Kaylie stuck around near the truck in case she was needed, while Kayden, Jayde, Rukari, and Kivenaal gathered up and packed up the tents. Malavera, meanwhile, made sure the load was secured in the truck bed, periodically stopping to try cleaning the blood out of his snow-white fur.
With everything they needed now secured in the truck bed, the team prepared for their first proper rail adventure.
It took quite a while until a set of signals was established that covered the controls and instructions needed for Valentin to remotely operate the train from up front. By that point, Shift Happens was long done packing up supplies.
“Alright. I think Connor and i have got our communications figured out, which means that we are good to go. We are going to take seats, Connor will steam Robert and and we will take a leisurly trip to the other end of the Yard, where i shall arrange some things with the signalman. After that, we will proceed on the line as usual… well ‘usual’…”, Valentin announced to everyone present.
Following that, all members of the now-fusioned 10-person team took their places, with Malavera behind the now-useless wheel and Valentin on the other side flanking Kayden between the two. The second row had Kivenaal behind Malavera, Jayde staring at the radio array and Rukari filling up the last available seat. Back in the Dione, it was the usual affair, with Tim and Constantin in the rear left and rear right seats respectively and Constantin sat in the fireman’s seat. The only change had Kaylie in the driver seat previously vacated by Valentin.
With everyone seated and ready to go, the waiting began for Robert to raise steam, since Connor was about the last person to enter either car.
Kaylie looked over at Connor’s side of the dashboard, watching the various gauges climb slowly yet steadily as the boiler behind them whooshed like a blowtorch under a tea kettle, unable to hide a grin as she had, as instructed, pinned the gas pedal all the way down. She had the window rolled down a couple of inches to get some airflow into the car, her left arm resting on the door panel with her thumb hooked in the equally-unnecessary steering wheel rim, her right hand resting loosely on the wheel at the 5-o-clock position.
Up front, things were a little less calm as everyone waited for Robert to steam up. With all the windows down, they could hear the boiler far behind them warming up, the sounds of other locomotives nearby shuffling around, the rattles and clanks of steamworks toolboxes being picked through for tools to work on the other engines nearby.
Jayde stared at the radio panel, rendered useless through both insufficient power and courtesy of whatever horrible screeching squeal had blown their speakers out on the way through camp, and tried to imagine what the locals would think of this unusual mess.
Rukari gripped the front edge of the bench hard, a little nervous as he wasn’t sure how well things would go with being pushed, engineless, down the rails.
Kivenaal was in an almost-meditative state, not quite awake and not exactly sleeping as he sat there, waiting for the convoy to start.
Kayden looked out of the windshield, trying to play “spot the signal” already despite the vehicles still being inside.
Malavera held onto the steering wheel, his foot resting near the brake pedal, having already made sure the transfer case and transmission were out of gear and that the front wheel drive portion of the 4x4 unit was disconnected. A last quick check ensured that both differential locks were disengaged. His sharp eyes were also scanning the horizon, hoping to help Valentin out with signals as needed.
Not much was happening in the “engine” of the newly formed train as Connor simply went about the procedure of raising steam pressure. Up front, Valentin was not sure, so he decided to simply ‘ask’. His right arm thus went out of the window and upwards at the elbow, his palm facing the centerline of the car, showing his intent on transmitting a speed-related command. The reply was expected to be two short blips of the electrical horn, which took a while to be returned as pressure was not yet in operating ranges. Eventually, the reply came as Connor reached over into Kaylie’s half to tap the horn a couple of times.
The signal for intent turned into a 10kph forward movement signal as Valentin turned his palm to face the train’s front while extending just his index finger. Not long after, Connor once again reached over, this time for the ignition barrel to sound the steam while for two long notes, followed by him setting the train into motion.
As soon as they started rolling, Valentin went back to showing ‘expect signal’, followed shortly after by just his fist being up there, indicating a request to stop with service brakes. Lo and behold, the train came to a halt all of 15 feet out of the door, juuuust shy of a disc shunting signal.
“Right, now we all know that the stopping distances have increased,” Malavera said. “Next time, call out that you’re using the brakes and I’ll help out.”
