The Brave Little Engine
Long ago, in the days when trains were driven by steam and engines had personality, there was a particularly cheerful engine named Tommy. Tommy was a light, small engine, used mostly to pull passenger trains. He was dwarfed by the huge freight engines that puffed proudly around the train station, but he was happy with his job, and did it very well. Trains that he pulled always seemed to run on time. He had the spunk and energy needed to make up for a late start, and the endurance to lead passengers on a long journey, and make it a pleasant experience for all concerned. Even some of the passengers knew Tommy, and smiled when they saw him.
Now, one day, there was a big storm to the south, and large cities were laid to the ground. Trains from everywhere around hauled enormous shipments of wood, brick, steel, and stone down to the areas that needed them most. So it happened that, when a large shipment of medicine and fresh water was prepared for the people who had been sleeping outside, bitten by mosquitoes and bothered by rats, none of the large, proud freight engines were left to pull it. In fact, only Tommy was left, and so he was hitched to the front of that train.
The load was lightened as much as it could be without removing vital medicine. A missing vial of penicillin or quinine could easily mean a lost life — and the tanks of fresh water in the shipment were even more vital. Tommy quivered as he started forward. It was easily the heaviest train he had ever had to pull, and this was no easy haul across town. The engineers and loaders all smiled, and said, “You can do it, Tommy!” as he pulled slowly, very very slowly, out of the station — but, behind their smiles, you could see there was worry in their eyes.
Tommy pulled and pulled, and with each chug of his piston, with each hiss of steam, the train went a little faster. He learned the art of anticipating hills — building up speed before he came to them, so that his burden could help him over the top. He managed more than half of his journey in this fashion, and was still going strong. Yet the worry in the engineers’ eyes did not diminish, and he soon found out why. Before him loomed an enormous mountain, with almost a straight run all the way to the top.
He started building up speed, knowing he would need everything he had to pull himself up over this mountain. This got him over the foothills, and he always came down each hill with a bit of extra speed — but they did not allow him a steady buildup of momentum.
Tommy came to the base of the mountain itself with a good burst of speed from the last foothill, his fires white hot, and feeling ready for anything. And so it was that the last car in the train was a hundred feet up the mountain before he even felt its weight pulling him down. He was five hundred feet up the side of the mountain, almost half way, before he even slowed down. And so began a slow and steady struggle against gravity, and Tommy knew it was going to take everything he had to pull himself over this mountain.
Even in those days, when people might still smile at a steam engine, or feel its presence, people and steam engines did not talk to each other. Yet, in the slow, rhythmic labor of the cylinder and the steam, everyone on board seemed to hear him saying, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…” over and over, grim determination and quiet optimism fighting together to marshal every last bit of strength the little engine had.
Tommy was running hotter and hotter. They started to bring water from the drinking water tanks in back to cool him. “I … think … I … can … I … THINK … I … can …” The water would sizzle into steam the second it touched his overheated surface. Gears inside seemed to grind against one another, perhaps from the strain, or the heat expansion, or even the danger of melting. “I ….. think ….. I ….. can …..” There were only 200 feet left to go, but it felt like a mile to the crew. “I ….. think ….. I ….. can …..” Anyone not immediately necessary to keep the engine running hopped off, and walked alongside. It didn’t take much to match Tommy’s speed at this point. It made almost no difference to the weight of the train. “I … think.” Hiss. Grind. Chug. “I … can”
One hundred feet left to go. The smell of burning oil filled the air. Black smoke joined the steam spouting up from Tommy’s stack. Covered in a solid coat of black soot, Tommy looked grim indeed. His optimism was gone, and his resolve was fading. Every turn of his wheels was a deeply painful struggle. Yet, through it all, the crew walking along the tracks heard, “I … … … THINK … … … I … … … can …” Tears came to their eyes. They had never seen such bravery in man or machine.
There was an enormous hiss as Tommy reached the peak of the mountain. He started down the other side. The weight of the cars still pulled hard behind him. “I … THINK … I … can …” The words were harder to hear. They seemed muffled. The hiss continued. Yet, for the first time, human eyes began to glisten with a glimmer of hope.
With an enormous crack that sounded like a gunshot, Tommy’s piston rod snapped in two. Inside the cylinder, his piston seized, then fused into place with half-molten steel. Forward progress stopped instantly, and he began to be pulled back over the peak. Everyone walking alongside scrambled back on board to apply brakes and try to slow their descent backwards down the mountain. Although Tommy’s power had been totally disengaged, much of his mechanism was still moved by the turning wheels, and everyone on board felt they could hear him say, “I … THOUGHT … I … could … I … THOUGHT … I could …”
Putting on the brakes seemed to do almost no good, though there’s little doubt the train would have careened out of control without them. As it was, it built up speed all the way down the mountain. “I thought I could I thought I could Ithought IcouldIthoughtIcouldI…” There was another loud crack, and Tommy’s voice fell silent. His wheels had seized up, and nobody ever heard another word from him again. Sparks flew as the stationary wheels were dragged down the track. About fifty feet up the mountain, Tommy stopped. The brakes and the nearest foothill had done their work to stop the cars which had been so relentless in pulling him down. Not a single human had been injured.
As Tommy cooled enough that the engineers could take a look, they stared and shook their heads. There was almost nothing inside to be salvaged. Heat and friction had ravaged his inner workings, and it was all they could do to disengage and free his wheels so that he could be pulled back to the station. They had to use saws, axes, crowbars, and even the odd shovel.
It was another day before a freight engine could be brought to push the load over the mountain. The big freight engine pushed all the cars and Tommy, and also pulled its own load, without missing a beat. The medicine and water were well received and saved many lives. With all the traffic in empty cars leaving the struggling town, an engine was found to haul Tommy back to his home station that very day. As Tommy ascended that mountain for the last time and descended the other side, nothing was heard but the inanimate sound of his wheels spinning along the track.
Tommy was pulled to an empty, unused part of the station, where very few came to look at him. Few, indeed, knew he was there. Every once in a while, a passenger would ask, “Whatever happened to old Tommy? He always added an extra spark to my day when he pulled my train into town.” Then, the engineer would smile a sad smile, and tell Tommy’s story, and point off to the place where Tommy had been laid to rest.
Those who did go to visit Tommy found him just off the end of the tracks in the southwest corner of the station. Trees grew around him, as if to shelter him from the rain; yet he was covered in rust. Someone had carved a wooden sign and pounded it into the ground between Tommy and the station. The sign said:
Tommy The Engine,
With the Heart of a Hero,
Gave His All on the Mountain.
He Thought He Could.
Tommy and that sign stand there to this day, both much decayed by the passage of time. But go see it if you can. It will bring a tear to your eye.
