We Are Always on Time, Well, Usually

We all remember the little children’s book about the train that could, right? You do remember the story: “I think I can! I think I can!”

Anyway, last Sunday night, Amtrak had a train that, if it could talk, would be saying, “I think I can’t. I think I can’t!

It seems that a quick train trip down the coast turned into a long haul for more than 80 Amtrak passengers when their train from Los Angeles to San Diego ran out of fuel Saturday night.

Amtrak spokesman Cliff Cole said the train sat for about two hours on the northern edge of San Diego before another engine came along to push it the last several miles to the San Diego train station. The train, which had left Los Angeles at 8:30 PM Saturday night, didn’t arrive in San Diego until 1:15 AM Sunday morning—more than two hours late.

An Amtrak official said that a train running out of fuel is “an unusual occurrence” and that they are looking into how it happened.

My guess on how it happened is this: SOMEBODY FORGOT TO PUT FUEL IN IT!

What would be your guess? How did the Amtrak train run out of fuel?

The Rest of the Story

Do you have a tendency to read the last chapter of a book first? Do you just want to know who committed the crime before you read how they did it? Do you like to eat your dessert before your main course?

Well, if you answered yes to any of those questions, will you please try to contain yourself just once and read this post one paragraph at a time, in order, without skipping to the bottom? Because, as you read it word by word, paragraph by paragraph, you will see that the entire post could be summed up in the last sentence!

So, don’t cheat!

Vladimir Rasimov passed out and fell asleep between the tracks as he took a short cut home after going out with some friends.

The train driver saw somebody on the line and braked sharply. When rescuers tried to pull the sleeping from underneath the carriages the man was still sleeping. Unfortunately, the rescuers couldn’t reach the sleeping man under the train. So, the train had to move forward until they could reach him.

Train driver Vladimir (does any one in Russia have a different name?) Slabiy said: “I saw a man lying between the tracks and tried to stop, but it was too late. The train went right over him and I thought he must have been killed. But when I got out and checked he was still lying there fast asleep. If he had woken up from the noise of the train he would have lifted his head and been hit by the undercarriage and that would have been the end of him.”

And, here’s the conclusion to the entire post: “It was lucky he was so drunk.”