JP & Sons Railroad

The **JP & Sons Railroad** was founded and is owned by James Prescott Sr., who sent his son and namesake, Jim Prescott, to manage construction of the Western line on the frontier, from Miradero to the Pacific Ocean. One of Jim's first tasks in Miradero was the dynamiting of the nearby Filbert Canyon. The progress Jim made on the railroad after a year on the job attracted the interest of the new governor of the state or territory in which Miradero was located, prompting a visit from the governor, complete with a Governor's Ball held in the town hall. However, James Sr. was not as pleased with his son's management, remarking that the trains were running late when he himself paid a visit to the frontier town.

The logo of the railroad is a stylized "JP" that can be seen inside and outside the train engines. When asked by a train engineer if she "owned the railroad", James Sr.'s daughter Cora Thayer Prescott pointed to the logo inside an engine and said, "In fact, I do!"

The JP & Sons locomotives appear to be tank engines, and therefore run without a traditional tender for carrying water and fuel. although they do not resemble a tank engine but instead a 4-4-0 without the tender.

In Lucky and the Endless Possibilities, Lucky worked as an engineer and helped Jim drive the train.

Snips once drove the train in Adventure Music Video, wearing a conductor's hat and a bandana.

## Damage and delays

* In Lucky's first spring back in Miradero, an old dam in Carver's Woods that was maintained by the railroad burst, flooding all the land past Skull Rock.
* In Lucky's first winter back in Miradero, a blizzard in the mountains prevented any trains from getting through to the frontier at Christmastime, with the result that the children of Miradero did not receive any shipments carrying presents.
* Later in Lucky's first winter back in Miradero, during an outbreak of frontier flu that laid up Jim Prescott (among others), a train carrying flu medicine was prevented from reaching Miradero when a tree toppled on the train as it was going by, stopping the train dead in its tracks. Appointing herself "acting railroad chief", Lucky teamed with Maricela ("acting mayor") to rescue the injured engineer and several horses being transported on the train and deliver the medicine to Doc Wilkins.
* The following spring, while Lucky and Jim were aboard a JP & Sons train from Miradero to Cannon City to attend that town's Bi-Annual Equine Auction, the train damaged its reach rod, a rod linking the reversing lever in the cab to the valve gear, thereby to control locomotive power and running direction. Jim and Lucky decided to make the last few miles to the town on foot, but arrived too late to buy back Spirit at the auction.
* Later the same spring, a dangerous problem with a switch at the Silverlode station that could have caused train collisions forced Jim to travel there to tend to it.
* On the day Jim went to Silverlode to deal with the malfunctioning switch, rocks falling during an earthquake aftershock damaged a rail bridge near Miradero between that town and Silverlode, interrupting the track in a blind location between a bend (on the Silverlode side) and a tunnel (on the Miradero side) that would not have been visible to an incoming train. Jim, the engineer, and other passengers inbound from Silverlode on the 3:00 pm would have been killed had the PAL not crossed the broken bridge and lit a signal fire using flint.
* The same spring, Jim ran into trouble blasting a pass through Goose Gulch, setting the enterprise back by a number of days and displeasing James Sr.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Lucky and the Unbreakable Spirit"
2. ↑ *Spirit Riding Free: The Adventure Begins*
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "Lucky and the Train Tycoon"
4. ↑ "Lucky and the New Governor"
5. ↑ "Lucky and the Patchwork Plan"
6. ↑ "Lucky and the Appaloosa Adventure"
7. ↑ "Lucky and the Christmas Spirit"
8. ↑ "Lucky and the Long Way Home"
9. ↑ "Lucky and the Shaky Day"