Nine Minutes Lyrics

At 4am the 3.19 was hurrying through the night.
John Ridges saw the dull reflected glowing panel light.
Beneath his hands, the warm controls responded to his touch
As he drank a little coffee, though he didn't care for much.

He also had a bite to eat, a thing he liked to do;
The cutting here was long and clear, the engine driver knew.
And then a strange thing happened; felt like something breaking free
As the lines appeared to lift a fraction, momentarily.
And the time was 4.03.


He never saw or understood why anything was wrong;
The glowing gauges disappeared, his instruments had gone.
He heard a sound, though what it was his mind could not deduce.
He couldn't see, as others could, the giant breaking loose.

Amid the screams of tortured steel, he tried to stop the train.
The flying sparks before the eyes that wouldn't see again
Were coming through the cabin floor, now gone without a trace,
And Driver Ridges felt the cooling wind upon his face.

The grinding ceased; the stricken train came slowly to a halt,
And some survivors still maintain it was all the driver's fault.
But no one caught a fleeting glimpse among the trackside pines
Of the smiling face of the one who placed the rocks upon the lines.
And the time was 4.09.