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#168 Choo Choo!

The concept of train travel has always been a powerful motif in story telling. Train wagons can be a great setting for serendipitous love encounters, like for Jesse and Céline in Before Sunrise, or mysterious murders, like in Agatha Christie's classic Orient Express.

On a train, the mind wanders, time shifts, and life… unfolds. We hope that these train-inspired prompts will put you on the right track to writing some great stories.

🥇 Winner

SOUTHBOUND

David Sweet

Winner of Contest #168 🏆

SOUTHBOUNDby David M. SweetDoralea looked out the window of the southbound train. Mid-October leaves dappled the Kentucky hillsides in fiery oranges and burning reds, dull yellows and rusty browns with a few evergreens peaking through the canopies. Colors were made even more vivid by the morning sun and clear, blue sky. Flaxen sedge grass along with green tangles of weeds, brambles, and even a few autumn flowers blurred together as she shifted her gaze downward toward the edges of fields and fence rows speeding by next to the railroad bed. T...

154 likes

128 comments 128

⭐️ Shortlisted

Far Away and Fast

Deidra Whitt Lovegren

Shortlisted for Contest #168 ⭐️

There were too many of us, Lizzy thought, tucking herself behind a door jamb.Her father smoked in stony silence in front of a television, while her mother swatted her brothers who snatched fingerfuls of mashed potatoes from a large bowl on the dining room table. In various sizes, her brothers pushed and yelled, whining about being hungry, complaining about being late for football or wrestling practice, asking if there were any more chocolate doughnuts from the bakery.As usual, her mother was cross, but she never yelled. She would slam c...

77 likes

One Day in October

AnneMarie Miles

Shortlisted for Contest #168 ⭐️

I’d like to think I would recognize an October sky without the Gregorian calendar telling me to expect one. There is an unmistakable ambience in the air, offered by its clouds and the clear blue sky and the aging leaves pointing their fingers up at the daylight moon. Especially here in California, where the seasons are subtle. We have to be more aware of the details, because that’s all we get. It is a slow shift. There’s no massive exodus of green leaves, and no snowstorm announcing Jack Frost’s pending arrival.There’s just October.And that ...

38 likes

By The Withernsea

Shortlisted for Contest #168 ⭐️

“What thee mean, you’re closing down our station?” Ernest Claybourn protested almost inaudibly, as he stood on his station’s platform under a torrential Yorkshire Autumn downpour. “Well, I’ll go t’foot of our stairs – if I had any. That’s how gobsmacked I am.” Charles Fotherington-Clarke stood opposite Ernest, drenched from head to foot. Moments prior, he had been enjoying the warmth and comfort of a first-class carriage on the Hull to Withernsea steam train. Disembarking amid Yorkshire’s wettest October on record, the elements provided him ...

25 likes

The Last Train

Zoë Page

Shortlisted for Contest #168 ⭐️

One moment, I breathed freely and healthily. The next, my feet were pounding on a substance I could not identify, and I was desperately trying to sprint faster than humanely possible. I ran on something that was soft and delicate all at the same time as being hard and gravel-like. I didn’t breathe, and I felt no exhaustion, but yet it was still difficult as ever to run much faster than an overweight dog. At first, I didn’t really register why I was running, then I noticed the train beginning to slowly move along the tracks not far away fro...

21 likes

This week's prompts

Start your story with someone looking out a train window.

Middle School – 98 stories

Write a story about a character who is moving on, literally or figuratively.

Narrative – 58 stories

Make a train station an important part of your story.

Narrative – 73 stories

Write a story about a character who misses a train, for better or worse.

Adults – 33 stories

Write a story that includes someone saying, “Bon voyage.”

Adults – 16 stories

Stories

SOUTHBOUND

David Sweet

Winner of Contest #168 🏆

SOUTHBOUNDby David M. SweetDoralea looked out the window of the southbound train. Mid-October leaves dappled the Kentucky hillsides in fiery oranges and burning reds, dull yellows and rusty browns with a few evergreens peaking through the canopies. Colors were made even more vivid by the morning sun and clear, blue sky. Flaxen sedge grass along with green tangles of weeds, brambles, and even a few autumn flowers blurred together as she shifted her gaze downward toward the edges of fields and fence rows speeding by next to the railroad bed. T...

