Smudge was born in 1895 in Altoona, Pennsylvania, the main hub of the Pennsylvania Railroad. When he was 16, he joined the railroad as a cleaner in the Juniata Shops, before in 1917, becoming an engineer, mostly operating small switcher locomotives in and around the aforementioned Juniata Shops and railyard. In 1921, after the USRA temporarily took control of the railroads during WW1, he was assigned to locomotive #5400, a then-new K4s class locomotive, the poster boy engine of the PRR's passenger fleet. He operated the engine along the line until 1928, when he was assigned a fast freight with the engine, which was a consist of Pullman Standard baggage cars, all containing valuable cargo. One of these was (insert some old magical artifact here), which, while the train was in transit, caused the entire train to teleport to 2020, in San Francisco. This was during lockdown, and he was able to stay relatively undercover. He modified his engine with a digital speedometer before he was teleported to another time zone. How the artifact teleports things is unknown, but there are some boundaries. No matter how far away Smudge his from his train, he'll end up back in the cab when he's teleported. And any damage sustained by the train will be repaired after teleportation.
