#nyc 999

[ferlost]

nyc no.999 & u-505

drawn for @monstroso and @djangodurango for their ongoing project The Future Is Still Silver And Black

[monstroso]

First meeting of the Railway Speed Record Club (1934)

City of Truro (left) and NYC's famous no. 999 (center) were on hand Saturday to congratulate Flying Scotsman (right) on his record-breaking run of 100 mph. Though both engines had claims to the record in the past, this is the first time the achievement has been officially authenticated. There were no hard feelings, however, and all three appeared to be in high spirits over the feat. No telling who the next addition will be to this exclusive club!

(colorized below the cut)

[littlewestern]

(tfissab) how much do the MSI engines know of the outside world? is 999 aware of 2933 or 3001?

Museum exhibits and engines in general are kept pretty sheltered about things which do not concern them - politics namely, but also current events and other things they might find distressing. For the most part, they don't ask about these things either, because they know it doesn't involve them. If they do need the information, for whatever reason, the people around them would explain it the way you might to a child; as vaguely as possible and in a manner that leaves very little room for discussion so as to minimize the anxiety it might cause. It wouldn't do to have your engines becoming cunt dorks about human matters, things which they have no hope of being able to change.

Matters of scrapping and preservation are harder, because those things *do* concern them (sometimes very directly, in Pilot's case). Engines are liable to be more interested in that information, or they might be told freely depending on what it is and if the humans in charge of them think it would be beneficial for them to know. Hell, the only reason Pioneer knew about Pilot in the first place is because his docents heard about the IRM's acquisition and asked if Pioneer might like to write a letter to the Zephyr engine saved from scrap. They suggested the letter because the IRM is so close by and Pioneer loves the romance of the post. It's also a good mental exercise for an engine who sometimes has trouble socializing in his own yard.

999 might know about the Mohawks in the same fashion with her docents informing her about it once they find out, though her interest would only extend so far as to say, "Well, I'm glad some of them made it." 999 and 2933/3001 don't share as many similarities as Pioneer and Pilot do and she's also not nostalgic for her railroad the same way Pilot and Pioneer are so she's not interested in reminiscing with other engines from the NYC. She might send them a Christmas card once a year if her docents suggested it. She gets all her socialization she could want in her current yard! In the same manner, 2903 probably knows about his brothers and sisters of the 2900 class who were preserved, but has no interest or inclination to contact them. For him, just knowing how many of them made it is closure enough.

Pioneer and Pilot - knowing about each other and a few of the other shovelnoses in preservation - will occasionally ask about the dispositions of the Mark Twain Zephyr and Flying Yankee. Though they're also aware that they aren't owed the information and sometimes the people they're asking don't know, so it's not something they're overly concerned about. However, if any of their engines express a healthy interest in a topic they'd like to know more about, they're usually more than happy to provide. After all, museums are places of learning.

[littlewestern]

The indoor exhibits weren't wrong to be skeptical at first. Could any of them have imagined what it would take to get the submarine underground?

There's something to be said for the fact that everyone wants all the engines to be inside, regardless of their status as an enemy unit or otherwise. Even 2903 would think U-505 getting moved indoors is good news. The MSI was his home, and the fact that they have the resources to move that submarine indoors means they must be doing alright financially. And it's important that all the exhibits are in the best condition they can be. For the museum's sake, of course.

what did the indoor exhibits think about the outdoor ones before they all came inside? did they even know there were other engines out there?

The indoor exhibits knew the outdoor exhibits existed, but they didn't really think about them much beyond the way one might think of the people who work at your job but on a different shift.

A thought occurs to me though that some of the older locomotives that were kept indoors might be a bit concerned for the ones outside, if they'd had any experience with being left to the elements. Aside from the Rocket replica, we've put off researching a lot of the other pieces of smaller equipment the MSI has since Pioneer doesn't need to know anything about the guys inside beyond what it would occur to him to ask for Pilot's benefit. You saw my stack of books; this is why we go back and edit the letters every time we update, so we can add in stuff we learned in the meantime.

