The Midland Scrapyard

For many years, this scrapyard, which sat a few miles outside of Ponyville, had been invaluable to the Equestrian metal industry. They handled all of the scrap metal from Ponyville, and the surrounding area, and when other scrapyards in Equestria were at capacity, the overflow was sent to Midland, and they quickly took care of it all, and liquidated it. They were well-known for their efficiency, hard work, and above all, scrap removal. Each year, thousands of tons of old cars, girders, railroad rails, and even withdrawn railroad freight cars, coaches, and locomotives, among so many other metal things are brought here, either by road, or by rail, cut up, sometimes ground up, and then melted down so that the metal could be shipped off to steel mills so that it could be used again.

As the years went by though, things began to change. For various reasons, from financial, to lack of efficiency, more and more steam locomotives began to be withdrawn from service, and sent away for scrapping, replaced by various diesel locomotives. Most of these engines would end up at larger scrapyards outside of the larger industrial cities of Equestria, but when they were full, the engines, tenders, other rolling stock, and whatever else the railways were scrapping would be sent to Midland so that they could handle it with their usual efficiency. It was around this time that he arrived.

He was a Human from Earth, one of a number in Equestria. He was in his mid 20's, stood around 5'10, had dark drown, almost black hair, smokey-blue eyes, and often wore either faded overalls with a red shirt, or dark coveralls with a white shirt, or sometimes jeans with a pale shirt and a black jacket, and black boots. He also had a tattoo of a black wolf's head on his back. Ashton Casey was his name, and he was rugged, and well built; the perfect blend of brawn and brains, since he'd just graduated college, becoming a mechanical engineer. He arrived in Ponyville, seemingly looking for small town life, and applied for a job at the Midland Scrapyard, and once they saw his impressive credentials (he was overqualified for being a scrapper), they hired him almost immediately. Things were all going well, but they were soon to take a very, very dark turn.

"Ash........you've been messin' with that gosh-darn engine all day. I wanna playyyy!" Applejack whined.

I sighed, looking up from the project I was working on. I'd managed to get my hands on enough scrap components to make a small(ish) 1/25th scale 4-6-0 steam locomotive, and I'd been hard at work on it all day long, welding, soldering, riveting, screwing, drilling, hammering, cursing, painting, and more, until at last, it was nearly done.

"What'dya think, AJ?" I asked as I showed him my creation. "It's not quite done, and it still needs some more paint, and i haven't even attempted to steam it up yet, but I think it's pretty cool for being made out of scrap."

AJ looked at the engine. "I'm just amazed that you were able to take all that scrap, and actually build a workin'(?) engine out of 'em. But now that yer done, can we PLEASE play now?"

I sighed, rolling my eyes a bit. While Applejack was a farmer, and the Element of Honesty, he could definitely be a bit of a whiny himbo at times, but I still loved him for it. After all, I'd been the one to fall for him first, and he "Just couldn't say no to those gorgeous smokey-blue puppy dog eyes you gave me", as he put it. It was a bit strange though, us being a gay couple. It wasn't the most common thing in Ponyville, but Applejack's family was accepting of it, as were our friends, and we both had our own place within close distance to both Sweet Apple Acres, and the Midland Scrapyard, so life was good.

"Yeah, I'm coming, AJ. Just let me cover the paints, rinse off my paintbrush, and clean up some of the mess I made on the kitchen table."

Once I was done, Applejack was waiting for me in the bedroom, wearing only a pair of boxers, revealing his gorgeous muscular body, orange fur, blonde mane and tail, green eyes, and white freckles. He was smirking at me, and gave me the "come here" motion with his finger. I complied, and once I was on the bed, my coltfriend eagerly pulled me in for a kiss, and we were soon in for a VERY fun night!

"Where is he?" Applejack wondered.

He looked up at the clock on the living room wall, which read 10:30pm. I was supposed to get off work at around 8pm, but for some reason, I was still at the scrapyard. He tried to call me on my cellphone, and I did answer, but only to tell him that I would be home soon, but that I was very busy at the moment. Applejack could hear the sounds of droning machinery, sparks flying, torches cutting metal, and more, so I knew that I was indeed still at the scrapyard, most likely on the Cutting Floor where things would be cut up for scrap. Finally, at close to 11pm, I got home. I looked exhausted, was covered in grime, soot, oil, and grease, and my clothes smelled like smoke from being inside the Smelters Shed, and on the Cutting Floor. I sighed, and began to wipe my face off, completely oblivious to the fact that Applejack was naked, or at least he was, until he put on a robe, and came over to me.

