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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

“There's No Going Back” by Robyn Hart

Submitted to Contest #168

(Trigger Warning: Story contains mentions of abuse, substance abuse and depression.) Raised wrong, abandoned at the age of five, left to fend for herself in the great big world. It already seemed like it couldn't get any worse for Willow, right? Wrong, it could. To add to the pain that was her existence, she also was assaulted at six years old on the streets, how she managed to survive as long as she had was truly a miracle. There was one shelter that really looked out for her, the people there had basically raised her. Of course, as vol...

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“Charing Cross, 1942” by Liv Anderson

Submitted to Contest #168

CHARING CROSS, 1942. If someone had told me a year ago that I’d be spending my twenty-seventh birthday alone, in the buffet bar at Charing Cross, and rather enjoying it, I’d have never believed them. But a lot has happened in the last year or so and frankly there’s nowhere I’d rather be. Of course I could have gone out with Jimmy Fenton from Accounts, who inquired ever so politely if I’d finally accept his offer of a drink this evening to mark the occasion, but quite honestly I’d rather not inhale his cigar smoke, and I’m certainly no...

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“Destined Destination” by Julie Pruitt

Submitted to Contest #168

[death] “Lev, you know we love your writing,” Mikhail Katkov said to the incensed writer. “But the last installment of your novel is a catastrophe.” Lev sat with folded arms across his chest. If he spoke, he knew that all hell would shake the corridors of the Herald. “My wife believes it is a great novel,” Lev finally said through clenched teeth. “Naturally your wife would say that … she’s your wife. Lev, I’m giving you my honest gut opinion – you will be laughed out of the country or stoned if we publish this.” The publisher ...

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“Xartha Station” by Christine Howells

Submitted to Contest #168

The train station at Xartha has always been my favourite place to spend a Sunday afternoon. Every few minutes, a new onslaught of tourists would pile into the station, creating a cacophonous racquet that filled the air. Today I was in my usual hiding place, amongst the pigeons in the rafters, where I was quietly watching the never-ending circus that had come to experience one of the most popular destinations in the galaxy, Xartopia. ‘Stay close!’ ‘Mind your feet! ‘Watch out!’ came the cries of concerned parents, as their young pointed,...

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“Seasons Change” by Kate Kilbee

Submitted to Contest #168

The tree was part of me. I made a detour so I could see it every day as I went shopping in the nearby village of Laverton. I saw it as the seasons changed and the years rolled by. I lived alone and dreaded the day, possibly not too far away now, when I would be too old or ill to make the trip. I would never cease to love the tree as it was part of you too.There was a warm May evening from so long ago etched perfectly and permanently on my heart. "Surprise!" you'd yelled when I opened the door and saw you, bike in one hand, picnic basket in t...

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“Midnight” by Ema Fancher

Submitted to Contest #168

Eileen shivered from the lack of sunlight and the abundance of adrenaline. Hazel eyes darted left and right, scanning the tangled mass of naked trees and the empty parking lot. She gripped her cardigan tight as she all but ran across the crumbling asphalt. Upon reaching the wooden porch of the station building, she huddled in the shadowed corner while her numb fingers fumbled to find the proper key. She’d done this job for the past month and silently scolded herself for her continued anxiety. Thirty days ago, she told herself the work would ...

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“The Birthday Station” by Peter Presscott

Submitted to Contest #168

A man was standing at the train station. I immediately noticed it. I was on my usual route home when I saw him out of the corner of my eye. I forced my board to a full stop and looked at him. There was a man in a tuxedo standing on the platform of the long-abandoned train station. It struck me as fascinating, but also weird, and suddenly I felt the instinct to run. It’s the ability to defy our instincts without being trained that makes us human, that’s what I’ve always believed. It’s that ability that allowed me to walk toward the m...

