Amtrak Hits Its Own Backhoe On Track Killing Two

One minute you are enjoying the view with a cup of coffee in your hand

Chatting with your fellow passengers in the dining car

Or in a seat with enough leg room for even Kareem Abdul Jabbar

Why people even on short trips need to fly is a mystery in masochism hard to understand

Then without warning other than the blowing of the engine’s horn and the hitting of brakes

A useless gesture as even in an emergency lots of time and distance are needed to stop a speeding train

An Amtrak train with 8 passenger cars at 80 miles an hour needs a mile to avoid being an object to kill and maim

No seatbelts only hands and arms to cushion your flying through the as the laws inertia will your safety forsake

Why a backhoe was on the tracks is a question that needs to be asked

It could not get off the tracks and by the engine was struck

For two workers on the backhoe in a fireball they had run out of luck

One can only wonder why they chose that time and place to perform their task

The other question that comes to mind is to ask why?

With a speeding train on them bearing down

Time to from the backhoe immediately jump to the ground

And run, not trying to save a backhoe a futile try, not worth it and they died

What is really scary is that while airplane crashes in the U.S. are very, very rare

But trains yearly with objects or each other collide

Or derail which makes for a deadly end to an otherwise pleasant ride

To the tune of 2,000 times a year, far more than collisions or crashes traveling by air

 © April 3, 2016, Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet 
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