"I thought yah got off at 8pm, or a li'l bit later. It's almost 11pm. Why were you there so late?"

"Working." I muttered.

"Working on what?" He asked, a bit annoyed

I looked at him wearily. "Scrapyards are like factories, AJ. They always run, day or night, rain or shine, barring any holidays, and we have a tight schedule to keep to, lest we get overwhelmed by the scrap loads. Sometimes, and quite a lot recently, due to the sudden influx of scrap engines and rolling stock, we have to work several hours overtime with the night crew to keep up with the demand. It sucks, but it must be done."

"Tell me about it, Babe." Applejack said, sympathy in his voice.

"I mean that it sucks, both the workload, and the amount of steam locomotives we have to scrap. It's such a shame. So many of these engines still had many good years left in them, yet here they are to be cut up, and melted down. And for what? To be replaced by those god-awful diesels? Most of them are EXTREMELY unreliable!"

"Well, then ain't it a good thing that the Equestrian Railroads are keepin' a lot of their steam locomotives, to be workin' together with the diesel ones? The steam engines get to stay, and they get help from the reliable diesels. Everypony wins, right?"

"Yeah, 'cept for the scrappers who gotta cut up all the withdrawn steam locomotives, rolling stock, other railroad junk, and the unreliable diesels that're gettin' scrapped too. I'm just glad it's coming to an end soon, as they're FINALLY running low on engines to scrap."

"And then you'll be home more often, right?" Applejack asked.

"Yeah, maybe." I then jotted something in a notebook I always carried in one of the pockets of my overalls.

"What're ya writin'?" Applejack asked.

"Nothing, just something for work." I answered. I then went upstairs to clean up, before joining Applejack in our bedroom to finally get some much-needed rest.

However, even when the scrap load decreased, I still wasn't home a lot, and Applejack was getting really upset about it. He was able to go to work at Sweet Apple Acres with his family, get home around the time that the sun went down, cook something, or bring home leftovers from a meal that Granny Smith and/or his little sister Applebloom cooked, and do his allotted chores around the house, but yet somehow I couldn't, despite working at the scrapyard with a fixed schedule, and having the weekend off? It made no sense. At first, I chocked it up to overtime, but Applejack soon began to suspect that I was cheating on him. However, I vehemently denied this, as did my coworkers at the scrapyard when Applejack talked to them. They told him that I was one of the hardest workers there, and was an expert at cutting up scrap, and then operating the machinery needed to move it either to the grinder, or straight to the smelting vats.

"But then, why don't he come home on time? I mean yeah, I get it, you guys gotta work overtime sometimes, but why's he still comin' home late despite there not being too high of a scrap load, not to mention workin' on the weekends a lot?"

They shrugged. "Weekend pay, perhaps? They pay you at least time-and-a-half, or even double for that. Or maybe he just likes helping the night shift crew. Or maybe he just can't get enough of scrapping things. That's the most fun part of the job after all."

These seemed like reasonable answers, and Applejack took it to mean that I wasn't cheating on him, as I was always at the scrapyard, and always hard at work, but at the same time, Applejack was worried for another reason. I seemed to be working myself to the bone over this, getting very little sleep, and even when I was home, I was often jotting things in my notebook, and mumbling to myself.

"Ok, this has gone on for long enough, Ash. What're you really doing at the scrapyard all the time? Do I even matter to you anymore? You say that you love me, but you don't show it!"

I looked up from my notebook, dark bags under my eyes. "In order, I'm working, yes, of course you matter to me, AJ, as you're my coltfriend, and things'll be back to normal soon, once I get it working anyway."

"Get what working?"

"'The Midland Experiment'." I answered sleepily as I closed my notebook, and put it away.

"What's that?"

"The future of......steam locomotives." I mumbled, before falling fast asleep at my desk.

"Huh?" Applejack asked, but received no reply. "What'd he mean by that?" He wondered. "What's the 'Midland Experiment'?"

AJ asked me again later on when I was more rested, but I still didn't talk about it. He also asked some of my coworkers at the scrapyard, but they didn't have any answers either.

"I've never heard of it."

"That doesn't match anything we're working on here, at least to my knowledge."

"I've heard Ash mutter about it before, but he's never talked about it."

"I don't know, but If it's some kind of weapon, or security system, I wish we had it here at the scrapyard."

"Why's that?" Applejack asked.

