An grabbed his grandfather's old compass. He had never been to those hills. But starting tomorrow, he was going to buy a shovel. And maybe, just maybe, he'd find a tunnel where no tunnel should be, and the last lost whistle of the D11-302.
He rebooted his PC. He loaded Trainz Simulator Vietnam . His custom route was still there. The ghost train asset was still there.
At the end of the tape-tunnel was a light. Not the white light of heaven. The greenish-yellow glow of a CRT monitor. And sitting in front of it, in an engineer's seat that was fused to the floor of the digital carriage, was a skeleton in a Việt Nam Cộng Hòa railway uniform.
He leaned closer to his screen. The sim world he had built—a painstaking recreation of the Thống Nhất line from Hà Nội to Sài Gòn, circa 1972—was running in real-time. His latest project, the "Ghost Train," was a passion piece: a D11 steam locomotive, the last of its kind, pulling a single, rust-crusted carriage through the jungle overpasses. trainz simulator vietnam
But as the in-game clock flickered to 02:00, a chill crawled up his spine.
An froze. His hands hovered over the keyboard.
His joystick vibrated once. The throttle in the sim lurched forward on its own. The ghost train began to move, not along the tracks, but straight into the mountain beside the station. An grabbed his grandfather's old compass
The voice returned, softer this time, almost grateful.
He went to close the program. But the "Exit" button was gone. In its place was a single word: "Hãy lái nó." (Drive it.)
His headset crackled. Trainz had a basic radio chatter function for dispatchers, but he had turned it off. And maybe, just maybe, he'd find a tunnel
But when he opened the session list, a new folder appeared. It wasn't named in Vietnamese or English. It was a set of coordinates: 14°46'27.1"N 108°34'18.9"E .
"Con… con còn nhớ ga này không?" (Child… do you still remember this station?)
On the carriage door, glowing letters appeared, etched in rust: "NGÀY 22 THÁNG 4. TÌM CHÚNG TÔI." (April 22nd. Find us.)
"Cảm ơn con. Chúng tôi chỉ muốn ai đó nhìn thấy đường ray của chúng tôi một lần nữa." (Thank you, child. We just wanted someone to see our tracks again.)