Anyway, those guys might harbor a worry for the engines outside, but there's not much to be done about it. The exhibits outside are too big to be brought indoors. These little old engines simply wouldn't conceive a way that the bigger machines could be brought inside... until they dismantle that wall and haul 999 and 727 in. Sure, they had to cut off 727's wings to get her through the door, but they put her right to her new use and both of the girls were now safely indoors.

2903 coming inside didn't seem so farfetched now, but U-505 and Pioneer's train are surely too long to bring inside. They'd take up an entire gallery to themselves! Which was true. They were building the Henry Crown Space Center by then so the indoor exhibits probably assumed they'd build annexes for Pioneer and U-505.

That they started digging instead would have been a surprising turn of events. But they did and Pioneer and his train were indeed given their own gallery. They lowered them into their new parking garage exhibit and everyone agrees he's a fine ambassador for the museum.

But Pioneer is very light, as far as trains go. The idea that they could drop something as heavy as U-505 in a hole on the same kind of pulleys they used to lower Pioneer in? Iffy proposition, the small exhibits might have thought. 2903 by this time had been moved to the IRM, but had he still been here, they might have assumed this was why he hadn't been moved inside too. This is the reason given for why he was donated and it was true at the time. U-505 is much heavier than 2903 is, but he is also (not to disparage 2903) a much more valuable exhibit. They were already saying that Pioneer's exhibit was the model for how they wanted to treat U-505. So they sent 2903 off to his new home and began planning yet another logistically complicated move for U-505.

It did take ten more years for them to get U-505 underground as well, but they did it. And that was truly a feat! It just goes to show how great their museum really is. Like, there's not a standard operating procedure for lowering a U-boat into a subterranean exhibit. The MSI not only presents science and industry as it happens, they make their own.

The exhibits themselves may not necessarily appreciate it on that level, but they do recognize the dedication of their museum to their care and maintenance that everyone was eventually brought in, even the most unwieldy of them and even if they had to send them to a new home to ensure they'd no longer be getting rained and snowed on.

[cokeskinnycunt]

Like A Wild Caged Animal

@bloominu in 1of1s

[cuntyko]

999

[catastrophicalcat]

Gotham is getting better and is safer than US cities

One of my pet peeves in comics is the notion that Gotham is cursed eternally; that Batman hasn't made an impact; that things aren't getting better. If you read the comics, this is not true:

In Detective Comics #999, Batman says that there were 182 people murdered in Gotham that year; and that the previous years' stats were 214 and 231: a downward trend. (His stated goal is to get it to 0).

That issue came out in 2019. In 2019, NYC had 319 homicides, Chicago had 490, and Detroit had 273. Which are all numbers bigger than 182.

Violent crime, including homicide, also shot up a lot in the US in 2020, and hasn't totally come down since. For example, through June, NYC had 236 homicides and Chicago had 343. I don't know whether Gotham had a similar homicide uptick since 2019, but if it didn't, it totally has less murder today than comparable real world U.S. cities.

[edwards-exploit]

once, the engines had an indignation meeting about who did the 100 mph run first. gordon championed flying scotsman. duck, of course, was on the side of city of truro.

it was chaotic, and then rosie coming in swinging with "actually it was nyc 999" did NOT help.

[betterthanburrow]

Heisman Award Ceremony - Instagram AU

(LSU Quarterback! Joe Burrow x Social Media Influencer! OC)

liked by 10,700 users

HeismanTrophy: The 2019 Heisman Finalists have arrived and taken NYC by storm - Welcome to the Big Apple 🍎 #Heisman #Heisman2019 #Finalists #Collegefootball #NYC

view all 101 comments

username1: look how handsome those boys are!

username2: if Burrow doesn’t win, i’m killing mysrlf.

liked by joeyb_9 and 55,009 more users

yourusername: I ❤️ New York (📸 : @.joeyb_9)

view all 7,055 comments

yourbestfriend: you are MISS NEW YORK!

↳ yourinstagram: 😘

username1: @.joeyb_9 your gf is so pretty

username2: are you going to the Heisman Award Ceremony tomorrow?!

↳ yourinstagram: yes i am ☺️

username3: 😍😍😍

yourmom: i’m so glad you’re having fun in new york! make sure to send me all of the pictures from your adventures in the city! ❤️

↳ yourinstagram: i will, i promise! ❤️

joeyb_9: out of all the pictures i took, you only posted one photo?!