"Because every now and again, we keep having scrap parts, usually various steam locomotive parts, go missing. An engine would arrive, and be set aside for scrapping, but when we'd arrive to move it to the Cutting Floor, various parts would already be missing, parts that weren't missing before. Heck, one time a whole engine just up and vanished somehow. Somebody or somepony keeps stealing them for their scrap value, and the scrapyard doesn't keep very good records, so it makes figuring out what was there when the engines arrived difficult. Unless of course its a diesel locomotive, because then you just have to worry about someone stealing the copper wiring. I'm still baffled about that missing engine though. That was bizarre."

Applejack wasn't sure of what to make of this, but he did ask me about it that night when we ate a late dinner.

"Yeah, it's been happening sometimes. Vandals, or maybe thieves keep sneaking into the scrapyard, and helping themselves to parts that look valuable, and because of the poor record-keeping, we can barely figure out what was there when the engine arrived. It hasn't happened in a while though, thanks to beefed-up security. If you ask me though, it was probably the same idiots who keep trying to steal the copper wiring, and copper pipes, since the price of copper is so high right now."

"And they somehow stole a whole steam locomotive?"

I sighed. "That's what Ricky and a few others say, but I and others think that the engine they saw was just moved elsewhere, and then scrapped. Engines get moved around sometimes to keep the sidings organized, and many of them look similar, so mistakes can be made."

I was lying. Applejack didn't know why, but he had a sickening feeling that I was lying to him. Everything I was saying sounded plausible, and I was so calm and collected when I said it, but somehow, he knew I was lying. Over the next week, Applejack continued to notice more strange behavior from me. At night I would often be awake, scribbling more notes into my notebook, muttering about various things, sometimes angrily (Applejack wasn't sure, but it sounded like I was describing locomotive features), or I was out in the garage, checking various tools, and working on what seemed to be an arc-welder. He asked me why I needed it, and I told him that it was for the scrapyard.

Even my coworkers were noticing my odd behavior. While I was still working hard, and was still friendly to them, they too saw me writing and muttering, and would walk around an engine that was about to be cut up for scrap, carefully noting each and every part, and logging them. One night though, one of my coworkers, Cutter, saw me dragging a large firebox door across the scrapyard.

"Why're you dragging that, Ash? Did you hear somepony shout the word 'fetch'?"

I stopped, looked over, and glared at him. "If that was supposed to be a joke Cutter, you failed spectacularly."

I then resumed my dragging, and drug it out of sight behind one of the buildings at the scrapyard. I then came back, and grabbed a cab seat, and carried it away too, before carrying it inside of a disused shed at the scrapyard, Shed #17, shut the door behind me, drug both parts over to where I was working, put on my gloves and welding mask, turned on my arc welder, and got to work.

"It's almost done. Soon I'll be ready to test it, and reveal it to the world. And then they'll see, oh they'll see. Nobody will ever want another oily diesel ever again!" I then cackled giddily to myself as I kept welding.

Finally, late one afternoon, Applejack had had enough. He was tired of the lies, tried of me neglecting him, tired of whatever I was obsessing over, and had enough.

"I'm sick and tired of this shit! Who the f@#k does that asshat think he is? I'm his gosh-durn COLTFRIEND for Celestia's sake! What's in that Faust-forsaken scrapyard that's so f@#king important that he's gotta keep it so hidden? What is is that requires those tools, welding equipment, and.......how many barrels of water did he take? I can't even remember. What's he need that much water for anyway? He ain't THAT thirsty, that's for damn sure!"

Applejack kept looking around in my desk, and the rest of my bedroom, trying to find answers, but I left nothing out. I kept my notebook on me at almost all times, and when it wasn't, it was locked away in my safe. Applejack then saw the 1/25th 4-6-0 steam locomotive that I'd built over 2 1/2 months ago. It was now finished, and had run successfully a few times.

"Heh, he may be an inconsiderate dipshit, but Ash sure does love his trains. If only he loved me like that." Applejack then picked up a picture of he and I together. We were both smiling, and it was clear how much I loved him. "What changed Ash? Why did you pick.....whatever that 'Midland Experiment' is, over me? Why'd you stop loving me?"

