Authors note: OK, this chapter has a tremendous amount of description in it so it helps you know whats really going on. The few things that have been built by our engineer were built using parts from the now defunct military vehicles. Moving on I hope you like this new chapter and please, leave a comment. I do enjoy reading them.
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On May 10th 1869 the 2 halves of the United States were joined by 2 strings of solid steel known as the transcontinental railroad. That day was celebrated till the end of the human race. Now a new celebration had taken its place. That was the connection of the 2 countries of Equestria and Terra. Richard himself smashed a bottle of whiskey against the end of the brightly colored Equestrian engine, shattering it into a million pieces. When the whiskey ran the crowds cheer with delight. Both countries made it a national holiday as this was the day the 2 nations would be bound together for all of time.

Richard stood on the pilot of the weird magically powered steam locomotive with a glass bottle of whiskey in his hand, staring at the crowd of hundreds of thousands of people and ponies alike who waited for him to tie the knot. Cocking his arm back he swung the glass bottle at the smoke box of the little engine and with a crash cameras flashed and people cheered. With a smile of jubilation upon his was he raised the neck of the liquor bottle above his head and shouted, “THE DEED HAS BEEN DONE! NOW IT IS OUR TURN TO RETURN THE FAVOR!!!
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10 miles outside of Lazarus:

"You’re doing a fine job men!" Shouted the commanding engineer over the clang of steel

Behind him stood the ever present Leviathan at the head of a 10 car train of rails and ties. In the shining daylight of noon it glistened like never before. The men followed the young mans orders with pride and strength, knowing that he held their future in his immature hands. seeing that the crew was running low on gravel for the ballast (the rock under the track) Richard slowly walked over to a black monster with an eagle emblem bolted to the front of the smoke box. He slowly walked around the traction engine and inspected every piece of every moving part. The wheels were covered from top to bottom in grease from the past few weeks. Since he had the free time the young country had used the powerful brute to plow a few hundred acres of land for planting. Noticing that everything was in perfect working order he climbed onto the operator’s deck and yanked the whistle cord. A loud shriek blasted forth into the warm air across the empty fields around him, scaring every animal in sight.

"I always loved doing this kind of stuff." Mumbled the Mechanic with a smile on his face

He swung open the firebox doors and proceeded to throw chunks of oak into the blazing inferno. Sparks and ash flew out the stack while he did this necessary action to prevent it from losing steam while he worked it. Linked to the rear hitch of the earth moving engine was a ripper that was designed and built by him for just this purpose. With a grunt Rich pulled a giant lever down and a moment later the massive girth of the ripper was hovering above the ground by a few inches. A satisfactory chuckle later the man settled into the driver’s seat, pushed the reversing lever forward and open the brass throttle in one fluid motion. The engine chugged loudly as it pushed itself forward with steam hissing from the open cylinder cocks and the ground behind it being torn up by the solid axle of the MASSIVE steel wheels as he cranked the steering wheel to the left, avoiding the work crews directly in front of him. The field to the left of the crews was filled with good gravel and the engineer was using it to his advantage; gathering up tons of it for use on the new railroad line. as the engine advanced a few hundred feet at contraption came into view that would baffle most people by its hear awkwardness. Again it was a product of the young genius. Its primary use was to pick the gravel that had been loosened by the ripper and load it into a wagon provided by the ponies.

Feeling he was in a good spot, Richard again leaned back to grabbed the lever behind him. Clamping his fist around the latch the weight of the ripper fell to the ground with a crash. This tast done he turned his attention back to the controls of the explosive land locomotive under his control. Glancing at the water gauge he noticed that it was extremely low and acted accordingly by opening the valve to the water tank behind him. Soon the rush of water was heard as it forced itself into the pressurized boiler. Grabbing hold of the throttle he jerked it open and the engine chugged into motion, dragging the heavy implement behind its tremendous girth. The echo of the pounding exhaust could be heard miles away back at camp where half the crew sat eating their lunch. One such being was a purple unicorn pony that was munching on a dandelion sandwich.

Twilight had arrived a few hours before and made the long trek to the camp to visit a new friend of hers who was working on the new tracks. Once she finished the last of her lunch she hopped of the bench and cantered down the freshly laid tracks at a brisk pace. As she walked she could here a loud sort of thumping. Kind of like a train but only it was more to the right then directly in front of her. She quickened her pace and minutes later she came upon the sight of the traction engine, working hard as it drug the ripper through the earth at a 4 mph pace, spewing black smoke into the crystal clean air all the whole time. The young mare just dropped to the ground and stared in amazement. Normally it would take a big pony, like Big Macintosh of example; a few hours to do what this machine was doing in mere minutes!