↳ yourinstagram: we can’t overwhelm people with too much content from New York just yet! … you really need to learn how to use social media.

yourinstagram story updates:

viewed by joeyb_9 and 10,999 more users

liked by 7,550 users

HeismanTrophy: It’s almost time...who’s taking home the trophy? Comment your Heisman winner below! #Heisman #2019Heisman #Collegefootball #NCAA #finalist

view all 130 comments

username1: it better be one of the Ohio boys!

username2: JOE BURROW FOR THE WIN!

username3: recount the votes if the white man wins…

liked by joeyb_9 and 99,050 more users

yourinstagram: like this IG Post if you voted for LSU Quarterback Joe Burrow to win the Heisman Trophy!

view all 33,055 comments:

joeyb_9: no photo credits this time?!

↳ yourinstagram: stop caring about the photo credit and start paying attention to the Heisman Ceremony!

liked by yourinstagram and 10,990 more users

LSUfootball: The 2019 Heisman Trophy Winner

view all 999 comments

username1: MY FAVORITE WHITE BOY WON!

username2: THAT’S MY QUARTERBACK!

username3: CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

username4: his speech made my whole family cry!

liked by joeyb_9 and 110,550 more users

yourusername: there aren’t enough words to describe how proud i am of you Joe! you proved all the people that have ever doubted you wrong tonight! i’m so honored to have been able to stand by your side for the past 2 years and i’m excited for your future career 💛

view all 10,109 comments

joeyb_9: i love you 💛

↳ yourinstagram: i love you too 💛

liked by yourinstagram and 320,999 more users

joeyb_9: They said I couldn’t...

They said I wouldn’t...

I just did.

view all 55,009 comments

yourinstagram: you did do it! and i’m so proud 💛

↳ joeyb_9: i couldn’t do this without you 💛

Author’s Note:

how long has it been since i published the last Instagram AU?! i had to do just one last Instagram AU for the year!

if you have an Instagram AU Request, send the IG AU Request to my Inbox and i’ll try to get the Requested Instagram AU published as fast as i can!

thank you for all the love and support! 🤍

[1863-project]

Happy Mallard Day!

Most people in my country will be celebrating tomorrow, July 4th. I’m a bit unusual for an American in that I’m always more excited for July 3rd, because a remarkable feat of engineering history happened that day in 1938 (in multiple senses of the word). Today I’m going to tell the story of a locomotive named for a duck.

(Image: 4468 Mallard, a streamlined 4-6-2 Pacific locomotive, sitting pretty in York, England, United Kingdom. She is painted bright blue with red wheel spokes.)

The story begins well before July 3rd, 1938, of course - mechanical engineer Sir Nigel Gresley was well established in his position as the CME of the London and North Eastern Railway by that date. In 1923, his most famous creation, a 4-6-2 Pacific A1 numbered 4472, took to the rails for the first time. Originally numbered 1472, within a year of running between London to Edinburgh she received her more familiar 4472 after the LNER finally settled on a company-wide numbering scheme - and the name she’d be best known under, Flying Scotsman. She became the company’s flagship locomotive and solidified Gresley’s ability to design Pacifics in the mind of the public.

Her most important contribution to what I’m about to get into the meat of here, though, occurred on November 30th, 1934. On that date, pulling a light testing train behind her, Flying Scotsman hit 100 mph, becoming the first locomotive to hit that speed whilst being officially measured. Other locomotives may have reached 100 mph before, most notably GWR 3700 City of Truro and NYC 999, but this was the first time the speed was officially recorded, and so Scotsman got her name into the record books.

