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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#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.

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 – 74 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 – 17 stories

Stories

“Roxie's Train Ride” by Judy Robinson

Submitted to Contest #168

Roxie's Train Ride As Roxie boarded The Scotia at Liverpool, the weather was a cool 50 degrees. She knew that she would miss her home, but she needed to find new challenges. She also knew it would be rough going in the new country of America, but she felt up to the challenge. They dropped anchor in the Hudson River, off Jersey City. She found a stenography and typing job in Jersey City. Her apartment rent was $9.50 a month. Even thoug...

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“Tarnished” by Cindy Strube

Submitted to Contest #168

Tarnished Note: this account is based on actual events in the lives of real people. Names have been changed to protect the memories of the innocent. October 17, 1905 - Tuesday My dearest James, Patience has been staring out the window for miles. We’re nearly a day into the journey, and there’s nothing much to see except for the endless prairie. I suspect she’s looking instead at mental imagery. What must she be thinking?… Feeling? It’s a tremendous change to make at her age, but I hope it will be for the bes...

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“Pixie Dust” by Hannah Cochrane

Submitted to Contest #168

Toni leans on her hand, staring out at the drizzly scenery whirring by. She’s been in the city for far too long and she’s been looking forward to this trip, to the countryside for months now, and the weather has the nerve to do this. This is supposed to be a fun trip, an adventure, boring at no turn. She watches animals huddle under trees, rainclouds get greyer and fat raindrops hit the window. Was that thunder? The door to her compartment flies open and slams shut be...

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“Dangan Ressha” by Javier Hanson

Submitted to Contest #168

(TRIGGER WARNING - VULGAR LANGUAGE, SEXUAL CONTENT)~The train lines of Rubico stretched outward in all directions from the center of the city, encapsulating the neverending stretch of boxy high-rises and one story whatever shops in a comically large spiderweb of public transportation. Even when it wasn’t night, it was raining, so the turquoise-glow of tracks buffeted everything below with its titanium shine. But if you played music in your headgear, you’d barely hear a cut of air pass above you, that is, if some homeless wasn't up in your ea...

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“Haunted House” by Lucy Bergholtz

Submitted to Contest #168

I used to be terrified at the prospect of leaving. To leave something, someone, anything that I knew and grew close to, was always a thought I avoided having. I try not to get attached to people, places, or things, but it’s hard not to fall in love when my existence kisses the existence of something else. The beach town upstate that feels like it’s all my own, the man I fell in love with nearly two years ago and with whom I want to spend my life, every letter I’ve ever received from my cross-continental penpal. Places, people, things. I hate...

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“The Moscow Train” by Anne Marie Byrne

Submitted to Contest #168

The Moscow Train A cold wind howled around the platform as Irina Kuznetsova climbed on board the Moscow train. She was glad of the fine leather gloves that her parents had given her as a going away present. The journey by horse and carriage from her home town of Suzdal to the railway station at Vladimir had been slow and uncomfortable. Her brother, Ivan, had had to steer the carriage cautiously along the rough road. Melting snow meant that the road was muddy and the potholes and sidings were difficult to discern. But the horse was str...

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“Miracle” by Siti Zulaikha Abd Rahman

Submitted to Contest #168

People often said love happens when you fall in love with someone, and you want to spend your entire life with them. But for me, love is when you told yourself, your partner isn’t perfect, they have flaws, and you accept them as who they are. You believe in them and help them to climb up the mountain of challenges awaiting ahead of them. Tup! Close my laptop and walk towards the sliding door. The sunset looks so beautiful. The mix of the colour of orange and blue skies makes them exceptionally mesmerizing. Look down and see my fluffy cat sti...

