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“Good gosh! Good golly! It’s Diesel Dolly!” is only one of the many chants America’s children have developed to greet the nation’s most popular locomotive. Whether chugging through town to celebrate a young man’s birthday or taking a lengthy diversion to help an injured animal, Diesel Dolly and her highly perishable cargo can be found almost anywhere outside of her scheduled destination.
“Diesel Dolly is by far our most adorably sentient tank engine,” said Providence & Worcester Railroad Company Spokesman Mark Clapton. “From the kids who love her winning smile to adults who bask in her quick wit, everyone loves Diesel Dolly. Except for the companies who want their stuff delivered—they actually seem pretty angry a lot of the time.”
Dolly, a SD70-MAC diesel-electric locomotive, was originally given human intelligence by General Electric engineers. “We had hoped to save a bundle on labor costs,” said Chief Designer Andrew Schmidt. “We did not anticipate, however, that it would make Dolly quite this interested in saving upstart short-line railroads from big mean international companies, or that she would almost completely lose interest in the basic purpose of rail transportation.”
Indeed, not everyone is enamored with Diesel Dolly. “She’s missed her quota in four of the past six months,” grumbled lumbermill owner Chuck Stickler. “When I asked her about it, she said that no matter how short the day or how long the mile, Dolly always delivered with a smile. I told her that I didn’t need a smile, I just need my lumber, and she said that money is just a silly old number. Then she taught my son that studying and working hard were cool, which was nice but failed to address my original complaint in any way,” he added.
“This is not the first time that imbuing important machinery with personality has backfired,” said Brookings Institute Technologist Hubert Duval. “Who can forget Billy the Bicycle and his Lou Gehrig’s Disease? Or the tragic case of Prancing Pat the Precision Robotic Scalpel, who loved only to dance? Let’s not even bring up the disaster that was Norton the Nuclear Containment Back-Up System and his insatiable urge to nap.”
Despite these concerns, Dolly continues to find work. “We’re giving Dolly her biggest job yet,” said P&W Railroad CEO Abby Huntsman. “She’ll have to haul a twenty-car load of diesel down to Camden, in our most important job of the year. She just has to learn to believe in herself.”
Added Huntsman, “This is not a problem faced by regular locomotives.”