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“The Midnight Train ” by Annie Halloin

Submitted to Contest #168

The Midnight Train Based on a true story ROME, 1944 The air raid sirens sounded like Satan’s screams. Not that they were unusual anymore. They howled in the mornings. They howled in the evenings. They howled during afternoon tea. Maybe it was bravery or maybe it was exhaustion, but no one seemed to mind them very much anymore, if they minded them at all. People simply stepped over the rubble—the recent casualties of stone and mortar—as they continued on their way. These buildings had stood longer than their lifetimes or their gr...

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“Defiance Station” by P. T. Golden

Submitted to Contest #168

Content warning: this was written 24 hours before the drone attacks in Ukraine.Tomb-like darkness embraced the city streets. Flashes of outgoing anti-missile fire illuminated the broken skyline. The car raced, dodging the many craters and molten debris."God, please, just get us there safely!" Daniel Devaile held his wife Maria's head in his lap; hunched over her, he peered over the edge of the window, his finger exploring a bullet hole in the door. "American? Don't worry; this is my twelfth trip tonight, and nobody has died ye...

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“The train” by Allard Van Gent

Submitted to Contest #168

In a slow walk, head tilted forward and arms limp along his body, the man moved through the main hall of Amsterdam's Central Station. His glasses threatened to fall off his nose with every movement, but just in time he managed to prevent that with his right hand. With his eyes almost squeezed shut, he hurried to platform 8. Nervously, once he reached the top of the platform, he walked towards the waiting train. But just before he was about to board, his gaze fell on the board indicating the time of departure and the train's final destination...

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“Darkness Hides Your Broken Pieces ” by Jaye Hunter

Submitted to Contest #168

-------------------------------------------------- Trigger Warning: Death, alcohol use -------------------------------------------------- Summer erases what you used to be, packs bags of long-lost truth Sunrise kills immortality, matures a wasted youth For seven years, you haven't stopped running. At sixteen, you stopped looking back. A product of spite and apathy and the American South, you could've had things so much worse. Still, you made the choice that a different life would be better,...

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“Derailed ” by Harriett Clarke

Submitted to Contest #168

Derailed By Harriett M. ClarkeThe grisly bodies dismembered from the horrendous impact lay bare and exposed before his brown eyes. Perched on a dirt mound above the dismantled body parts he stared wide eyed into a precipice of darkness below never beheld by most boys his age. He tried not to focus on the pungent smell of feces, urine and raw blood as he felt himself tilt forward falling as he gasped for air, clawing at the swiftly moving space between him and the dead bodies giving his stomach a heave and a hoo, lurching into an abyss of not...

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“One Ticket” by Maya Smith

Submitted to Contest #168

I hadn’t planned to jostle my way through a congested afternoon crowd at the train station today; trying to catch a train long since departed from the platform. If I’m being honest with myself, I would have guessed about every other possible outcome before I considered the well-worn tracks that weaved through the city in every direction but away. Yet looking at it now, it plays out differently in my memory. My life for the last several years had become a pond...

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“Ride or Die” by Ella King

Submitted to Contest #168

Trigger warning : Death, Slight blood No one knew when they arrived. No one knew how they got there. Some called them demons, others called them angels. To Thorn, they were the doom of all humanity. His parents were taken first. Thorn was with them that night, on their walk home from the grocery store when something large suddenly landed inches from them on the sidewalk. Seemingly being thrown out of midair, Thorn’s mother had screamed and his father put on a protective stance, ready to fight whatever it was. When the object ...

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“Buy Now, Pay Later” by Kieran Coghlan

Submitted to Contest #168

Paul Lyndon skidded to a halt as the train doors slammed shut in front of him, the engine chugging as the train set off from the platform, disappearing down the subway tunnel, the yellow glow of its rear lights fading into the gloom. He threw his half-drunk cup of coffee to the floor, kicking the cup onto the tracks for good measure. ‘1:32’ his watch declared; there was no way he was going to make that interview now. A few people shuffled past them with their heads bent down, no wish to engage with his anger or to find out what sparked it. W...

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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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