Applejack then put the picture back on the desk, and in that moment, he got an idea. He was still extremely pissed at me for neglecting him, and so he decided that it was time to pay me a visit at the scrapyard. Sure, I was still working, maybe even on the Cutting Floor cutting up a steam locomotive, car, freight car, coach, or other scrap with a cutting torch, or moving cut up metal either to the grinder, or the smelting vats in the Smelters Shed, but he knew that he wasn't going to wait any longer to confront me, and after climbing into his pickup truck, Applejack made the short drive out to the Midland Scrapyard, little knowing that he was making one of the worst mistakes of his life

When he arrived, Applejack scanned around the parking lot, and soon spotted my pickup truck, and parked next to it. Once he got out, Applejack looked at my truck. The bed was empty, save for an old tarp, a few oil cans, and a few rusty tools, and the doors were locked, so he looked over at the scrapyard's main gate. He then walked over to it, and stopped next to it, looking over at the gatehouse. He saw the door that most employees entered through using our badges near the main gate, but since he wasn't an employee, he knew he'd have to talk to somepony at the gatehouse.

"Can I help you?" The stallion on duty at the gatehouse, Blue Run, asked when he saw Applejack.

"My name is Applejack, Bearer of the Element of Honesty, and I'm the boyfriend of one of the employees here, Ashton Casey. Is there any chance you could let me in to see him?"

Blue Run looked at him. "Do you work here?"

"No."

"And do you have an ID badge, employee ID number, a trucker's ID, are a supervisor, own the scrapyard, or are one of the Equestrian Princesses?"

"Eh....no. I do have an ID card though."

"Not good enough, I'm afraid. I can't let you in. Company policy."

"Is there any way you can page him, or something?" AJ asked.

Blue Run sighed. "I can try, but the calls placed here go to the main office, and then can be directed to one of the break rooms, but whether or not he can come to the phone depends on where he's working today. Who're you looking for again? And who do I say is asking?"

"Ashton Casey, and tell him that his coltfriend wants to talk to him."

Blue Run then picked up a phone, and dialed it. Sure enough, a few moments later, somepony at the scrapyard's office answered, and they tried to get in contact with me, but there was no answer. Applejack was frustrated, and in his angry/frustrated state, he wasn't thinking straight, and when Blue Run turned away for a moment, Applejack slipped underneath the truck-gate, and was soon running into the scrapyard as fast as he could. He could hear Blue Run, and a few others at or near the gatehouse yelling at him to stop, but he didn't pay him any mind, and soon found himself near the heart of the scrapyard.

All around him were various buildings, gravel paths, a few rail lines, a handful of cranes, a number of tractors, bulldozers, loaders, forklifts and other heavy machinery moving various pallets or pieces of metal, and of course, he was surrounded by scrap. All around him were piles of old cars, steel girders, metal rebar, various railway rolling stock, a handful of steam locomotives, and even a few diesel locomotives too. Most of them were dirty, and rather rusty, and the air was filled with smoke, exhaust fumes, and sulfur, as well as the noises of snorting machinery, the roar of the fires in the Smelters Shed, and the sounds of things being cut up on the Cutting Floor. He had no idea where I was, and he knew that the scrapyard security would be looking for him very shortly, so he knew that he had to move fast.

While doing his best to dodge the security team, Applejack began to ask various workers if they'd seen me. Some of them said no, while others said that they had seen me earlier, cutting up scrap on the Cutting Floor, but weren't sure where I was now.

"Wouldn't he still be on the Cutting Floor though?" Applejack asked the worker, who was offloading a line of railway fuel tankers to provide fuel for the generators and diesel engines powering the machinery at the scrapyard.

"Sometimes, though he may have gone to the Smelters Shed. Being a higher-tier on the totem pole, he has more freedom of movement, and job placement for the day."

Applejack was about to nod, but just as he began to, Blue Run came around the corner of a nearby building, followed by several other security officers, and spotted Applejack. He shouted to others that he'd found the intruder, and Applejack was frozen to the spot. He was just about to run away, when suddenly, it happened.

Around the same time that Applejack had pulled into the parking lot of the scrapyard, I was taking a drink from some hot chocolate from my thermos. I was a bit sweaty, and tired, but at long last, it was finally done. "The Midland Experiment" had finally been completed, and the fruits of my labor were standing in front of me, all 877,000+lbs (empty-weight) of it.

"Or at least, it's done enough to start testing. It'll still need a little more work, not to mention a bit of tweaking/troubleshooting if anything goes wrong, and then I'll have to paint it properly, but it should be all good. And at least it has the numbering, and markings that it should. It'll be a fine locomotive that'll save mainline steam in Equestria." As I was drinking my hot chocolate, I looked down at my arc-welder, and pulled the handle-grip to allow some more wire to come out. It moved about an inch, and then stopped.

"Damn. Out of wire again. Dammit! I just hope I can find some more wire without anyone noticing. Miles and miles of wire have gone into this project, and I may need more if any repairs need to be made. In any case though, now it's time to finally steam my creation up for the first time."

