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Wikisource has original text related to this article:
- The Day's Work at Project Gutenberg Includes ".007."
- .007 Google Books page images of full text from an 1899 edition.
| ".007" | |
|---|---|
| Short story by Rudyard Kipling | |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Short story |
| Publication | |
| Published in | August 1897 |
| Publisher | Scribner's Magazine |
".007" (originally subtitled "The Story of an American Locomotive") [1] is a short story by Rudyard Kipling. It is a story in which steam locomotives are characters (".007" is the serial number of the protagonist), somewhat like the later, better-known tales of The Railway Series by Wilbert Awdry and his son.
The story first appeared in Scribner's Magazine in August 1897, and was collected with other Kipling stories in The Day's Work (1898).
The locomotives themselves have personalities and talk in a manner reminiscent of what in real life would be the manner of the men who operate them. Human beings appear in the story only as seen from the perspective of the engines. The story relates a sort of rite of passage. A fast goods train was derailed by hitting a shoat (young pig) which got on the track, and ended up in a farm field. .007, a "sensitive", new, youthful engine performs in a heroic and manly way pulling the breakdown train, winning him the respect of his fellow engines. At the conclusion, the highest-ranking engine Purple Emperor, a "superb six-wheel-coupled racing-locomotive, who hauled the pride and glory of the road, the millionaires' south-bound express" inducts him into a fraternal organisation:
".007" is one of a number of stories and poems that Kipling wrote about engines, engineers, and machines. A social history of technology notes Kipling was a pioneer in "establish[ing] the world of work as an appropriate subject for literature" and says,
Another critic notes,
Some contemporary reviewers felt he went too far in this story. In a long essay in MacMillan's magazine, "an admirer"—who, judging from his comment on bicycles and horses, does not feel the same way about machines as Kipling—complained,
The story is sometimes mentioned speculatively as one of many possible inspirations for 007, the code number of Ian Fleming's fictional detective James Bond, but no connection is known. [6]
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The Railway Series is a series of British books about a railway known as the North Western Railway, located on the fictional Island of Sodor. There are 42 books in the series, the first published in May 1945 by the Rev. Wilbert Awdry. Twenty-six books were written by Awdry, the final one being written in October 1972. Sixteen more were written by his son, Christopher Awdry, between September 1983 and July 2011. The series features many anthropomorphic vehicles, including Thomas the Tank Engine. Thomas became the most popular and famous character in the series and the titular character of the television series Thomas & Friends from 1984 to 2021. The children's television series originated as adaptations of these stories.
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