Dating back to the 19th century, railroads in Great Britain competed against each other in what was known as the Race to the North, in which they actively attempted to outdo each other and get passengers from the south, usually London, up to various destinations in Scotland. Nobody ever actually said they were racing, of course, but in retrospect it was pretty obvious what was going on as the railroads introduced faster and faster services. By the 1930s, the railroads had been consolidated into four companies - the Big Four (the Great Western, the Southern, the London, Midland and Scottish, and the heroes of this story, the London and North Eastern). The LMS controlled the West Coast Main Line, and the LNER controlled the East Coast Main Line. (This is important.) In 1927, the LNER started running the named train Flying Scotsman non-stop from London to Edinburgh, utilizing corridor tenders to perform crew changes at speed without stopping. Not to be outdone, the LMS beat them to the punch, running non-stop services between London and Glasgow and London and Edinburgh on their own, and it was officially on. Although speeds were still within a reasonable range at this point, both railroads knew they needed to go faster, and Sir Nigel Gresley looked to Germany.

In Germany, a new streamlined service called the Flying Hamburger had been introduced. This was a diesel train set that ran between Hamburg and Berlin at remarkably high speeds - it had an average speed of 77 mph and could hit around 99-100 mph at its maximum. For regular service, this was impressive, and Gresley wondered if the same could be done using steam power. He knew streamlining was the key, but the LNER knew that the diesels in Germany didn’t have the same passenger capacity as their steam locomotives could pull in carriages, so he needed to get creative. He looked to Bugatti for inspiration; their racecars, in their resplendent blue, were but one thing the car company was working on - they were making streamlined railcars, as well. Gresley took note of their designs, and his new locomotives would eventually pay homage by being colored Bugatti blue.

(Image: a Bugatti Type 54 racecar, painted in a vivid blue.)

By the time Flying Scotsman hit 100 mph in 1934 and another Gresley Pacific locomotive, A3 2750 Papyrus, managed to hit a whopping 108 mph without streamlining, the LNER knew that Gresley was capable of the task, and they allowed him to design a streamlined locomotive. Gresley set to work making improvements to his A3 design, and the first four A4s were born.

(Image: an unidentified A4 Pacific locomotive.)

The A4s were fast, hitting 112 mph on the inaugural run of the Silver Jubilee service between London and Newcastle in 1935. Gresley, of course, was not satisfied - he knew he could still improve his design, and at any rate, his competition over at the LMS was going to be trying to catch him. He went back to the drawing board to make the A4s even better.

As this was going on, the LMS was indeed playing catchup, and they introduced their beautiful Coronation class locomotives, designed to pull the Coronation Scot starting in 1937. The first several of them were streamlined in gorgeous, bright casings, and they caused a stir, taking the British speed record back at 114 mph in an attempt by 6220 Coronation that ended with a sudden braking and a whole lot of kitchenware being flung every which way in the dining car. Engineer/driver T.J. Clark and fireman C. Lewis kept her under control, but the passengers were not amused, and speed records were shelved for the time being...until, once again, Germany entered the fray.

Back in 1936, a German locomotive, the DRG Class 05, set a land speed record for steam, hitting 124.5 mph. Gresley was aware of this and had it in the back of his mind as he improved his A4s. He experimented with giving some of them a Kylchap exhaust system, an innovation developed by French locomotive designer André Chapelon after the work of Finnish engineer Kyösti Kylälä. Chapelon’s work went woefully under-acknowledged, but Gresley paid attention and appreciated his work, and it would pay off. Wind tunnel tests proved a bit frustrating at first until a fortuitous accidental thumbprint helped to move the smoke up and over the locomotive instead of in the crew’s faces, and the stage was set.

4468 Mallard rolled off the line at Doncaster Works on March 3rd, 1938, her name derived from Gresley’s love of breeding waterfowl. Indeed, many of her sibling locomotives were also named for birds, like 4464 Bittern, 4467 Wild Swan, 4902 Seagull, and 4903 Peregrine, but the duck was about to steal the show. Mallard spent the next few months getting used to working and being broken in so she wasn’t brand new, and on the day she turned four months old, it was time to make history.

Mallard’s driver that day was a 61-year-old grandfather named Joe Duddington. As a locomotive engineer, he was experienced and knew how to take calculated risks, and so he’d been assigned to pilot her. With him on the footplate was fireman Tommy Bray and his massive tattooed arms, ready to keep Mallard fed as they drove into the history books. They were performing a “brake test” that day, or so the LNER told most people, passengers included, but Joe and Tommy knew what was actually going on. In the cab with them was an LNER official, Inspector Jenkins, and attached to the train behind the tender was a dynamometer car, there to record Mallard’s speed throughout her run. Since this was an alleged “brake test” the dynamometer car didn’t raise any eyebrows right away. Gresley himself unfortunately wasn’t in the best health that day and was unable to be present himself, but there were enough LNER officials on hand to see to it that everything ran smoothly. Mallard was fitted with a stink bomb of sorts of aniseed in case the big end bearing for the middle of her three cylinders overheated, as the A4s had previously had difficulty with this, and she set out heading northwards. The return trip was where everything was going to get serious.

