The Last Train Car
Puzzler time. This is a puzzler of yesteryear. The best kind of puzzler, you know.
Anyway, here it is.
Imagine, if you will, a long freight train, like the kind you see out west. A train with a couple hundred freight cars.
It is on a big cross country trip, carrying all the things. It pulls into the train yard, for a scheduled stop. On this stop all the workers get off the train to stretch their legs.
Then it is time to take off again so all the train workers, they get back in, and the engineer opens the throttle and the train starts to pull away from the yard.
As they pull away, they realize that the caboose has a problem. The brake is frozen on one of the wheels of the caboose of the train.
The wheel is being dragged along. There's sparks and smoke coming off the track. So someone standing there yells for the train to stop.
They manage the signal to the engineer to stop the train.
Well, they work on it for a bit, but they can't fix it. So they just cut the caboose loose. They remove that last car and then wave them on to go ahead with their journey.
So the engineer gives it the throttle, the train doesn't move. He gives it more throttle. It doesn't move. He gives it more. Doesn't move.
And what's happening is the train isn't moving, but his wheels are spinning on the track.
The cars aren't moving. There's nothing wrong with any of the remaining cars, and there's nothing wrong with the engine. But the train won't move.
The question is, what's wrong with this picture?
Good luck.
