Something I wrote for english last year. Wondered what you think of it.
Dave took a long drag on his cigarette as he sat staring at the light snow falling outside his all weather window* thinking that these were the days that accidents happened.
He was the engineer in charge of the Canadian National* MRF*. The MRF ran Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays serving the Missabe’s non iron ore industries.
“How hard is it to tie a damn handbrake,” Dave muttered to himself as his conductor struggled to apply the handbrakes on the cut of empty gondolas they had just set out on one of the many Eveleth Spur tracks.
A small smile crossed Dave’s bearded lips as he saw Will slipping and sliding on the side of the locomotive while he made his way to the cab a few minutes later. As Will opened the door, Dave coyly remarked, “Guess the CN don’t care ‘bout that Grip tape huh?”
“Yeah I guess,” was Will’s halfhearted reply.
“Got everything tied down?”
“Yeah, the one was giving me trouble but finally I got her to spin and set up for me,” said Will, sinking into a cab seat, mildly embarrassed about the whole ordeal.
“About time,” grunted Dave. He picked up the radio and attempted to raise the Rail Traffic Controller*. " DMIR 312 calling North RTC, over."
After a pause of about a minute, the North RTC answered, " North RTC answering DMIR 312, go ahead, over."
" Yea, we just finished up here at Eveleth and are looking for a light* southbound, over."
“Looks like no problem,” answered the RTC, “But I got to let a Minntac I.D* get around you guys, but after that you should have signals to Keenan, over.”
“Good enough,” Dave replied…
Inspiration for John.
Inspiration for Will.
A very good story Coborn, sure hope you got an A+ for it
I enjoyed reading it.
You do have a timeline issue. “Fifteen years later” and then in your dialog you mention the Senior Night comments made. If it was indeed 15 years later, the young man would not be a senior, since he was not born when his father died.
Well written and a good message. Sometimes fate steps in…live each day for what is important.
ed
Touche, fixed it.
“Yea” is the opposite of “Nay”. “Yeah” is probably more likely the word used in conversation between crew members.
The editor in me couldn’t find too much else to say. Nicely done, Max!
Great story, I give it and A+++++. I know a lot of work went into it. Great Job.
Thanks. Anyone else have any comments or critiques?
Good story. I liked it a lot.
Kevin
[tup][tup][tup][;)]. I’ll be looking for your work in future Trains articles [8D].