'There must be some kind of magic involved with this...' she thought, 'Surly this wouldn't be possible without it.'

Gathering up the courage to walk up to the lumbering giant and shouted, "RICHARD!!! IS THAT YOU!?!?!?"

The head of the driver turned and it was indeed Richard. After seeing the unicorn he pushed the throttle forward and the engine came to an abrupt halt, hissing steam from most of the pipes. Seeing an opportunity to be immature he shouted back:

"NOPE!!"

Twilight rolled her eyes as she walked up the traction engine. She was slightly scared of the ominous beast but since the human was up there why couldn't she? Taking a few precarious step before leaping onto the operator platform at the rear of the engine.

"So you finally made it?" asked the sarcastic engineer with a smile

"Yep! Thought I should come up and maybe help you 'demons' with your work. As long as it doesn't involve any grunt work." she replied with a sheepish grin.

"I know you unicorns aint fit to do any hard labor." he said with a chuckle, "but I figured you might want to see what we can do with all this big equipment."

"You are absolutely right." She said, "I saw this 'thing' working and I cant seem to understand how just fire and steam alone can propel itself and pull that attachment."

"Its all a matter of gearing and the pressure of the boiler. I am sure you are thinking that magic is involved in some way arnt you?" she grinned and nodded

"Well if you could stand back a little bit I could sow you." said the engineer

The pony took a couple steps backwards and Richard leaned down and opened the firebox doors, exposing the raging inferno within. Seeing that it was a little low he grabbed a few chunks of wood and tossed them into it.

"See when the fire burns it makes a tremendous amount of energy given off in the form of heat. Since the heat would have an extremely hard time coming through the closed door it is forced out through the boiler tubes and out the stack. The heat is transferred to the water inside the boiler and the steam that is created rises to the top were a central valve is located." while he said this he pointed to just about everything, except the tubes inside the boiler since that would include sticking his arm into the fire.

"Once I have enough pressure built up inside the boiler I open said valve and the steam is forced into the valve chamber of the cylinder." he said and pointed to the box welded to the side of the cylinder. "Once there I move the reversing lever, which changes the amount of steam allowed into the cylinder as well as the direction of travel."

"That still doesn't answer how it can pull this contraption behind it." the pony pointed out

Richard face palmed and repeated, "Its all in the gearing."

The pony glared at the human.

"Fine!, he growled, "See there are 2 gears in the drive system. One is extremely small and the other is extremely large, the diameter of the entire wheel to be exact. When power is put for the to the cylinder the steam forces the piston back and turns the crankshaft, thus turning the back and forth motion of the piston in a circular motion." He took a deep breath and continued, "When the crankshaft turns, it turns this massive flywheel which makes everything run smoothly. The little gear is mounted to the crankshaft. When you push the clutch forward the 2 gears mesh together and the engine move. Since it takes more revolutions of the small gear to turn the big gear it, in turn, goes slower. Thus it is easier to turn a large gear with a small gear then it is the other way around. THAT is what helps the engine pull that RIPPER through the ground."

"You know, when I first seen you I would have never expected that lengthy explanation to just pour from your mouth like a scholar." said Twilight

The human smiled, "A lot of people used to tell me that."

The human turned his attention back on the steamed beast in front of him and commenced ripping the packed gravel up once again. As the hours wore on the mare just watched as the humans hands darted back and forth from lever to lever and from valve to valve. Soon the engine ran low on supplies and had to return to the rail head to refuel. Jumping down he grabbed an arm full of wood and dumped it into the empty bunker behind the boiler. He repeated this quite a few times before it was finally full. Once that strenuous task was completed he realized it still needed water. Likely there was a small creek nearby that he had gotten water from earlier in the day.

Starting the tractor again he drove the lumbering giant to the banks of the creek and drug out an old garden hose. Attaching one end to the hand pump on the rear of the engines he threw the threw the other into the current. He grabbed the centrifugal pumps hands and cranked at it for about 10 minutes, tiring his arm out to the point where it just hung limply at his side. Shaking his head at his stupidity his mind reverted back to the pony who once sat in the floor of the platform without saying a word. When he looked he spotted nothing... absolutely nothing. This worried the engineer slightly but thinking that she knew what she was doing pushed that thought far back in his mind.