Kayden stared at the disc-shaped signal and shook his head. “I didn’t even know that was a signal.”
“Yard signal,” both Malavera and Jayde said almost simultaneously.
The movement had been just enough to jolt Kivenaal out of his mental hibernation, where he took in that they’d moved, but not very far.
Behind them, in the Dione, Kaylie admitted, “It feels really weird to be holding down the gas pedal and to have the car going nowhere.”
“Noted. Most of the work will probably happen from the back though to avoid excessive loads as the bar runs into either end because of the slack in there.”, Valentin replied. At least it would be useful in case of an emergency stop or if more braking power was needed otherwise.
In the powered railcar that was Robert, Connor tried to explain why they took this solution:
“I understand. If you were to let off now, we would apply full power in reverse. I can offset the your throttle input with this lever here and thereby dictate actual power levels without you having to do anything. Just inform me if you have to take it off the gas for any reason.”
“Okay, that’s definitely noted. Don’t take my foot off of the gas pedal or things go badly,” Kaylie said.
Up front, Kayden nodded as Valentin informed everyone that he had to mention the change of plans to the people in charge of the railway, before Val hopped out of the truck to inform everyone in the Dione.
Kaylie understood that they’d parked up without refueling the night before, which meant extra time getting ready, as well as getting the schedule changed for their two-vehicle consist. She sat there patiently as Valentin walked over to a signalbox, trying to figure out what was going on up ahead of them.
Jayde took the opportunity, with Val out of the car, to give Rukari a rather hard elbow to the chest. “Quit digging your elbow into my ribs, Rukari,” Jayde grumbled out, ignoring Rukari’s wince.
Valentin was gone for the better part of ten minutes before returning to the train, first relaying the relevant info to Connor:
“Okay. Signalling staff has been informed about the second carriage and lower expected speeds. We should be able to keep up with longitude trains when accounting for them stopping, but we will need to make way if they do catch up. But now, refueling.”
“Understood.”, Connor replied.
Valentin then headed up front, climbing back into the cab, effectively repeating what he told Connor and the others before. Soon after, the train began to move backwards across the yard once more, before stopping almost immediately after.
Valentin then adjusted the mirror on his side before looking at the other one, realizing that he couldn’t see anything through the polished bumper trim “mirror”.
“I cannot see anything…”, Valentin mumbled while moving around, trying to get a good view of whatever trackside signage and signals may be there.
“One moment, we might be able to improve that,” Malavera said, hearing Valentin’s mumble of being unable to see. He peeled the tape off of the mirror housing, put the bumper cover under his seat for the moment, then dismounted the rear view mirror from the cab of the truck. After looking around for the tape, Malavera carefully attached the rear view mirror to the old mirror housing, then helped Valentin aim it until he could see the best that the mirror would let them.
Once the visibility had been improved slightly, which also included Kivenaal putting Rukari in a mild head-lock to give Val the opportunity to look out of the rear window if needed from under the radio console, the two vehicle consist started rolling backwards into an obvious refueling area, as they passed by a water tower, coal storage, and finally stopped near an area labeled with both “Light” and “Heavy” fuel oil.
The impromptu mirror modification ended up by no means idea, but still infinitely better than the previous version, now that he could see at least something through that one.
“Well thank you, i guess…”, Valentin said, before commanding the reversing to continue.
Once in the refueling bay, not much of note happened up front, as Valentin was not directly part of the established refueling process, courtesy of the difficulties in getting in and out of the car across the fireman’s seat or the rear bench.
In the back half, nothing unusual was happening either, with the refueling process happing like any other previous one, except for some added curiosity about how Robert was now pushing an oversized truck along.
Eventually, they are ready to roll again and make another trip across the yard to the starter signal entering the longitude mainline, where they were scheduled to wait until the next longitude train passed.
“Now we wait for the next train to blow our doors off, plus three miles.”, Valentin commented half-jokingly.
Eventually, that train made itself heard simply by virtue of the sheer noise the blastpipes made every time steam was sent out through the chimney. The train cane and went, barreling past the two teams, disappearing into the distance.
“There we go! Should get a clear way any minute now.”, Valentin said, watching the massive semaphore signal, which eventually raised it’s arm, allowing Robert to enter the line.