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“Who am I” by Haley Blank

Submitted to Contest #168

Dedicated to my younger self and anyone who is struggling with loneliness and/or life changes. I’m surrounded by thousands of people, but they all feel like strangers. I know many people’s names but at the same time I don’t really know anyone, and no one knows me. I write this in my journal, as I notice little wet circles dampen the page. It takes me a moment to realize I am crying. I’m not myself. I look up through my tear-drop blurred vision at the cinderblock wall of the dorm I’ve been assigned. I stare at the wall as the whit...

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“TheIM's Ripple” by Sri Vi S

Submitted to Contest #168

TheIM could see the autumn out of the train window in that special journey. The most reflective period she pondered. She was so tired of words and letter, wanted to de-vocabularise, de-chatter from the very core of her being. She had been perplexed with Time and she could never understand what humans meant by age. It seemed "season" was more relevant than time itself. But at the threshold of fifty-one, TheIM felt a vortex of seasons. She was being ripped and torn to shreds at every ripple. But this vortex was within her. Zen at its didactic ...

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“The Cure” by Ashley Smith

Submitted to Contest #168

Nothing mattered anymore, and nothing was important anymore. There was no point in going to medical school, so I quit. In most cases, my parents are a good support system, but they do not understand how I feel. I felt my fingers getting numb, my face getting clenched, and I was on the verge of crying. Rather than continue with this, it would be better if I just ended it all. I am ugly, I don't deserve to be here, and it would be better if I just ended it. My thoughts were coming to life and whispered to me the word die. I heard Mila, my olde...

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“Someone” by Isabella King

Submitted to Contest #168

I set the letter down on the dining room table and waited for Roger to come home. His name, scrawled in red ink, occupied the front of the envelope, the color chosen for its eye-catching hue. It wasn’t like him to be out at night, I fumed, glancing at the grandfather clock as it ticked toward eleven. At last, Roger came in rather clumsily, stumbling over the legs of the coat rack before closing the door behind him. A battered pirate hat sat askew on his head, and a plastic sword dangled from his ...

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“The Conductor Steps Out” by Marvin Sohl

Submitted to Contest #168

[Content warning: this story contains scenes of violence, blood, and language] The sight of distant cosmos swirling past the window had long ceased to impress the Conductor. At two months old it was one of the senior staff on the train, and while first-time tourists and younger Conductors often gawked at the milky way beyond, to this one it felt as routine as the offboarding announcement it knew was coming as the tracks wound down to the planet below. &nb...

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“"Go."” by Faosiyat Kolapo

Submitted to Contest #168

Warning! Story will contain things such as: Mental health Self harm Implied Violence Swearing 08: 12 am, Mon, April 2nd, 19XX ****** “Hey mom, wake up!” "What?” said Eden’s mother, drowsy, not bothering to look at him as she wrapped her blanket more tightly around her. “Have you seen my suitcase?” “Why?” “Don’t ask why, you know why; my train is leaving in less than four hours,” “And?” asked Eden’s mother as she turned away from him. Eden groaned. He knew he’d get nowhere if he got angry so he took a deep breath ...

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“RAILROADED - THE HEIST” by Debbie Curtin

Submitted to Contest #168

We only had a slim to vague idea of the latest request from our friend and film producer Terry Traynor when he reached out at the last minute to ask to have us work an angle in his latest storyline. Bourbon Street Films was his calling for years and we stepped up on occasion to lend a hand or twirl a skirt or whatever was needed for his next cleverly dreamed up storyline. It always proved to be the best time spent in a most fun and creative way ever imagined. Just a different type of art scene for me and he made it click. The latest movie an...

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“Derek Zimmer's strange encounter at the train station” by James Reynolds

Submitted to Contest #168

The train station had been deserted for some time now. One of the light’s flickered on occasion and the odd car would go by, a fox would laugh, an owl will call but other than that all was silent. The train-station was very small and built for this one train line for a train that stopped every half hour. Once it hit around eleven it came and momentarily broke the peace. It crawled out of the darkness like a snake, the light from the cold concrete station reflected of the train’s glossy panels as it slowed down to a halt and the doors opened ...

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$250

Prize money

280

Contest 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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