Upon turning around to return south to King’s Cross, passengers were finally informed of what was going to happen and were given the opportunity to disembark and take another train if they were worried, especially given what had happened during the LMS record attempt a year prior. Everyone agreed to stay on board. Joe Duddington turned his hat backwards, a reference to George Formby’s character in the film No Limit, and opened the throttle.

Mallard slid back onto the main line, headed towards Grantham, where the speed-up was to begin. Unfortunately, work on the track limited her to only 15 mph at this stage, and Joe Duddington got her through the Grantham station at only 24 mph instead of the 60-70 mph she should have been at. Nevertheless, she began to build up more and more speed as she climbed up Stoke Bank, and Duddington had her at a solid 85 mph at the summit.

“Once over the top, I gave Mallard her head, and she just jumped to it like a live thing,” Duddington recounted later in an interview. Her speed rapidly increased, and she was soon hitting 110 mph, at which point he told her, “Go on, old girl, we can do better than this!” Mallard responded, and by the time she was flying through a village called Little Bytham, a blur of blue paint and pumping rods and flying ash, she had well exceeded the LMS record and was even with the German DRG Class 05. The needle in the dynamometer car tipped up higher and higher and surpassed the Class 05 by slipping up to 125 mph...then, for about a quarter of a mile, reached even higher, at 126 mph. She’d done it.

Mallard had to slow down soon after because of a junction, but Joe Duddington and Tommy Bray were sure she could have gone faster had they not had to slow for construction - they believed she was capable of 130. The big end bearing did overheat, and Mallard was detached from the train at Peterborough and brought back to Doncaster to be fixed up, but not before one of the most famous photos in railroad history was taken:

(Image: the crew poses in front of Mallard, a 4-6-2 Pacific locomotive numbered 4468, immediately after setting the speed record. L-R: Tommy Bray [fireman], Joe Duddington [driver/engineer], Inspector Jenkins, Henry Croucher [guard/conductor]. Joe Duddington has turned his hat around to face the correct way again after having it on backwards during the record run. Photo credit: National Railway Museum.)

Joe Duddington actually stayed on a bit past his retirement age to help free up soldiers for the war effort. When he finally retired, on his final day of work, he drove Mallard one last time.

Sir Nigel Gresley himself never accepted the brief stint at 126 mph, instead saying his locomotive set the speed record at 125 mph. But history has accepted the 126 mph as the true top speed, given that Mallard was possibly capable of even more, and today she has plaques on her streamlined cladding to commemorate her feat. A second record attempt was planned to see if she could go even faster, but World War II broke out and the idea was scrapped.

Tommy Bray eventually got on the throttle himself, fulfilling his own dreams. Both men are honored in a cemetery in Doncaster with a new memorial headstone for Duddington featuring Mallard on it.

As for Mallard herself, she continued working until April 25th, 1963, at which point she’d clocked nearly a million and a half miles in service. She was pulled for preservation for obvious reasons, and today she lives at the National Railway Museum in York, along with her dynamometer car that recorded her history-setting run. Five of her A4 siblings also survive, and a few of them are operational to this day, including the one named for her designer, Sir Nigel Gresley. Of all of his ‘birds,’ the one that flew fastest was the humble duck.

For more on Mallard and her creator Gresley, here are a few resources:

Mallard: How the Blue Streak Broke the World Speed Record by Don Hale is a great book on the subject that I enjoyed thoroughly. It does have a Kindle edition if you’d prefer an ebook variation, as well, and most major book retailers carry it on their websites.

