Literature / .007

.007 is a Short Story about sentient steam locomotives by Rudyard Kipling, first published in 1897. The story takes place in an unspecified rail yard in the northeastern United States during the 1890s. .007 is a brand new locomotive who gets heckled by the others until he proves himself by pulling the breakdown train to rescue one of them after a crash.

Not to be confused with 007.

.007 includes examples of:

• All of the Other Reindeer: All the other locomotives are hostile towards .007 until he proves himself.
• Animal Motifs: Poney is compared to a pony. He's small, clever, opinionated, and said to look like "a broncho getting ready to buck." Also a Stealth Pun— he's a little "iron horse."
• Audience Surrogate: .007, being brand new, has to be introduced to the other characters and asks them questions like what a hot-box is.
• Brotherhood of Funny Hats: The Amalgamated Brotherhood of Locomotives provides privileges like going in the roundhouse and, if one is worthy, singing a funny song.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Since they are dangerous heavy machinery, the locomotives feel indifferent about killing themselves or other creatures. Also, their sense of moral value is tied to precise numeric values of cost, weight, and speed (with bigger numbers being better).
• Cool Train: .007 and Poney discuss how cool the Purple Emperor is. He's one of the fastest locomotives and pulls an ornately decorated set of luxury train cars.
• Double-Meaning Title: The story was originally published as .007: The Story of an American Locomotive. It's set in America, and .007 is a 4-4-0 type locomotive, which is also called the American type.
• Elephants Are Scared of Mice: According to the story, both elephants and locomotives are afraid of small animals underfoot.
• Fiery Redhead: The Mogul's engineer has red hair and a hot temper.
• Funetik Aksent: Most characters speak with American accents rendered like this.
• Humble Pie: The Mogul acts arrogant and rude until being derailed by running over a small pig, which badly scares and humiliates him.
• Just Train Wrong: Kipling uses a large amount of technical jargon that is accurate for the most part, but he gets a few details mixed up.
  • He uses the word "bogies" as a synonym for "wheels", which is incorrect. A bogey is a structure grouping two axles together, which on a steam locomotive can be in front of (leading) or behind (trailing) the wheels that are used for propulsion. The Mogul is a 2-6-0, which inherently does not have bogies because it only has 2 leading wheels. .007 is a 4-4-0, which has one bogey, not plural.
• Men Are Better Than Women: The only female characters are a whiny dilapidated boxcar and an over-complicated experimental locomotive with an unpleasant personality and a host of mechanical issues preventing her from hauling heavy loads. The male characters are all good hardworking fellows.
• Nice Guy: .007. He tells everyone else to leave the Mogul alone about the derailment, even though the Mogul wasn't nice to him. He also says he won't heckle future newcomers.
• No Antagonist: The engines are rude to each other at times, but not actively malicious. The main problem to be resolved is the Mogul Freight's derailment, which was accidentally caused by a pig (who, being an animal, didn't know any better) standing on the tracks.
• Protagonist Title: .007
• Sentient Vehicle: The whole story is told from the locomotives' point of view.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: The Boston Compound talks this way.
• Technology Porn: The story is basically an excuse for detailed descriptions of railroading.
• Train Song: The badge of honor for the fastest express locomotives in the Brotherhood is a song that they sing.
  With a michnai - ghignai - shtingal! Yah! Yah! Yah!
  Ein - zwei - drei - Mutter! Yah! Yah! Yah!
  She climb upon der shteeple,
  Und she frighten all der people.
  Singin' michnai - ghignai - shtingal! Yah! Yah!
  • The human breakdown gang have their own song.
  Oh, the Empire State must learn to wait,
  And the Cannon-ball go hang,
  When the West-bound's ditched, and the tool-car's hitched,
  And it's 'way for the Breakdown Gang (Tara-ra!)
  'Way for the Breakdown Gang!
• You Are Number 6: .007's name is his serial number.