I then put down my thermos, picked up a bag of coal, and after dumping it inside of the firebox in front of me, I doused it with some gasoline, and lit up a match, before tossing it inside the firebox too, which soon blazed to life. I then checked the water and coal supply in the engine's tender, which I'd filled up a few days earlier, and finding them to be good, I began to look at the gauges on my creation. After a few minutes, I began to see them quiver a bit, before moving for the first time.

"She's alive, alive!" I cackled, amazed that I was now bringing life to my creation, and very soon, I would be revealing her to the world. "And that's when it'll all be worth it."

As the engine began to steam up though, it began to creak and groan. I knew that this was just the engine coming to life as it should, but it sounded....eerie for some reason. I then tapped a few of the gauges, wondering how long it was going to take to build up steam. I then began to hear a strange hissing noise. I tried to see where it was coming from, but I couldn't tell. I assumed that it was a small leak somewhere, and that it wouldn't be a problem. I couldn't have been more wrong.

At that exact moment, just as Blue Run was racing towards Applejack, Applejack was getting ready to run, and the other scrapyard workers were looking on in surprise, there suddenly came an awful, ear-splitting scream coming from one of the nearby sheds used to store engines and rolling stock; a scream of horrible pain. Everypony turned to look at the source of the noise, which was coming from Shed #17. Just then, one of the front doors of the shed burst open, and to Applejack's horror, I came stumbling out, horribly burned, and still screaming in agony.

Applejack started running over to me, and managed to grab me by part of my overalls I was wearing just as I sank to the ground. The left side of my face, neck, chest, and left arm and hand were horribly burned, with my left shirt sleeve, left glove, and part of my overalls melded with my burnt flesh from the heat.

"Oh my Faust! Ash! What.....what the f@#k happened to you?!" He yelled in a panic.

"W-whatever you do......d-do not go in there! It's....not safe!" I said in as strong of a voice I could through the unburned side of my mouth, before my breathing started to get a bit raggedy.

Just then, there came a loud, eerie whistle, and AJ looked back at the shed, where a cloud of smoke and steam was billowing.

"What....what was that?"

"Oh dear lord." I muttered, looking back at the shed again. "What did I do? What have I done?"

Before Applejack could say anything else though, something big came puffing out of the engine shed. To the surprise of everypony present, it was a monstrous-looking scrap-engine. It was tall, long, and was colored in a mixture of black and gray. It had a 2-10-4 wheel arrangement, and its number was "5000" crudely painted onto its cab sides, and tender, along with the words "Santa Fe" in white paint. Rust was visible in some parts of the engine and its massive tender, along with the letters "AT&SF", steam was hissing from its pistons, boiler, and backhead, while thick clouds of black smoke came billowing out of its funnel, and back through the cab, which almost seemed to be on fire. As the engine came puffing closer, everypony looked closer at it, and then somebody screamed.

This monstrous engine wasn't built looking like it currently did; it had been made to look like that after the fact. It was little more than a Frankenstein; an amalgamation of parts taken from many different steam locomotives, and then crudely bolted, riveted, and welded together to form this....this.....thing. Its boiler had come from at least 2 different engines, its chassis from 3, its pistons and driving rods looked all messed up; cut apart, and then welded together to form new, longer shapes, the wheels were several different sizes, the cab was lopsided, and almost every part of the tender had a weld joint on it. It wasn't a steam locomotive; it was a monster.

Applejack stared in horror at what I'd created, now finally realizing that this was the "Midland Experiment" I'd been obsessing over. He literally had no words to describe what he was feeling. Soon, the paramedics arrived to take me away to the hospital, while the police were called in as well, both to investigate this situation, and to question Applejack about his trespassing. All the while though, the scrap-engine, which at this point had come to a stop on a set of points a fair distance away from the shed, was still making frightful noises as the boiler and firebox cooled down.

"It was horrifying." Applejack said later. "It......that locomotive was screaming! I swear to Celestia, that locomotive was screaming in pain! I've never heard anything like that in my life, and that sound....that Faust-awful scream, has haunted my nightmares ever since that day. I'll never forget it, nor Ash stumbling out of that shed looking like he'd been nearly half-barbecued."

After the scrap-engine had cooled down, it was pushed into a siding pending further investigations, and the scrap-engine rolled off down the siding, and even though its fire was out, and the boiler cooled, the scrap-engine was still making noises, almost....groaning and moaning noises. It kept rolling deeper and deeper into the scrapyard, soon vanishing from view.