The National Railway Museum, Mallard’s retirement home, has a 3D experience/ride of sorts that simulates what it was like to be running with her that day, the video of which is online here. Note the music, which mirrors her three cylinders pumping away. The video isn’t able to be embedded, but you can watch it here. There’s also a child-friendly version, too.

Lastly, the appropriately named prog rock band Big Big Train did a song about Mallard called East Coast Racer, which regularly moves me to tears because this locomotive means so much to me and they tell her story so lovingly.

I actually recommend checking out the live version, too, because they show the photo of the crew at the end and every single time I start sobbing.

If you want to visit the old girl herself, she’s at the National Railway Museum in York in the UK, and they have a ton of amazing resources and incredible locomotives and rolling stock in their collection. I’d highly recommend checking them out if you can!

Happy Mallard Day, everyone. Fly far, fly fast, make history.

[the-woild-is-y-erster]

HEY EEL (i got the ask so im here ...) kinda silly but like.. personal hesdcanon for david is that he loves trains. yeah kinda autistic stereotype but idc!!! his favorite is the 999 (ny central and hudson river railroad no. 999) i think!! and he definitely fantasizes about riding the transsib... OKAY BUT i digress. the art request. david jacobs and trains combined. in whatever way you want. conductor david or david at a train station or . literally anything:3

ok so thank thank thank for the request

but i swear when i read the sentence 'david jacobs and trains combined' this image came to me so freakin clearly that i just

when i tell you i was crying while photoshopping this💀

ok but for the actual request :)

ok so after he ages out of being a newsie, in a perfect world he would marry jack and they'd stay in new york and adopt like three children and live three apartments down from race and spot

but in this world :)

jack actually leaves for santa fe, and boots becomes leader of the lower manhattan newsies (fight me they shouldve put boots in livesies i love him so much) and davey gets a degree in engineering somehow and becomes a train conductor.

four years later, jack realises that the thing he thought was santa fe that he was longing for was a fantasy, and decides to go back to new york.

that morning, davey looks at his work schedule and feels his throat close up as he sees "NYC -> SF: ROUND TRIP" on the board. he had been wishing for four straight (haha straight def not lmao) years that he would meet jack on that train back home, and for four straight years he was dissapointed every single time. maybe this time, he thinks, putting no real hope in it.

the trip there is uneventful, some toddler spills water but that's to be expected, he's still a kid. david remembers when les was still that age. giggling at anything his siblings did, clinging like a lamprey to his mothers skirts.

as they pull into the station in sunny santa fe, davey breathes in the clean light air, a harsh contrast from the pollution of new york. the sun glares into his eyes as he gazes out over the russet hills and golden grasses swaying in the breeze, and sometimes he thinks he gets why jack wanted to come here so bad.

out there, there's no one to tell him what to do. out there, the sky seems to swallow him up and make him feel like his mistakes aren't so devastating.

out there, he's free.

he pays no attention to the passengers boarding; he never does. they're just trying to get through their day, just like him. as the engines hiss underneath him and the wheels start to turn with a jolt, he starts down the aisles and asks for tickets, stamping each one and handing it back to the passenger, making eye contact with no one.

in the last car, the window car, he makes it to the last row. "ticket please, s-" he looks up to make eye contact for the first time at the sight of a familiar satchel, considerably more weatherbeaten than when he saw it last, but the same nevertheless.

"jackie?" his voice catches as he meets those cow-like brown eyes, more smile lines and a scruff on his chin, but the same man he had fallen in love with. jack smiles, eyes shining.

"heya, dave." he whispers.

[monstroso]

In the grand tradition of falling in love with planes as though they were beautiful women, it's my pleasure to introduce United Boeing 727! You can see her at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago alongside several other smaller planes in their Transportation Hall. :^)

[6220coronation]

Traintober 2024 Day 5: Exhibition

New York, 1939

As night fell and the many people attending the World’s Fair gradually thinned, the silence was suddenly broken by the sound of arguing. “Of all de engines dey could have invited, dey chose one of yuh. Standard Railroad Of De Wawhld my tenduh! Substandard Railroad, mawh like. Yuh Pennsy engines are nuttin' special.“

“Oh yeah?!” 3768 shot back while glaring at the Dreyfuss Hudson. “And what exactly have you Central engines done? Some crazy old engine who keeps lying about doing 100 miles an hour?!” He exclaimed, deeply enjoying the way 5449’s face twisted in anger at the insult towards 999.

