Garnetrail Ticket Keepers — Railway Dragon Conductors Reference Sheet

The story of Garnetrail Ticket Keepers

A fictional story inspired by the artwork.

There was a station printed on the last ticket in the book that none of the six conductors recognized. Nella put her claw over the name and punched the date. The passenger was an old dragon carrying a watering can. He seemed so sure of his stop that she went to ask the driver.

The driver knew every mile of track. Still, between the orchard and the tunnel, he remembered a platform as short as a kitchen table. He slowed the train. Out of a thicket of roses appeared a bench, a bell and a square of green paint on an otherwise ordinary fence post.

The passenger stepped down and watered the roses. Years ago his wife had worked the signal box there. Every night he brought her supper. After the line was moved she had kept the bench and made a garden where the kitchen door had stood. The conductors helped him cut back the thorns until the bell swung freely again.

Nella rang it once and wrote the station name into the margin of her timetable. On the return journey someone had left six pears on the bench, each wrapped in a sheet from an old railway calendar. She took the final ticket home and pressed its punched-out square inside the timetable, right beside the new stop.

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