A command was sent backwards asking for the highest speed the previously established signal code could handle, that being 150kph, limited by the 4 bit binary nature of it.
Still, Connor gave Robert a run for it’s money in trying to get up to speed, though 150kph turned out to be quite a bit beyond what the new consist was capable of, instead levelling off a wee bit above 130kph. Even Valentin was suspicious about the perceived speed:
“This is it? This can’t be 150kph…”, he mumbled, now calling for progressively lower speeds until he could feel it decelerating.
“Huh… looks like our new top speed is somewhere around 130kph…”, he spoke again, half aloud. “Beats doing the same on shitty, unpaved roads…”
Malavera looked down at the speedometer and saw it holding around 70 to 75 MPH, then said, “Looks like the new wheels have our speedometer reading a bit low, then. Still, this is much better than another back-breaking ride on dirt roads.”
In back, Kaylie called out the tachometer numbers as Valentin asked for speed changes, with Connor then making adjustments until, eventually, they settled in at what Connor said was 130 kilometers per hour. “I see. So we’re doing about 80 miles per hour,” Kaylie responded, doing the mental math herself, using her fingers in a somewhat similar pattern to Valentin’s codes out the window to store numbers in binary.
Up front, things settled into a realm of peaceful semi-chaos, as with such smooth “road” conditions, the three in the rear bench decided to try to relax, with Jayde watching the countryside rush by, while Rukari dug out a handful of dice, split them into two equal handfuls, grabbed two red plastic cups, and started a little game with Kivenaal where the winner was whoever had the higher number. Malavera kept a keen set of eyes watching for signals, as did Kayden.
“Signal ahead is clear,” Malavera mentioned.
Moments later, Kayden grumbled out, “Yeah, now I see it.”
“Wait is i… oh yeah it is! That draft is getting really annoying!”, Valentin comments while trying hard to not be blinded by his wildly flapping hair.
“Well thank yoPFFFRT!! Pffft… anyone’s got some hair ties or something?”, he exclaimed again when one particularly nasty strand finaggled it’s way into his mouth as he spoke.
“I usually don’t have to deal with winds that strong…”
Rukari fished around in his pocket, then leaned forward and held out a handful of rubber bands for Val. Kayden looked over, then said, “Val, please take those and save all of us from the misery Rukari’s inflicted on all of us with those miserable pieces of stretchy rubber.”
Malavera chuckled and Kayden snapped, “Laugh it up, snowball. You’re not the one he’s snapped on the back of the ear. Three times.”
“That’s why I’m laughing,” Malavera admitted. “He does that to you because he knows you won’t get him back.”
Valentin took a quick, though confused look at the rubber bands, taking all of them and moving them to the dashboard for the time being. After that, they went into his hair, one by one, eventually turning the unwieldy mess into a somewhat contained, segmented ponytail, which was much more resistant to the draft coming in through the rolled-down window next to him.
“That should do, for now at least. Not exactly comfortable, nor pretty, i guess. But it works.”, Valentin commented as he went back to focusing on his duties as the train controller.
On the other end, things were settling down as well, with none of the three really saying anything, instead watching the landscape go by in case of the two humans in the second row and Connor handling the boiler controls and watching for hand signals from up front.
The remainder of the stage went surprisingly smoothly, eventually arriving a a small depot near Temmingarda.
“That’s about as close as we are gonna get. I’ll head back and have Robert de-steamed.” Valentin said, hopping out and doing as announced, followed shortly thereafter by the well-known snake-hissing that is the boiler pressure release valve.
After the engine was declared safe, the remaining members of RK Series Racing got to work collecting their supplies from the roof of the Dione, leaving everything non-essential behind to save on weight.
As they arrived in the railway depot near Temmingarda, and Connor let Kaylie know she could release the gas pedal, she lifted her foot with a slight squeak as the pedal returned to the top. She left the car after the others had, rejoining the “lead half” of Shift Happens and helping in grabbing up tents and cooking supplies.
Then it was just the long walk into camp, the ten of them all just wanting to get some rest after a long voyage.
Just let me sleep…”, Valentin mumbled, rolling over to the other side.
