So, you're telling me that conductors would ghost ride their own train as a safety precaution? What a wild time!

I can only imagine the instances where the track dipped downhill a little after a bridge, picking up unsuspected speed, and leaving the crew frantically sprinting after the caboose.

Or that one bad day, when it's late into your shift, and you're feeling kind of sick and tired, and just don't have it in you to jog after your train over the upteinth bridge tonight, so you decide to risk it, relax a little, and ride it out. But then your luck also runs out, and you fall down the ravine in a burning metal cage only to then drown in the river, like some big budget action shot in a 1926 silent-film.