When I said that the Mercedes story (at https://www.furaffinity.net/view/27288625/ ) was my first or second story... this is the other one that was second or first. This one was probably the first written, but it's been rewritten significantly since then.

I wrote the original version of this for an early-1990s 'zine called 'Steam Victorian', a furry steampunk anthology. Unfortunately, the while the production values for the 'zine were great, it only lasted two issues. This story would have gone in the third issue. ( baroncoon has the wraparound cover for the second issue at https://www.furaffinity.net/view/3262691/ along with a bit more description of the 'zine.) I'd been partly inspired by the 'Hunter and Tigerlily' stories written by another friend of mine, which were set during the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway; I set mine over in the western end of the construction, which took about as long to build over a sixth of the distance, because it was entirely through mountains.

I then ended up rewriting the story for an SF writing course I was taking at George Brown College. (And stripped out the furry references, which admittedly weren't all that blatant.) The instructor said good things about it. Granted, most of what he said was that it was more difficult to critique than most of the others because there wasn't anything obviously wrong that could be pointed at. Score one for being a compulsive self-editor, I guess.

In any case, I hope you enjoy this over twenty year old blast from the past.

Oh, and yes, most of the names in here (Onderdonk, Haney, Hell's Gate, even the town of Spuzzum) are real.