“Yuh know somethin'? I can’t wait fawh de day where your precious Substandard Railroad goes bankrupt just so we get de last laugh!” 3768 scoffed at the idea. If anything did end up going bankrupt, it’d clearly be the NYC. The PRR will last forever.

The next morning, 6220 looked exhausted. She’d gotten very little sleep because of them arguing all night, clearly struggling to keep her eyes open. “Rough night?” Old Maude asked, giving the disguised Duchess of Hamilton a sympathetic look.

“Those uncultured heathens have no class whatsoever. Us LNER engines would never do something so undignified as to argue over which railway is better. Not that there’s anything to argue about, since the LMS is clearly inferior,” Silver Link sniffed, ignoring the Mallet’s warning look.

–

“Let me tell yuh somethin'. It’s all de Pennsy’s fault it failed! If dat idiot Saunders had just let Perlman and de Central men do what dey needed tuh do instead of fawhcin' dem out, it would have wawhked!” Lady just rolled her eyes and smiled, watching them argue. Even in the afterlife, some things never change.

[littlewestern]

I just thought of something. For your silver and black stories, how did Pilot, Pioneer, and 2903 react when Burlington Northern Santa Fe was created? I mean, their home railroads are now one and the same! (Makes one wonder how preserved trains would feel about their railroads merging out of existence. I imagine 999 has certain feelings about Penn Central and Conrail)

Oh this is a really interesting question!

I think by 1994 all the engines mentioned had come to terms with the fact that rail industry had simply changed so much in the past 60 years that it wasn't worth getting too sentimental over. Since they all were retired by the '70s, I think the more affecting change would have been the CB&Q becoming Burlington Northern.

It's important to note up-top that engines are familiar with change and know well that their entire industry is founded on shifting sand. CB&Q engines and Zephyrs in particular would know this well, and would be more sensitive to the ways in which the Q would adjust their marketing and scheduling strategies based on cost and changing customer expectations. Basically, all engines know going in that things are subject to change, sometimes at a moment's notice, and for the most part they aren't too sentimental about it. It's just the way of things, y'know?

That being said, I do think that the absorption of the Q into Burlington Northern would have been a somewhat sobering moment for Pioneer in particular, which may or may not be surprising depending on how well you know him. It's not like it ruined his day to hear the news or anything, but you have to remember that the Pioneer Zephyr defined the entire look of last third of the CB&Q's lifespan. The Zephyrs got people excited to take the train and set the tone for how every other railway in the country would market their passenger rail service for the next 30-some-odd years. Pioneer wasn't just important to the Q, he was important to the culture. But by the time 1970 rolls around, he's been out of service for a decade, and rail travel looks significantly different to what it once did. Losing the Q to consolidation is a sign of the times and a tacit remark on the then current state of rail travel.

It would have been, at the very least, the end of an era, and that in and of itself deserves a moment of recognition. It's not sad exactly, because change is inevitable, and it's not worrying exactly either, because Pioneer himself was built and born of time of uncertainty - only to eventually become a symbol that the future of travel was brighter than ever! But it is the way of things, and I think it would have at least given Pioneer some pause.

Pilot on the other hand, would have seen this one coming. After all, his retirement marked the end of the Zephyrs outside of the California Zephyr. He would have been familiar with the decline in passenger service quality from the time he was built in 1940 to the day the Zephyr service ended in 1968. Where Pioneer was only watching this change happen gradually from the outside, Pilot would have lived it.

I'm not sure how much loyalty 2903 would have felt to the culture of the AT&SF, given that he was built so late, was part of such a small class, and honestly didn't even work for that long. I do think, like most engines, he would have felt a sense of pride in his heritage and there might have even been some light ribbing in the MSI yard about how at least the Santa Fe was still going strong even as the Q had to forfeit its identity, but I don't know that the creation of BNSF would have inspired anything in him besides some slight annoyance when the teasing was turned back around on him. "Guess you're a Burlington engine now, chief!" Cue eyeroll. 2903 has never really appreciated the Burlington approach.

