. It was good to see you guys. Pleasure meeting you Ino." Timber Tim nodded as Melissa let go of Suzanna. Hellinia did the same and picked her lunch up off the floor. The crews head back over the causeway as Suzanna looked at her group.
"So Kakuzu is the man behind all of what's been going down, or least is a prime suspect. Sasuke could be working with him." Suzanna speculated.
"Nagato was probably in the same boat with Sasuke. Son of ah bitch." Colby muttered.
"Aww why does it have to be Kakuzu? That guy give me the creeps." Ino shuttered.
"I thought I had taken him down for good the last time I fought him." Whined Naruto as two quick whistle blasts echoed through the concourse.
"So how did things go today?" Steve asked as Naruto, Sakura, Colby, Ino, Suzanna and Kiba came walking in through the front door.
"Well we found out more about what Kakuzu is up to in the village." Sakura said as she sat down on the couch next to Naruto.
"Oh? Like what?" Steve raised an eyebrow.
"That no only is Kakuzu aiming for total domination of the Hidden Rail Village. He is also eye balling the railroad it'self pretty hard." Colby hollered from the kitchen as he got a stack of cups and a two liter bottle of root beer soda from the frig.
"He is also going after the railroad too!? Well then if the situation wasn't urgent enough. We definitely have to take down this Kakuzu fella." Steve looked at the front door as did everyone else as a knock came from it. Steve got up to answer it and was greeted a jumping Taylor, who was accompanied by Jazz. Taylor waved a quick 'Hello' to Steve before darting into the living room and made a leaping dive for Ino. While a surprised Colby dove out of the incoming child's way. Taylor landed in Ino's lap as Colby landed on the floor next to the couch. Nobody had ever seen Colby move as fast as he did outside of a fight. The group burst out laughing as Colby pocked his head up from behind the arm rest of the couch.
"Is it safe now? Are there going to be anymore flying children in this place?" Colby had his hands up ready to protect his head from anymore airborne children.
"So, how have you been Miss Ino?" Taylor asked as any sassy eight year old would.
"I have been good Miss Taylor. Now where did Mr. Colby dive off too?" Ino chuckled as she looked over to Colby as he got up from the floor.
"Eh. Who cares? It's just you and me now, Miss Ino" Taylor laughed.
"Wow. Hey Colby, it looks like you just got left for an eight year old." Laughed Kiba.
"Aww come on!" Whined Colby.
The sky over the main yard in the Hidden Rail Village was just beginning to light up with deep reds and purples. As the sun began to rise into a partly overcast sky. The rail yard was quiet for the moment as the yard crew got it's engine ready for a day of sorting freight cars. The engine was a small 0-6-0 switcher engine with all of it's wheels being used to support the weight as well as be the main driving wheels. Behind the engine was a small box tender with 'Leaf Valley' written in white block letters, centered on the side of the tender. The black painted cab sported the engine's number in white below the cab windows. The white trim along the edge of the walkway running the length of the short boiler and around the edge of the wheels dressed up the other wise all black engine well. The headlight was centered on the front of the graphite gray smoke box with it's number board displaying 7470 in freshly cleaned white numbers. The engineer gently coupled up to the block of seventy five cars and came away with the head twenty cars to sort out first.
"Alright 7470. I got you lined in for track four, derail is down. Bring it back good for thirty." The conductor called over his handheld radio. He was a in his mid twenties and wore the usual freight conductor outfit of steel toe boots, work jeans and a bright safety green work t-shirt. The shirt had a pocket on the left side of the chest where he had the handset mic for the radio clipped. As the rear car started to slowly move towards him. He climbed onto the side of the yellow boxcar and looped his right arm through the grab rail. This allowed him to have a free hand and still use his other hand to key the mic.
"Still good for thirty, 7470. I'll need as easy stop in fifteen."
"Rodger, easy stop in fifteen." The radio barked with the engineer's reply.
The train came to an easy stop at about mid-yard. Once the train was stopped, the conductor has his engineer set the air brakes and started applying the handbrakes.
"Make sure to set plenty of handbrakes. We don't need to make it into the book of shame." joked the engineer.
"Haha! Right? Ok 7470. Drop three step. Release, time and test. Gottah make sure they will hold."
Once the air brakes were released, the locomotive shoved back against the cars. The slack bunched up but other than that there wasn't any movement from the cars.
"Good brakes on this end."
"Rodger that. 7470, all set take it ahead. Clear the switch." The crew repeated the moves on tracks three, two and one. Making sure the cars wouldn't move. Once they had the last bock of five cars tied down on track one. The crew went back to the remaining fifty five cars and coupled up to them. This time they kept the whole string of cars hooked to the engine as they starting kicking the cars down the tracks.
"7470, all set down down track two. Kicking four." The conductor called over the radio. The sound of cars banging into each other was like an echo that got closer and closer. The conductor pulled the cut lever as the cars started moving. Once they were going fast enough where he had to jog beside them is when he called to his engineer to stop. Like a whip cracking, the cars stretched out and snapped to a stop while the block of four cars kept rolling down track two. The crew repeated the process until they got to the last bock of six cars that were coupled to the engine. They just shoved back to the cars on track one. Their switching was done but still had to link up the air brakes between the cars.
Up on the hill over looking the yard. Colby and a very tired Ino sat on the dew covered grass watching the crew work as the sun rose. "What did we have to get up this early for again?" Ino yawned as she pulled the hood of her sweatshirt up over her head and lead against Colby.
"To watch the sun rise, watch the morning crew do some yard work and get breakfast at the crew dinner. With the hopes of getting more info about what's been going on and to try to come up with a plan to keep Kakuzu from taking over the village." Colby reminded Ino.
"Oh... Yeah... We got up this early for food and trains." Ino yawned again as she tried to get comfortable as she rested her head against his bony shoulder.
"Ok. Let's get you some food before you wither away to nothing sleepy head." He teased as the two of them headed for the Rail head Dinner.