154 likes

128 comments 128

Far Away and Fast

Deidra Whitt Lovegren

Shortlisted for Contest #168 ⭐️

There were too many of us, Lizzy thought, tucking herself behind a door jamb.Her father smoked in stony silence in front of a television, while her mother swatted her brothers who snatched fingerfuls of mashed potatoes from a large bowl on the dining room table. In various sizes, her brothers pushed and yelled, whining about being hungry, complaining about being late for football or wrestling practice, asking if there were any more chocolate doughnuts from the bakery.As usual, her mother was cross, but she never yelled. She would slam c...

77 likes

Pursuit of Truth

Michał Przywara

Submitted to Contest #168

+371 daysThe key to the case was the distraught old man with the cabbie hat and the bouquet of roses – but Detective Ben Rainer didn’t realize it until long after he was no longer a detective.“Let it go, Ben,” said Laszlo, his onetime partner, over the phone. “It’s been a year. What do you even want out of it?”Ben cradled his cell against his shoulder and rifled through the papers strewn on his kitchen table until he found one with some free space. He grabbed a pen too.“I want the truth,” he said. “All I need is a name.” He clicked his pen. ...

43 likes

One Day in October

AnneMarie Miles

Shortlisted for Contest #168 ⭐️

I’d like to think I would recognize an October sky without the Gregorian calendar telling me to expect one. There is an unmistakable ambience in the air, offered by its clouds and the clear blue sky and the aging leaves pointing their fingers up at the daylight moon. Especially here in California, where the seasons are subtle. We have to be more aware of the details, because that’s all we get. It is a slow shift. There’s no massive exodus of green leaves, and no snowstorm announcing Jack Frost’s pending arrival.There’s just October.And that ...

38 likes

All the dandelions were gone

Submitted to Contest #168

Goodbye house forever. I closed the heavy door and heard my footsteps on the wooden floor for the last time. I remember the good times and the bad times in high detail. I remember the quick lunches, and the dirty dishes exploding against the paper wall, the chairs moving fast and the stillness arriving after.There were sometimes violent storms approaching, and there were some other times when a weak insignificant dew washed it all. It washed away the good and it erased the bad.Days were beautiful when sunny, and dusks were dreadful when...

38 likes

How I Came to Leave Hartfield Manor

Aeris Walker

Submitted to Contest #168

CW: Sensitive themes relating to pregnancy/childrenI never thought I’d leave Hartfield Manor, but the train is moving now, and there is no going back. Everything I hold dear is stowed beneath my seat or in a bundle on my lap; I took only what I needed to start over. I shall miss the staff and little Peter and the twins, but they’ll all forget me soon enough. Once they’ve hired a new nursery maid, I’ll become a distant memory. Lord Thorne will probably fabricate a tale to besmirch my good name—something about how I was a fraud or a danger to ...

37 likes

Tomorrow Is Yesterday

Submitted to Contest #168

June 6th 2000. Tomorrow is the day.I can’t believe it. I knew the day would come eventually but it’s actually here. A new chapter, a new last name, the unknown, an end and a beginning. I can’t imagine my life without him. I’m nervous and a little scared. I wonder what he’s thinking now. Does he have any regrets or cold feet? Will he sleep a wink tonight? I know I won’t. I want to call him but I know I shouldn’t. True love is rare, more so than I could ever have imagined. &n...

35 likes

Stories on a Train - Xinjiang 1995

Scott Christenson

Submitted to Contest #168

As I stand on a crowded train platform in Beijing, baking in the summer heat waiting for a train that hasn't arrived for an alarmingly long time, a very tall Western male with shaggy gray hair approaches.“We should travel together, it’s safer that way,” he says with a strong Australian accent. I had never met an Australian before.“What do you mean?” I stall and try to figure out who he is and why I would need to travel with this widly exotic individual. But I also might be lost and don’t speak the local language. “My train should have left 2...