Richard climbed back into the operators position and started the engine forward once again. As the clanked, rattled and rolled along steam hissed from few connections, indicating that it indeed had been rebuilt before put in its 2000 year storage. Minutes passed before he arrived at the gravel field he was working on. Thinking that he had ripped up enough for the day he proceeded to back the steam engine down onto his hand built gravel gathering contraption. Really it was nothing more than 2 sets of chains with scoops welded on, but upon seeing the machine the unicorn became enthralled with what it did, how it worked and what went into making it. Richard had told her it was nothing special but she insisted. He told her not to touch it because it was covered in grease and oil and was haphazardly welded together with chunks of rail and iron they had found. Lifting the heavy hitch on the rear of the traction engine he caught a glimpse of a purple tail behind the scraper.

"Twilight! I thought I told you not to come over here!" he scolded her

"I just wanted to know what it was. It’s not a big deal." she replied

He sighed, "It is a big deal. What is something broke and it fell on you? Then what would you have done?!?"

She hung her head in shame. Richard groaned. He had always had a soft spot for the women, weather pony or human.

"I am sorry but you cant do this kind of stuff out here. This isn't like Ponyville. Things here arnt as inviting as they seem. So watch your step. Everything extremely dangerous and you could have gotten hurt. With help a mile back that way... Agh! I just wouldn't have been able to live with myself." he sighed and returned to hitching the conveyer machine behind the traction engine.

The pin dropped in and he then checked every bearing and smooth running surface for wearing. Noticing that it had gone with out oiling for some time he grabbed the little can from the engine and oiled every part, moving or not.

Twilight just watched the man work. She had never seen anypony fuss over one piece of equipment for so long in her entire life. It made her ever curious. Richard called for her to climb back onto the engine and with that the tractor groaned into motion with the contraption and its accompanying trailer clattering along behind it. The only thing weird was that nothing was moving, well except for the wheels. The chain of buckets hung lifelessly a few inches above the dry ground when she thought they should be moving. The axles were solid as far as she knew. There were a few levers on the machine that she hadn't ventured to move or even touch for that matter.

"Alright Twi. Here is where you get to see some real human engineering." Said Richard with a massive shit-eating-grin on his face

Leaning back over the contraption he grabbed a rope and pulled it hard. With a snap and a smash the heavy scrapper head hit the ground, making the chains clatter together. It scared the mare to the point of backing into the hot firebox door behind her. She pulled forward fast enough so that her flank didn't get burned to a crisp against the hot door. Richard just laughed, hard, at the pony which she glared at him for but he still went right on laughing. After he recovered from his fit of laughter he grabbed yet another rope, but when he pulled it only snapping sound was made... Nothing clattered or went bang, much to the astonishment of Twilight.

"What did that do?" she asked

"Its what we call a clutch. You noticed that the buckets wern't moving when we were right?" she nodded

"Well it engages teeth on a drum on the wheels. Now when we move this time you'll hear another click when it locks into place." he replied

After adjusting his leather gloves he grabbed the throttle and opened it slowly. Steam rushed forth from the boiler and into the valve chamber, forcing the piston back with 100 psi of pressure. The engine shot black smoke out the stack with a loud bark as it lumbered into motion. With a metallic snap the clutches engaged and the chains and buckets rattled into motion, gathering up rock, dirt and gravely as it slowly sunk into the ground. The soil advanced up the angled conveyer and dumped into the waiting wagon at the rear.

Again Twilight was amazed that all of this stuff worked! How they did this with out any magic she will never know. Yet somehow they managed to survive harsh conditions and wars that would have brought Equestria to in knees, without the service of magic. The humans were surly remarkable creatures that astonished any living being but themselves. They had a machine for just about everything! Even to talk to each other over a long distance! Since the ponies had taken over though they had lost most of the accomplishments to the sands of time. Much to the disappointment to the young unicorn.
It still made her gaze at the steam powered beasts they used in wonderment. If these were considered old tech to them... what was new!?!?!?
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The traction engine clattered into camp at half past 9 with a full wagon of gravel trailing behind it. Once the engine had been parked under a hastily built shelter Richard pulled a lever that dropped the fire and ashes to the ground beneath it.
The pair jumped off the machine with sleepy legs and eyes. They walked to the bunkhouse without dinner and fell into their respective beds and fell asleep almost instantaneously.