Epitaph For A Locomotive

 The Great Western Railway locomotive lay on it's side, boiler crushed in, lights busted out, exposed wheels creaking with a low squeal in the wind.

  Prairie grass grew tall all around the shell of the once powerful machine. Birds nested in the crushed open sandbox that once sat at the crest of the boiler. The decades of weather that had passed over it since the derailment and decision to abandon rather than salvage the old engine had stripped the exposed side of all paint, and rust had begun to eat away at the resting bulk.

   The line had been abandoned less than a decade after the wreck, which was a hundred years ago now. The closest roads to the now torn up old track bed were more than 50 miles away. Fewer than 10 people knew where the remains of what once was a proud and prized steam engine lay.

   Abandoned and exposed to the all consuming elements.