excerpt
“Mike, Mike, run, run…” Bruce yelled at the labourer with his head
out of the window of the last engine, some one hundred yards away.
Mike knew what he wanted him to do: to supposedly run to the
engine, climb up into the cabin and apply the brakes Mike knew how
to do this by observing the engineers drive these engines in the CP Rail
yard, so Mike threw the pipe of the pump on the ground and started
running after the free-rolling engine, hoping that he could reach it and
climb up into the cabin and apply the brakes; it was a simple matter,
indeed, even a labourer could do. However, Mike noticed that the rail
onto which our free-spirited engine was rolling was only about 150
yards long, and at its end, it was connected to another rail line where
a bunch of other cars were parked. It was funny that these cars had a
cylindrical shape, as they were used to transport oil from the storage
tanks of the oil wells and transported it to the refineries to produce
gasoline and diesel fuel. However, these cylindrical cars had a big sign
on both sides of their surface, which read dangerous when empty which
Mike saw as he came close to the cabin of the free-running engine.
Mike was almost there when he realized that the free-spirited
engine was almost at the point of intersecting the other rail with the
cylindrical cars, dangerous as they were, when something inside him
told him to turn around and run as fast as he could away from the
moment of connection. Indeed, Mike turned around only to realize
that Bruce, who had come down the engine he was driving and was
running towards him, also turned around and ran away from the
scene of contact as fast as they could. Then, as they ran, they heard the
big whack the free-rolling engine created when it ran into the parked
cars. We turned. Surely our free-spirited engine had climbed halfway
up onto the cylindrical car, thus demolishing the cabin, which
became an accordion pushed together.
“Finally, it stopped…” Mike thought, and a vague smile appeared
on his face, while he knew well that the big bosses would soon come to
our yard to do their questioning.
Libros Libertad 