I spent the holidays in New England, far from the Southern California heat. In fact there were a couple of heavy snows there. One of them happened while I was waiting at an
Amtrak train station in Vermont. The snow got quite heavy and obliterated the line between the parking lot and the train tracks. The Amtrak employees were cowering inside while an older couple backed their car completely onto the tracks and quickly found themselves stuck but good. Being neighborly New Englanders, a crowd gathered and began trying various solutions to get the car off the tracks before the train arrived. Nothing worked, so a helpful employee produced a tow line and crawled under the stuck car to attach it. My sister volunteered to pull with her 4WD behemoth. For a few inches it worked great, until the entire front end of the car pulled off and lay forlornly in the snow. The stoic locals took it in stride and merely threw the car parts to the side. The helpful employee was getting nervous now and went back down under the car, having found a more secure spot. My sis pulled again and got the car about half way off the tracks before a another bundle of car parts detached, this time releasing a large quantity of red liquid in the snow. From there a crowd safely pushed the car into the lot, leaving behind a bright red patch in the white blizzard, looking like the scene of some gruesome bloodletting.