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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

“Night Trained” by PJ Aitken

Submitted to Contest #168

Crouching down to try to calm his dog, Simon’s eyes were as wide as they could get while staring at the figures in the underpass praying they hadn’t heard Annie’s bark. Usually walking the dog in the very early hours was a calming and event free activity. Not today. Annie continued to growl even though the squirrel that set her off had scarpered up a tree straight away. The group stopped what they were doing and all turned to face in the direction of Simon and Annie. Everything told him to run but Simon knew his current hiding position could...

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“The Last Train” by 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...

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“Your last journey ” by Jennifer Cameron

Submitted to Contest #168

I wish I could tell them to stop worrying now, because this really is quite nice. It’s more peaceful, it’s more me, I think whilst staring out the recently cleaned window at mountain peaks coated in mist and marshmallow clouds. They all cried when I died, those great big sobs that seem to take over your whole body and I guess it was nice in a selfish sort of way to know that I’ll be missed but it still felt like all the veins in my heart were being pulled opposite ways to see them so upset. Heartbroken was the word mum had used. The train g...

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“Familiar Strangers” by Edward Latham

Submitted to Contest #168

Home. It’s that place where you release the breath you didn’t even realise you were holding. The place where you sleep as deep as you did when you were ten years younger. The place where you let go of your future worries and relax into the present.For Harry Tufton home was the 18:05 train from London Bridge to Brighton. The journey was just over an hour and occasionally, when the world weighed too heavy, he would fall fast asleep. His stop was the last, so no worries there. More often though, he would sit, appearing to stare out the win...

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“Rise Above the Ashes ” by Anne O

Submitted to Contest #168

Bee looks down to see a new scuff mark on the toe of her right L.L. Bean duck boot. She smiles to herself; the first imprint of wear being made today. These boots aren’t right, they are the right size and the right style; but they’re not her boots—not yet. Her boots are gone. Gone with the rest of her things and cherished belongings. Gone with her home and her garden. Swelled up in wildfire and turned into ash.Bee and Luke spent the following weeks digging through the ash and wet dirt of the aftermath. What was left of their home and tangibl...

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“My Goodness, My Guinness” by Katharine Widdows

Submitted to Contest #168

In 1974, the year I emerged, blinking into the world, the Guinness Book of Records became the fastest selling copyrighted book. It gained its own entry in the Guinness Book of Records. It still holds that record now. Every year on my birthday I board a train and drink a can of Guinness, in honour of the day my grandpa died.. . .Wheels sing out a familiar rhythm as they click and clack over the tracks. I allow my head to nod along as I watch fields blur past through the safety glass. My mother has told me Grandpa’s story so many times that I ...

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“I Spy” by John K Adams

Submitted to Contest #168

My Dad says I’m paranoid. I think that’s like someone who’s connected to the paranormal. Like on my favorite shows. I like sci-fi. Those stories are so interesting. They feel real. Not like day-to-day life, which gets kind of tedious sometimes. And boring. You never know what adventure will happen in sci-fi. Add a splash of fantasy and all bets are off. Literally, what’s going to come through that door? For instance, you can’t believe where I am right now. Sometimes Dad takes me on business trips with him. Every few weeks he travels from New...

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“The Platform” by Andrea Vermeer

Submitted to Contest #168

Back and forth. The train and then the people. Another train and some more people. The sound of suitcase wheels on rough pavement. Sit, stand, pace. Looking at tickets, squinting at tickets, squinting at the sun. Suitcase wheels on rough pavement. One catches and flips, it’s owner tries to right it, sighs with frustration. A woman, she must be with her—there’s an intimacy there—steps in and wipes the other's shoulders, rubbing off the stress, rubbing in the love and then she kisses her on red lips. I look away and down the tr...

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“It Won't Be Like This Always” by Story Time

Submitted to Contest #168

The train to Oliver Junction is never late. Not once has it ever been late. Something to be proud of if you’re a train. Or a conductor. Whoever is in charge of all that. You can set your watch by it. We put your grandfather on that train. When we did, he was in much worse shape than you are now. They say some things skip a generation. I suppose that could be so. I thought I got lucky. Anytime you think you’re lucky, you’re blind. That’s how life goes for people like us. We live by the water and the shine from the sun gets in our eyes. Hurts ...

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“Derailment” by Lindsay Flo

Submitted to Contest #168

The train derailed in Joplin, Montana. Out of nowhere, and in middle of nowhere. The cause was still being investigated, a year later. People were angry and filing lawsuits against Amtrak, but Cara didn’t see what the point was. It wasn’t going to change the consequences of the derailment. Derailment. That word. It had been in her head for eleven months, two weeks and three days. Derailment. She had thought it, said it, slept with it so heavily the word had become warped, both in meaning and cadence. It sounded so benign, a placid deviatio...

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“At a Second Glance” by Rama Shaar

Submitted to Contest #168

It wasn’t so much disgust as it was curiosity mixed with shock. My fault really for allowing eye contact. I once heard that human beings are usually aware of being watched even from behind. Something to do with our primal survival instinct and so. I do allow myself to stare at beautiful people, but for no longer than four or five seconds, which is usually the time it takes them to realise they’re being stared at.I quickly lowered my gaze and hoped that the train would move, leaving behind the angelic-featured young woman I had indulged in ad...

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“Sheila Bagh” by Syed Mohammad Zahid

Submitted to Contest #168

Khushiya boarded the Jaffar Express from Lahore. Usually, six people would easily fit in a compartment, but these days only four were allowed, because of the pandemic. The family of six had a split. His adolescent children and wife took over one compartment, while he settled in another with his companions; the luggage.It was his habit to scrutinize everything closely. He had been keeping in touch with the events happening in Balochistan, the notorious habitat of Quetta Shura of the Taliban. Because of cross-border infiltration from Afghanist...

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“Finding Myself Among the Dough” by Jeannette Miller

Submitted to Contest #168

As I stare out of my window seat, I’m trying to memorize the lines of cobblestone road leading up to the train’s platform. The blue sky, its bluest since I arrived here seven days ago under the pretense of finding myself. Every cloud a whisper of its self, promising to be something full and billowy but never materializing then slowly dissipating into thin whisps of white. I hear the noise of the city calling me and yet I must go for I fear this place, with its effortless existence, will entrap me here under false pretenses. I was only supp...

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“Last Train To Davos” by P. T. Golden

Submitted to Contest #168

The grime on the glass from a thousand greasy fingers distorted the dismal scene outside. "Can you believe people used to breathe that stuff? It's so thick I can't see; that is a city, isn't it?" Thomas spoke to nobody in particular.The woman in the aisle seat wiped the sweat from under her numerous chins and grunted, pointing at a red dot moving along a line displayed on a digital map. Paris, it said. Faint shadows hide in a dark thick swirling smog."Have you ever been there? I heard it was beautiful once." The bleak scenery made even uncom...

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“Mr Casey's Train” by Kelly Sibley

Submitted to Contest #168

“Mr Casey.”“Yes, Mr Worthington?”“Your train, Mr Casey.”“Yes, Mr Worthington?”There was a quiet and uncomfortable pause where Mr Casey nervously ran his dark bowler hats rim through his hands until he could bear the truth no longer. “Well, when I say yes, it’s not really ‘my train’, per see. In actual fact, I think the train prefers it when we all call him Larry. We're trying to get him to think of a last name and then we thought we'd throw him a naming party.”Mr Casey watched as his employer's features became flushed. "Actually, it's t...

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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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