All aboard the ghost train _ but only if you're not easily spooked

In these busy times, we all have so many things on our minds that we constantly mislay our important possessions, such as keys, phones and railway trains.倉 Well, trains maybe not so often. But such was the case at a Sri Lankan rail yard recently, when a staff member misplaced his train. His colleagues said they hadn't seen it. So he called his bosses. Horrified, bosses ordered staff to phone everyone they could think of to embarrassingly ask: ``Er, I'm calling from Sri Lanka Railways. Just wondering if anybody has seen a train? It's a big, heavy metal thing with lots of wheels.'' The humiliating calls eventually paid off. An unscheduled ``ghost train'' had been spotted heading for the city center, 12 kilometers away. Leaping into a fast vehicle, staff members managed to catch up and pounced on board to halt it. I know what you're thinking - didn't you just see this in a Hollywood movie? Yes, this is the exact plot of Unstoppable, the only difference being that in real life, there wasn't any incidental music and the heroes didn't get hugged by gorgeous female movie stars when they climbed off. (Or maybe they did). But here's where it gets interesting. You'd have thought the brakes had been left off, right? But technicians said no, the engine had been switched on, indicating that the ghost train had had a ghost driver. Then reporters found a 1913 newspapermini storageclipping about a ghost train mysteriously leaving the same station, on the same track 100 years earlier, on the same day, same time. The most believable theory now is a ghost train driver visits that particular line and steals a train once a century on a particular day. I'll bet on it, and if I'm wrong, I'll pay you CASH. (Just come see me in 100 years time with full documentation). The same week, there was a viral video going around about a driverless car speeding along a highway in the US state of Utah. It went miles without crashing. A CNN report noted the ``ghost'' car ``drove better than most Utah drivers.'' Some years ago, I reported about a ghost train going by itself on a 45km journey starting in Bogor, Indonesia. The empty drivers' cabin was locked from the inside. Railway officials sneered at the ``ghost train driver'' theory as ridiculous superstition, preferring to believe a Hindu god had materialized, gone for a spin, then dematerialized. Much more scientific, one has to agree. Personally, I don't believe in ghosts, preferring the theory that ``dumb'' objects - such as trains, rocks and members of political parties - occasional manifest signs that make them look like thinking, breathing sentient beings. But of course, they don't really have any sort of innate intelligence. Well, some of the rocks, maybe. Send ideas and comments via .mrjam.org 迷你倉