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Angel Feathers #1094966 added August 9, 2025 at 7:06am
Restrictions: None
Stalled Train
I pulled out from the library parking lot, research piled in the passenger seat of my open-air jeep. The National Military Memorial Cemetery was a few miles down the Interstate. I had to find my great-grandpa's grave marker, attach a wreath, and send a pic to my grandma, who wanted reassurance her father was buried with honors. As an army veteran myself, I took this responsibility seriously. Afternoon sunlight filtered through old-growth live oaks, whispering in a refreshing breeze.
At the stop sign where the back lane met the county road, there was a line of dusty, idling vehicles. A train sat motionless on the tracks, blocking the road. I lined up behind an orange Corvette and prepared to wait. Brownwood was a small town, with one main north-south state route and this one county road going across, leading to the Interstate exit. The tracks ran parallel to both the Interstate and the state route; there was no overpass and no other possible way to go. Indeed, a stalled train of average length pretty much split the town in half – with me on the wrong side.
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel as minutes slithered by. The sun was blinding, but walls of dark, climbing thunderheads ringed the horizon. If I waited too long, the approaching storm would rain out my excursion. But I had to work the next day, forty miles away. It would be unfeasible to make the trip again anytime soon.
The Corvette revved up its engine and swung a tight, nimble U-turn in the narrow road, surrendering to the interminable wait as more cars lined up behind us. While wondering where they were rerouting to, I counted blinks of the red crossing lights and tried to decipher illegible rainbow scrawls of graffiti on the railcars languishing in front of me.
My heart pounded heavily in my chest. This was dragging the whole community to a dead stop. What if an emergency broke out and law enforcement or EMS had to cross the tracks? Shouldn't someone investigate what was happening at the front of the train? I vaguely remembered seeing it moving north from the library window before I'd left.
With a sudden resolve born of training, I pulled my Jeep off the road to run parallel to the tracks, heading north on the gravelly shoulder of the embankment. A couple of trucks honked at me, whether to encourage or dissuade, I had no idea. I bumped along past empty flatbeds, double-stacked intermodals, giant petroleum tankers, refrigerated Tropicana citrus haulers, loads of coal and gravel, and slatted boxcars with glimpses of vehicles being transported within.
Past the edge of town, the embankment grew steeper. I'd passed fifteen railcars. I wouldn't be able to follow the train much further on the east side before hitting a creek. A warning rumble of thunder echoed. Finally, the heavy diesel engines came into sight.
I drew the Jeep alongside the railing where the engineer should have been standing and honked my horn.
“Anyone here?”
“I'm here!”
A shout came from somewhere within the engine room, and the engineer stumbled out. He was covered in grease and soot, rubbing his hands on his coveralls, breathing hard.
“Well, don't just sit there, man!” he hollered. “Call up CSX and tell them to send an emergency team. My phone ain't got no signal, and this engine's dead!”
I tossed my phone to him as I climbed out of my Jeep.
“You call them. I'll see if I can figure out what's wrong. I was a master train mechanic in the Army.”
He saluted me, phone to his ear. I knelt down in the engine room and pulled aside the cowl to reveal a dizzying tangle of hoses, steel pipes, wires, clamps, and valves.
The CSX crew told the engineer it would take them a couple hours to get to us from headquarters at Wildwood, because of a logjam on the highway. I shook my head.
“My experience tells me this is a simple fix. I bet I can get it up and running.”
I scrambled down to my Jeep and hauled my tools out of the back, setting to work. Sure enough, with about twenty minutes of sweating, tinkering, elbow grease, duck tape and haywire, the engine roared to life with a tremendous expulsion of pungent black exhaust.
The engineer high-fived me. As I was putting away my tools in the Jeep, he set the train chugging along, blasting the whistle with a final wave. It moved slowly at first, then built up speed until railcars were flying past me. I retraced my path along the embankment. By the time I arrived back at my starting point by the crossing, the train was long gone. Brownwood was once again a dusty, dozing town of empty streets and towering live oaks.
The trip down the Interstate to the National Military Memorial Cemetery was uneventful. I located my great-grandpa's grave after a good amount of walking. Kneeling down to place the wreath, I read the inscription: Upper Level Army Locomotive Mechanic. The same position I had held. I smiled and stepped back to take the picture as the first raindrops descended. In the distance, a train whistled, faintly musical.
Words: 875.
Written for "Honoring Our Veterans - Challenge" 
Inspired by real events.
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