The massive steam-powered locomotive chugs down the track full-speed towing carloads of passengers behind. The stoker in the engine shovels scoop after scoop of coal into the boiler. It is hard anthracite coal – the finest fuel that can be disgorged from the bowels of the Earth.
A warning call comes to the engineer, “The bridge over future gorge is gone! Slow down now!” The bridge has been washed away by an extreme weather event adding torrential spring rains to the melting snow pack.
“Slow down now!” comes the warning call once again.
The engineer hears but does not respond to the call. He leans out the window – the tracks look fine from here. The stoker shovels another scoop of coal in to the boiler furnace.
“Slow down now!”
The engineer has been down this track many times before. Smoke billows overhead as ever more coal is fed into the inferno driving the train.
“Slow down now or the result will be cataclysmic!”




