The Runaway Train

Loud clanking sounds of metal reverberated from the hustle of the train yard. Switches methodically ushered each train to its appropriate parking rail. Men with overalls and helmets yelled vicariously to each other, their voices bounding from one end of the freight cars to the other. Scents of old oil and metal swirled up into the air.

Maybe someone was overseeing all these many trains and their parking places, maybe someone was not. It was hard to tell. There was a tall, tight office off to the side. It sported walls tacked with a numbering system with thousands of tacked post-its, so one could presumably think there was some rhyme or reason to this constipated yard. Still, no occupants.

A long, large freight train could be seen arriving to the yard. He was a quarter of a mile out and slowing. He was old and had the scars to prove it. A huge engine car with thick metal, dings and rust creeping in. He used to be black and shiny, but the dullness of age was now his most prominent feature.

His name was Earl. Earl had seen the best of the US over the years, with views many humans would never have the pleasure of seeing through a lens. Earl had also seen hurricanes and tornadoes, monsoon rains and snow so thick it had nearly derailed him a few times.

Earl was tired and nearly ready to retire. He was also cantankerous and cringed as the metal-on-metal sound grated beneath him. His slow crept to a halt as the switch mechanism approached to exit him from the tracks.

“Hey there, old boy, it has been a while” the switch foreman greeted Earl from about 75 feet away from the switch. Earl stopped. His arthritic wheels were giving out and didn’t seem to want to move any farther. Unfortunately, the switch was stuck too and despite the foreman’s courageous efforts it looked like an impasse.

Danger danger. Earl was pulling 42 freight cars full of ethanol. He needed to get off the track before the next train came along and things became flammable.

Frustration turned into concern, concern into urgency and before long there were many humans alongside the track actively troubleshooting the problem. Lots of muscle, lots of profanity, the switch simply refused to switch.

And then it happened.

Earl got fed up. He was old, tired and achy, and the switch became this old codger’s last straw.

The crew watched in horror and amazement as life sprang from the bowels of Earl’s archaic steam engine. The steam hissed and billowed. Several of the technicians ran to see what was happening, but they didn’t get there in time.

OFF! Earl went as the cranky wheels began churning faster and faster. 50 feet, 100 feet, 250 feet as he picked up momentum and left the astonished humans in his wake.

This was awkward. No one was actually on the train to engineer it. Earl had gone rogue. Perhaps it was one too many loads, perhaps it was the pain from old age. Earl was in uncharted territory and possessed by the ghosts of grandness and dignity. All he knew is that he was not going to go down sitting like a pathetic pile of metal in a random train yard in Hicksville.

His engine growled as the steam built up. 100 mph, 125 mph, 150! The 42 cars of fuel were on a fast track to destination unknown. Earl was unstoppable. Literally. He didn’t seem to care that his speed had him riding the tracks in a perilously close way. Sheer luck and gravity kept him from jumping the tracks.

He watched as another town swiftly approached and his whistle blew to warn those down the track. Calls from the previous trainyard had alerted all ensuing ones down the track. The rogue train needed to be stopped.

Earl wasn’t feeling it. His whole life had been full of humans telling him to “stop” “go” “stay on the tracks!” Now that he was in control, he was loathe to surrender it.

“It’s not slowing. If we switch the tracks the entire train will topple at this speed and all the ethanol will explode.”

“What are we to do? Is there some weight we can drop on it to slow the speed? One asked.

“With what? A helicopter? We’d have better luck dropping off a person so they can try to manage the controls from inside the engine. Or at the very least separate the engine from the cars

“We need to make sure there are no obstructions. When the train gets to Bell’s canyon it will be forced into an incline and then it will naturally slow. Let’s get a team in place.

The “team” had grown to multiple law enforcement municipalities, the railroad company, the Federal Office of Railroad Safety. All with their eyes and ears on the journey of the runaway, unpredictable locomotive. They needed to clear the path in front of it while they figured out a way to stop it.

Earl was having the time of his life. No stops! No slowdowns! He barreled his way through the small towns, whistling at his fellow train compatriots to follow him. A brave and rebel few heeded the call to freedom and it was not long before half a dozen trains galloped their way down the tracks behind Earl like maverick horses. The madness was growing. Humans watched in dismay and horror at their inability to slow this train and the track.

West they headed. Through Oklahoma, then Texas, then Arizona down to the tip of Nevada towards California. Helicopters converged like mosquitoes over Earl’s possessed train, and an occasional human dropped down from dangling strands. A few were successful and began making their way in the growing heat and blaring pace to the front engine where the engine controls sat ignored. They were headed to Death Valley, leaving most humans in the dust. Trains aren’t human though! Not aware of the impending doom of explosion, or the unfortunate reality the tracks were shortly coming to an end. Probably both at the same time.

An engineer finally made his way to the front. Another placed himself squarely in between the engine car and the gas-filled tanks so he could unhook them and stop the flammable matter from being a fatal hostage to Earl.

Earl jolted as hands made their way onto the console, hiccupping as he felt interference in his energy force. Surrender was not part of his plan. He parried and jerked. In doing so he gave an extra boost to the coupling effort and Earl broke free from his cars. He flew through the air, jumping the tracks and landed fifty feet away from the tracks. Without fuel, the ethanol cars slowed, but not before they tilted and tumbled off the tracks.

Like dominoes, the trains behind them bumped and jumped their rails, inadvertently forming a very large and erratic circle, like a band of wagons protecting its center core.

What a train wreck.

No matter how hard he tried, Earl could not move. So he steamed and whistled like the howl of a thousand engines. The others joined in the wailing chorus and the sound wafted up through the massive skies of Death Valley before dissipating into the twilight stars.

Then it went quiet. The spirits of the rails were spent. The gases cooled and night descended. The cold of the cold of Death Valley crept over the majestic circle and dew blanketed the metallic surfaces.

Soon there was nothing but the splendor of the Milky Way galaxy reflecting on the mirrored corpse of the sudden-death train. There was no more life of Earl, he had been subsumed by the dust and stars, a beautiful tribute to his hard-worked life.

In the morning the humans arrived to find a giant spiraled rhyolite stone circle where the trains had been, rhyolite formed from the eruptive sound of the train whistles. It can be seen there to this day, a tribute to the force of Earl the runaway train.