The bald-headed muscular man sat in the front of the train. He wore the insignia, LISR, proudly on his uniform. In a few more years he could retire. He couldn’t wait. He’d be at the beach every day during the summer and then he’d spend the winter golfing at his Florida mansion.

But first he had to get the signals working and the engine malfunction fixed. He picked up the phone in the cab, “We’ve spent millions of dollars every year and those signals still malfunction. What the hell is wrong now?”

At the other end of the line a guy with slicked back hair and a pot-belly looked at the tracks with despair. “Come on you guys, try it again,” he said. Two elderly gentleman raised two flags each and started waving them back and forth. Several trains stood in sight with their drivers cursing the delay. They couldn’t figure out what the flag men were doing. They looked like sick birds flapping their wings aimlessly in the air. Mr. Pot-Belly turned to the phone, “Sorry, the signals are still down. I’m working on them.”

The bald man cursed and hung up the phone. “Alright, I am going to fix the engines myself. He stalked out of the cab and pulled off the sheet metal panel from the side of the engine. He looked inside and cursed. “Damn you, get back to work, now!”

Rows upon rows of shiny black and white striped snails sat resting. They looked at the bald man with hatred. “Let that bastard come down here and move this thing. That’s what I say,” the largest snail said in a gravelly Long Island accent.

This post is dedicated to the long-suffering commuters who ride the Long Island Snail (oops) Rail Road.