Smokey and Steamer

Smokey and Steamer
Character information
Gender	Male
Born	Sometime between 1920 and 1930
Primary wardrobe	Greasy blue overalls
Age	Not given. Likely late twenties to mid thirties
Occupation	Polar Express fireman (Smokey) Polar Express engineer (Steamer)
Background information
Appeared in	The Film

Smokey and Steamer are twin brothers and the Polar Express' fireman and engineer.

Bio

They are first seen fixing the light in front of the locomotive (with a bit of difficulty). While doing so, they leave Hero Girl in charge of driving the train in the engine room. After they manage to fix the light, they catch sight of something on the tracks ahead and call out to Hero Girl to stop the train. Hero Boy and Hero Girl get the message, but have trouble finding out which controls were the brakes. They figure it out and manage to stop the train in time. When the train finally stops, Steamer finds himself face to face with a caribou.

A giant herd of caribou is blocking the tracks, which Steamer points out would take hours to clear the track due to there being a hundred thousand to a million caribou in the herd. Hero Boy, Hero Girl and the Conductor get to the front of the train to try to help. Hero Boy slips and grabs on to Smokey's beard to prevent from falling, causing him to scream in pain. It is discovered that the caribou understand Smokey's screaming, so the Conductor continues to pull his beard to try to communicate with them. They eventually manage to get them to clear the tracks.

Smokey and Steamer go back to the engine room and get the train moving again. However, Steamer suddenly finds the throttle jammed and tries to fix it, though he forgets to notice how fast the train is going and pays no attention to Hero Girl calling out to them to slow down. The pin holding the throttle falls off and goes through the grate on the floor. As the train goes down Glacier Gulch, the pin comes out of the grate and Steamer catches it in his mouth, but swallows it.

As the train ends up on the Ice Lake, Smokey manages get the pin out of Steamer's mouth by hitting him on the back back with a shovel. However, that works too well as the pin falls out of the cab and lands on the ice, causing it to crack. Smokey decides to use the pin from his hair to fix the throttle, allowing Steamer to stop the train. Suddenly, Hero Boy notice the crack in the ice getting bigger, prompting Smokey and Steamer to get the train off the lake with the Conductor navigating. They find the tracks on the other side of the lake, head toward them and escape the cracking ice just in time.

Trivia

• Smokey and Steamer are two of several characters from the film to not appear in the book.
• In the film, the pair's names were only revealed in the credits. However, they mentioned their names, as well as them being twins (which was never revealed in the film at all), in the deleted scene, It Takes Two.

Quotes

• "Stop the train! Stop the train!" -Steamer
• "I make that heard to be at least a hundred thousand. Maybe even a million. It's gonna be hours before they clear this track." -Steamer
• "The pin!"
• "Oh no!"

Gallery

Steamer