As for 999, oh boy lol! Don't even get her started. Her feelings on the NYC and Penn could be a whole essay unto themselves. Suffice to say that they are mixed. The best favor NYC ever did her was retire her before they became the Penn so she wouldn't have to share the name of the railway that scrapped nearly every single one of their steam engines.

[littlewestern]

great question and answer! a few notes from my side of things:

Less important than who characters sound like to me is *how* they sound and how I can give the audience the experience of unique character voices through the media available to us at this time. Since we're not casting for voice actors, the only vector by which to convey this are the words on the page. I'm personally always mindful of dialogue quirks that translate well to text. It's helpful that most of the guys are of mid- or southwestern origin, it means DJ and I can bring our own experiences to the table in that regard.

Pilot and Mate, being midwestern and not formally educated as Pioneer was, are often extremely casual in their speech to the point of omitting the subjects of their sentences if (to them) the subject of the sentence was already self-evident.

"Should have those parts delivered by next week," one of them might say.

('I' should? 'We' should? 'You'? Who is the subject of this sentence? That's between them and the corn. You'd never hear Pioneer talk like this.)

I also like to give Pilot more rural quirks of my own accent like the positive anymore, which I was surprised to learn from a west-coast friend is getting use across the US now, when it was a thing I thought only my farmer cousins and I said, lol.

DJ and I both tend to write 2903 to be a consummate word-shortener. Lots of apostrophes and contractions for words you didn't even know could be contracted. ("Aint'cha", "Off'a me-", "outta here", "guys're", etc.)

This is in stark contrast to the submarine, who uses no contractions at all. No wonder those two don't get along, their speech patterns are even in conflict!

In this way, we can codify a style of speech for each character without trying to give the reader more information than they need to read the story, and we get to tease out the more subtle intricacies of our characters relationships to their environment and each other.

Imagine being 2903 in a yard full of well-spoken and grammatically exact engines and you're over here pronouncing the word "can't" like "cain't". Imagine being Mate and coming back to a familiar face who doesn't sound at all like he did 50 years ago. How does that change the way they see themselves?

Voice is still super important to us, just not in the way you might expect!

heya! 👋

idk if it's been asked already but: do you have any voice claims for the TFISSAB crew?

Hello!

No one has asked this yet, but it makes sense to. The structure of the letters - that Ray and I each write alternating letters as our respective characters - gives away that its a roleplaying game of a sort. Face and voice claims are quite common in those games.

As it happens though, Ray and I both have backgrounds that sort discourage getting too specific with any kind of work we'd have to outsource. Ray is an animator and so voice casting is something they were trained for in school. I studied game design and learned a lot of the same things they did. Basically that not only is it no use getting your heart set too specifically on a particular voice, but it's also limiting. It's better to go into a casting with an open mind because an actor could surprise you. You could miss out on a truly iconic voice for a character if you're too focused on casting, say, an Ann Margaret type. 'Cause after all, at the end of the day, she won't be Ann Margaret.

Not to say that we consider casting actively for this particular project (most of our engines are stationary displays and so what would we animate them doing? Maybe we could do a radio play, lol). Just that we've been schoolt not to devote much energy in that direction in any project.

That said, we do have generalized ideas about voices though.

Truro describes Pioneer as having a "radio announcers voice", which is a very short way to tell you a lot about how he sounds. Authoritative yet approachable with an air of trustworthiness. And distinctly non-regional.

Pilot and Mate would have had urbanized (read: diluted) Texan accents during their work lives, but Pilot's has been dulled further by his retirement in Illinois. In the scenario in which Mate is rebuilt, his accent remains (Ray also likes the idea of Mate having a particularly deep voice for such a small build.)

999 is a New Yorker and so has an appropriate accent. While I wouldn't call this a voice claim, I did have Jill Zarin from Real Housewives of New York in mind when writing her haranguing U-505. 999 is not quite as nasal as that though.

2903 has a more southwestern accent but it's also diluted by urbanization and the need to be understood everywhere from Los Angeles to Chicago.

Basically, most of these are dictated by where they lived out their service lives. Although Frisco 1630, the Russian Decapod, pretends to have a Russian accent when she meets new engines.