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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

“A Strange Wedding Guest” by Charlett Bundy

Submitted to Contest #168

I’m so excited. I just left my fiancé after a wonderful weekend visit. He dropped me off at the train station to catch the next train home where I have been working and saving money for our wedding for the last 8 months. Now, there is only one more month to the wedding. I am so excited, I can hardly contain myself, yet hunger has caught my attention this bright, sunny morning. This lovely train station has been remodeled to resemble the original train station from the 1800s. Now though, there are several places to eat. I set my suitcase down...

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“Street Creatures ” by Karen Lethlean

Submitted to Contest #168

Street creatures. You know it’s not the best way. You never should have left the people walk-way. Now you’re no closer to home and light is beginning to fade out of honeycomb colored sky. Not just blue anymore, more likely a dirty through to flint grey, or shades of dull brown blending into shadowed gold when late afternoon sunlight almost breaks through festered warned air. Now you must get to the station. Wait here for a while in this shelter to catch your breath, harder now to fight through thickness. You need to make ready because you c...

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“Another Track” by Matthew Langford

Submitted to Contest #168

There were not enough seats, so Winston found himself in the space between carriages. Standing over his trunk, he battled to keep it upright and not sliding by squeezing it between his knees. He watched the corrugated black rubber, straddling the coupling mechanism beneath, be pulled one way then the other by carriages moving in different directions. Fifteen travellers, with their luggage, occupied this unsteady space and, if that wasn't bad enough, ticket collectors, those making their way to the toilets as well as the lost and aimless, dee...

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“Discovering His Real Station” by Bob Faszczewski

Submitted to Contest #168

Discovering His Real Station The colder winter weather had arrived a few weeks early this November in South Amboy, New Jersey. Yet, Sam B...

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“Lapland Express” by Marguerite Falck

Submitted to Contest #168

The boy in carriage 7Did you know that there are two direct trains from Stockholm to Lapland every day?The landscape is ever changing, as long as we are talking about shades of grey.Looking out of the windows you will see Arlanda, Uppsala, Boden and Umea,all the way to the northern coasts and read houses of the arctic circle in Luleå.As he looked through the window, watching the lakes and cities pass by,he felt that he was living his own life behind as well, and with this, a high.All the spreadsheets and errors messages and system cataloging...

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“Sidhe” by Chen-el Brill

Submitted to Contest #168

They held each other’s eyes across the platform, and her inviting gaze unchained his heart to race violently in his chest.“Oh oh!!” panic now swooped in as she finally broke the eye contact.“The train to… Sacramento… will be arriving in platform number… one… at… twelve… and… ten minutes, all passengers are required to stand behind the yellow line”. The mechanical voice of the omnipresent lady reverberated through the empty train station.But this metallic voice, usually so warm and comforting, for it was the herald of the upcoming sleep, was ...

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“What if?” by L Key

Submitted to Contest #168

“You’ll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that.”Ronald Dahl ***There are three hundred and fifty thousand trains on Earth. Picture it, if you can. Each one in motion, whizzing around our globe, climbing hills and crossing bridges, wheels spinning as they thunder forward (or backward, depending on the direction you’re sitting) to reach a final destination. Perhaps that destination is the grand streets of Paris, a remote town on the coast of Ireland that nobody has heard of, or the bustling city of New Delhi. So tell me,...

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“Helpless Panic” by Megan Michelle

Submitted to Contest #168

What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? “What do I do?” the frustrated words escaped her mouth in a whisper before she could stop them. Ainsly took a few steps down the crowded walkway of the platform after following the crowd exiting the train. She slowed to wait while the busy patrons rushed off to their next to-do. Once they all disappeared into the belly of the station, Ainsly found a bench in the middle of the railway area and sat down, gazing up at the curved steel beams supporting the massive station around the trains. Each set of...

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“Unless” by Bryan Johnson

Submitted to Contest #168

The train station was dead silent. The daytime activities of coffee vendors, families rushing to get to their trains and the sounds of roaring train engines were that of an older time. The only sound that echoed throughout the empty station was that of a clock posted by the arrivals and departures. The board appeared empty, all except for one departure. Shelby looked at his pocket watch he dug out from his vest pocket. 11:50pm. He glanced up at the departure board. “10 minutes. Guess it’s time.” Shelby grabbed his suitcase and...

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“Until the Next Stop” by Andrew Andrews

Submitted to Contest #168

══════════════════ Part 1: Just Until the Next Song ══════════════════ Is it wrong to hold onto you so dearly? Kissing in a room full of strangers. Are you a stranger, too? If you told me your name? And am I? If I told you mine? Kissing underneath the disco lights, with a girl I met 10 songs ago. Your hair smells so nice. Your skin’s so soft, so clean. And God--you flick your tongue so good. I leaned in close with the sway of the beat, our cheeks grazing. And back out again, just to look into your eyes...

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“Shanhtih Station” by Michael Mackenzie

Submitted to Contest #168

Douglas Jones walked off the train, flicked his scarf around his neck, and pretended not to notice the man across the platform staring at him. Mountains loomed over the station. The trees ached in the cold wind. The only light came from flickering lamp posts behind the benches on the platform. He sat on the bench. The clock hanging from the station read 12:06am. He cursed himself for missing his stop, but after another long night of balance sheets at the office, and for a man pushing seventy, falling asleep on the train had become a r...

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“Changing times” by John Berry

Submitted to Contest #168

Georgia lands at Heathrow Airport after a 14 hour flight from Sydney Australia. She wore a hat to help cover her bushy hair from getting into her face. “Can you tell me where the Plaza Hotel is?” she asked the man at the paper stand on the pavement. They sold books, coffee, newspapers, lollies and lots of other things. He couldn’t understand what she was saying. The assistant understood her accent said that she could take a right then a left at the next street. “Thank you, young man.” She grabbed a copy of the London Times and asked for a ho...

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“Charlie’s Race” by Liam Sheehan

Submitted to Contest #168

“WATCH IT!” Charlie exclaimed as he steered his bicycle swiftly to the side, where he was thrown off, and watched helplessly as his prized possession skidded into the street, only to be quickly trampled by a passing box truck. Charlie had been riding down the sidewalk of the big city when he was startled by a man who appeared out of a doorway very abruptly, causing him to swerve and crash. “NO NO NO!” Charlie yelled, disheartened by his demotion to a pedestrian status. Charlie was on his way to catch a train across town to a prospective new ...

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“Lovely Pain” by Samantha Evelyn

Submitted to Contest #168

The wind whipped past his face as he tore his way through the bushes. The briars pulled at his clothes leaving little pieces of him in his wake. The tears whisked away from his face as soon as they began to fall. How could he have let her go? How could he have let her walk away from him? How could he continue on when the very reason his heart beat was now on her way to be permanently gone from him? Her face and frame came into his mind and it was almost as if she was standing right in front of him. He saw her beautiful, dark rich skin with h...

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“Better late than never” by Jenn Bauer

Submitted to Contest #168

"No, no, no, no, NO!" I ran onto the platform, utterly out of breath. So far that morning – no, only since arriving at the 'L' station – my skirt caught in the turnstile, my bag ripped, my quarterly reports flew into the slush and snow, and my tights were stained. I clutched my laptop for dear life, but even that felt tenuous at best. I watched as the train, the last rush hour train to the marketing firm I worked for, sped off. Not only was I late, but I was also screwed. I'd rescheduled this presentation so many times wit...

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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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