Stealth Trains make no sense
Movies often - WAY too often - require the viewer to suspend their disbelief.
Talk about another convoluted, negatively charged term. How about 'keep believing'? I guess that sounds too simple.
In any case, it's just impossible to do sometimes, when the movie depicts a supposed realistic scenery with realistic events and characters, realistic world with realistic physics, and then you have sudden Ninja Trains.
How is a train (as in many movies, a helicopter as well!) able to SURPRISE anyone?
Those things LITERALLY weigh TONS.
They make SO friggin' much SUCH loud noise, especially back then when the rails were not as well built and the engines were noisier anyway and so on... that you'd practically have to be DEAD and maybe even a little bit blind to be able to be surprised by a train.
Heck, I would bet hundreds that even a deaf kid would be able to FEEL the train from the ground/rail tremors LONG before the train can be any kind of threat.
I have previously wondered why pilots / drivers / err.. engineers? are so homicidal and murderous. They brake for as many people as Spaceballs!
Why do the trains never brake? Why don't they slow down? It's so stupid, especially when you can CLEARLY see how slowly the train is moving, and how short it is.
It's a completely different thing when a train is already moving at fast speed, hauling 50 cars or more - THAT thing is not going to be able to stop in a hurry, no matter how much they hit the brakes.
But a tiny train that is basically crawling... why won't the driver/whatever just slow down until there are no kids on the tracks? There are THREE occurrences of 'stealth train' and 'maniac driver' in this very movie!
One, how is the original kid going to be killed by a train and his body pushed by the train deep into the forest? How did the train surprise the kid enough that he did not hear it, when you can literally hear trains from MILES away? Try just how far distance away you can hear a train from, even when it is not using its whistle, but especially when it is? The tremors on rails do not just SUDDENLY appear - there is a REASON why it is a reliable method of knowing whether a train will come in the next few minutes.
For some reason, these obvious methods stop working in this movie, so the movie can happen.
Furthermore, would the train driver/pilot/etc. REPORT hitting a friggin' KID with the train? Did he try to even stop or slow down or whistle or anything? These main kid characters hear and see the train (of course only when it's alredy close, but NEVER when they would ACTUALLY notice the train, which is MINUTES before it can be any kind of danger).. and get out of the way.
Why did Ray (was it?) not do the same? Was he suicidal? Why would the train driver neither slow down, stop nor REPORT this to the authorities IMMEDIATELY? Shouldn't the place be swarming with cops a long time before these kids can get there, because trains are NOT FORCE MAJEURS any more than trucks or helicopters are? (Even though movies try to make us believe they are)
So, even Ray being killed by a train is already suspicious. I am sure this kind of thing does happen, but none of these things are explained - how could the train, a FRIGGIN NOISY AND SMELLY ENORMOUS THING surprise a kid, unless the kid is dumb, deaf and blind? Why didn't the train driver report that to the authorities, unless he's mute?
Why would the second train driver not slow down or stop when the psycho kid wants to 'play chicken'? (Same with the truck driver hauling the logs. Just stop! Even Ace isn't insane enough to run straight into a stationary truck!)
What about the third train that just SUDDENLY APPEARS, somehow being able to move at full speed on a track that is curvier than a Black Mamba?
I mean, this train has to basically move through an S-shaped track, and yet it can't, won't, or doesn't slow down? Makes no sense already.
Then it only uses the whistle, not slowing down or braking AT ALL when there are kids on the bridge. Just RAM through them full speed, because the driver is a psycho?!
Also, there is NO WAY the rail doesn't already vibrate when Wesley puts his ear on it and such. They should all feel the tremors already!
WHAT IS THE POINT of that kind if 'train prediction method', if it DOES NOT WORK?!
(In real life, it does, of course, so what the F, movie??)
I can't stand these Ninja Trains and Ninja Trucks and Ninja Helicopters in movies. Get it together, damnit.. !
This is another movie trope I just wish would burn and die in hell already. It's only superceded in annoyance levels by people never announcing their presence when they see someone they know. No, it's better to just surprise them suspiciously by SLAMMING THEIR SHOULDER really hard! NO one acts like that in real life!