34 likes

Bread and Butter for the Journey

Seán McNicholl

Submitted to Contest #168

Let’s take a little trip, On a rocket ship To the far side of the moon. You can start a brand new life, Free from all the care and strife. For the old planet is doomed. Begod, I wish I could get that damn jingle out of me head! If I hear it once more I swear to ye, I’ll eject me-self from the hatch, no suit nor nothin’. But that would defeat the purpose folks. Ye see, I’m not meant to be here at all. I sorta snuck onto the ship. Oh be sures, they’ll let us Dubliners build the feckin’ thing, but could...

33 likes

Baking up Trouble

Submitted to Contest #168

TW: Hints at sexual assault, swearing.Yellow light reflects off the window as I watch my station disappear in the subway tunnel. Blackness turns into the bright light of a train heading the other direction. I think of my little girl, Tina, with her mother, Billie. Be a better man. No more powers. No risking your freedom. I try not to make eye contact with anyone. Some of them have gang tattoos. I saw a...

32 likes

Crimson

F.J Red

Submitted to Contest #168

When Fae began a painting, the bristles of her paintbrush would dance around the canvas, her hand whirling, almost impulsively. The shapes and shades flowed and melded together, fusing into a violent frenzy, and then evolving into a picture. It’s strange the way the magic happened. Fae sucked in a deep breath, her eyes slightly unfocused from staring too long at the dying succulent by the windowsill. She twirled a slim paintbrush between her fingers, before dipping it into a deep crimson red. As the red was about to invade the white, she pau...

26 likes

Rush Hour Crush

Submitted to Contest #168

To the blonde woman with a mischievous smile, wearing a green quilted coat and travelling on the train from Kings Cross to Leeds after work on October 12th. How about a Sunday evening stroll along the Thames? Duffle coat dreamerTo the hot, dungaree-wearing girl who winked at me this Friday as I got on the train at London Bridge station. I should never have left the platform. Hopefully I haven’t missed my chance. Guy in the red fleece with the black...

26 likes

By The Withernsea

Shortlisted for Contest #168 ⭐️

“What thee mean, you’re closing down our station?” Ernest Claybourn protested almost inaudibly, as he stood on his station’s platform under a torrential Yorkshire Autumn downpour. “Well, I’ll go t’foot of our stairs – if I had any. That’s how gobsmacked I am.” Charles Fotherington-Clarke stood opposite Ernest, drenched from head to foot. Moments prior, he had been enjoying the warmth and comfort of a first-class carriage on the Hull to Withernsea steam train. Disembarking amid Yorkshire’s wettest October on record, the elements provided him ...

25 likes

The Future of Murder

Daniel Allen

Submitted to Contest #168

TW: Contains some bad language and physical violence/gore.I’m going to kill them. We’ve all thought it, don’t bother lying. The difference between us is you’d never do it. You tell yourself it’s because killing is wrong. You’re not a murderer. It just isn’t in your nature. But that’s not true. The truth is, you’re afraid. You don’t think you can pull it off. You think you’ll get caught. And you’re right, you would. You’re not me.Yesterday, some jerk bumped into me in the street and spilt his scolding hot coffee all over me. You know the type...

23 likes

Love on the Rails

Submitted to Contest #168

Cairn tied his cart to the flatbed train car. Melanie tied hers alongside it. Her horse, Samwise, was enjoying a rest in the stable car, towards the front of the train. “It’s an odd pilgrimage to make,” she said. Her bronze-coloured hand reached out for his. Cairn, still unsure of their limits as a new couple, placed his pale hand in hers. “I suppose it’s important to remember why the world is the wa...

23 likes

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Contest #169

This contest has ended. Thank you for your submissions.

$250

Prize money

278

Entries

105

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Oct 21, 2022 EST

Won by David Sweet 🏆

Title: SOUTHBOUND

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

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