The Unstoppable Train

A train of strange proportions pulled into the station; from a distance, it appeared grotesquely distorted, with cars seemingly half their normal size; one would mistaken the cars as fit for mere sticks – no human would fit through their doors. The few dozen cars seemed far too short for their number; the design, I conjectured, must have been designed to fit in a much shorter station than typical twenty-car trains would require, as much of the stations on this line lacked. Yet, as the train neared the station, its deceleration gave birth to a strange sight; as the train slowed, its length gradually increased such that only the first half of the train pulled alongside the platform when it finally came to a stop.

Travelers mingled on the platform; a dignified, older man clearly in a hurry jockeyed to board the train; a unkept and unshaven man excitedly ran, seemingly contemplating jumping out a window before deciding to wait and exit the train in a more civilized fashion; a young woman leapt off the train and embraced a significantly older man, kissing as if they were lovers as they walked away; many travelers – clearly all innocuous, innocent, inconspicuous – passed through the platform.

At the last car on the platform a young man and woman with a strange hat furiously argued over a map of some sort.

“We missed our stop,” I overheard the woman say. “Are you sure you calculated correctly?”

“I swear my watch isn’t behind,” The man retorted. “See – my second-hand is synced with the stations’ watch,” he replied, “and I just set it at midnight,” ignorant to the fact that his watch read 3:57 instead of 7:57.

“And please throw out your dead cat,” the woman interjected.

The man clutched the box to his chest with even more vigor. “You don’t know that,” he insisted.

As the train pulled out of the station, the man threw the woman’s hat out a window, followed by his box, in a fit of anger. I examined the hat. It felt much heavier than mere cloth warranted, and beeped whenever I pointed its front at myself and when I aimed it at a hot-dog stand alongside the platform.

Then, after the train cleared the platform, it began to rapidly accelerate, the sound of its horn growing lower in frequency until it was no longer audible, and its shape shrinking, while turning increasingly red, and abruptly disappearing not long afterwards.

I was only beginning to ponder the strangeness of such a train when a massive boom followed and rained a shockwave of death and destruction on the station.

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Just a Hint: Newtonian physics need not apply here.