The Lone Star Express by George Wier

Author:George Wier [Wier, George]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1537627805
Amazon: B01LQUPFLQ
Goodreads: 31867944
Publisher: Flagstone Books
Published: 2013-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A few minutes turned into closer to fifteen.

Once the train came to a complete stop, Frank asked me to come down. He handed me his radio with his good arm.

“Okay,” he said, “here’s the deal. Take this radio and your flashlight with you. You get off the train and walk down the tracks until you find the switch box.”

“Am I going to have to do this manually?”

He chuckled. “If it wasn’t manual, it’d already be switched. This is where the Union Pacific ends and the Sante Fe begins, and there isn’t enough driving between the two different railroads to justify the expense of automatic switches. Actually, it’s my own theory that it’s done to keep other drivers off.”

I stepped down to the bottom step at the rear of the caboose, turned and called back to him: “Seems like after NAFTA, these tracks would be used all the time.”

“Go on!” he said. Then, as I shined my light at the ground and stepped down, I heard him say, “Huh! NAFTA!”

I picked my way through the weeds and the course rocks—any one of which could easily turn an ankle, if one misstepped—and to the front of the train. I looked up and saw Corky looking down at me, his elbow out the window and his hand resting on the sash.

“I’ve got Frank’s radio,” I said.

“So?”

“Well, if I need some help, I’ll call you on it. You know, for instruction.”

He was backlit by the dim light in the engine, and I watched him as he paused, then shook his head, as if saying mentally to himself, “Amateurs.”

I walked on ahead.

“Tough crowd,” I said to myself.

I walked fifty feet until I came to a signpost that read “Waco” on it. Beneath it was a big lever. On the other side was a set of tracks coming from the east—two tracks merging into one.

“Criminy,” I said, then raised the radio. “JoJo?”

“Yeah?” she said.

“Tell me what to do. I’m out front.”

“Well, walk over to the tracks and see which way the rails are running.”

“We going left or something?” I asked.

“Bill,” she said. “There’s only one way to go. You have to make sure that the wheels of this thing—which by the way, run on the inside of the rails—will mate up with the rails that take us onto the new track. So walk to where the tracks meet up, shine your light down at them, then imagine these wheels trying to find their way onto the new tracks. If they don’t—if they’re off to the side—then you have to go over and throw the switch, then come back and make sure they’re all the way flush with the new rails so we can ride on them.”

“Huh,” I said. “Gimme a minute.”

“Sure.”

Twenty feet away from the actual lever, the tracks met up. I walked over and shined my light down on the steel. The left rail from our track did indeed meet up with the left rail of the new track, but the right one was skewed by about ten inches.

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