The Majestic 311

In the spring of 1903, the 311, known to locals as “The Majestic,” carried over a hundred passengers on board towards a tunnel mouth that would allow the thirteen-car locomotive to pass safely through the underbelly of the Canadian Rockies.The tunnel swallowed the 311 whole, and the train—and everyone on it—were never seen again. Search parties scoured the tunnel length with torches, searching for clues as to the big engine’s fate. During that search, some of the men swore they heard a ghostly whistle echoing in the cold, Albertan dark. The only thing they found, however, was a lady’s hand fan with an Oriental design, spread wide like a butterfly’s wing.In the winter of 1910, just after a snowy sundown, the Leland Baxter gang, a collection of cattle thieves, gunmen, and cutthroats, wait on horses before a tunnel exit. They wait for the 5409, which secretly carries a train car full of railway cash—wages destined for workers of the copper and gold mines of British Columbia. A payroll they intend to rob.What they will discover, however, is that the approaching train isn’t the 5409. It’s the missing 311, the train only whispered about around dying campfires. A train that some believe still rides the iron rails, traveling to places no mortal should ever go, seeing things no one should ever see. Those men will climb aboard the 311… and will soon realize two sinister truths about the train. The 311 doesn’t ever stop.And no one ever gets off.A very weird western. Approx 119,000 words. Contains violence, coarse language, and some elements of horror.

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