Golden Spike paced the rail yard, overseeing the activity. Switch assembled trains and disassembled them like clockwork. The bigger freight engines hauled sections of cars to sort them through the hump. Other trains used the run-through, simply checking in for an inspection to make sure everything was still working fine before leaving. He liked seeing the yard function as it should. No one was slacking. No one messing around. Yet there was one thing he still kept an eye on. The engine he had been gifted to be his second in command had proven himself to be a handful. Somedays he did what he told him. On other days it was like he was trying to be as difficult as he could be. A little tough-loving would keep Daylight behaving for a little bit before he would act up again almost like he was daring his yard master to punish him a little harder.

"I can do anything! Anywhere, anytime, and when I choose!" There, Golden Spike's attention quickly turned to see the action. There he was again in another diesel dust-up. Pacific Daylight was proving that his title as Golden's co-engine was well deserved and his position in the fuel line was his to keep. 

And Golden still didn't know exactly why he loved to hear that engine roar. Could it be that he saw parts of himself in that new engine? 

It didn't matter if the humans told Daylight to slow it down. He had realized what his own horse power was capable of and was simply playing by the rules of the rail. The humans didn't understand. The motors in that dark engine called Pacific Daylight were strong and he would go a little too far in social fights with his fellow diesels. The diesel shop was seeing an uptick of engines coming in with injured arms or what amounted to sprained ankles to fractured shins in a human. 

Golden Spike started remembering his younger days. When he and his fellow centennials were hauling train after train over 500 miles in a day. Faster than any SD40 could ever hope. We moved like the winds that ran across the lands. The iron-fisted chokehold they held on freight had been unyielding....unyielding until he began to see his fleet mates fall and break down from overworking. One after another, the western giants began to fall. Joints busting, metal cracking, legs giving in, to motors going on run away and flaming out. Just like the big Boys before them. Hard-working engines died working. Yet parts of them lived within himself. What once had been many had been reworked to be one over time. His frame remembered the old mountain songs, a thousand hills and valleys, a million miles, and a dozen million more. He and his fellow centennials never learned the meaning of what it meant to stop no matter how far.

Strangely, Golden found himself smiling, It was an odd feeling on his normally grave face when he saw the two engines who were far newer than him wrestling upon the floor. They were getting dirt and dust all over themselves. The clanging thuds, revs, and mechanical whining of mechanical interiors sounded like music to him.

The way the vibrations of that new boy's thrumming filled the air and traveled through his golden frame. Tickling sensors that no coach or freight car could hope to touch. When he worked with Daylight he didn't even know who was working who. Who was pushing or who was pulling? Who was driving who harder and faster? It felt like new life was being forged into his own motors. Firing him up and letting him feel it in his electric soul.

It was another win for Daylight and the Centennial began to clap his golden-palmed black hands. "I didn't doubt you for a moment. You truly are a delight to watch, my engine."