Once the No. 1 team football built an early 56-0 lead in the game against their weak opponents, the coach - wanting to spare the opponent further embarrassment, to keep his top players from being injured and sensing his own younger players needed experience - decided to give his reserves some well-deserved extended playing time.

Delightful inducements to embark, fine chance for promotion, it seems—aye, a stove boat will make me an immortal by brevet.

Yet had the whole train and all its bombs gone, had the engine crew merely jumped from the train and run as simple self-preservation would have suggested, or unhitched just the engine to make their escape faster, the whole town would have gone and most of the people with it, leaving just a smoking wasteland. Hundreds would have died.

Blank's former girlfriend Debi Newberry (Minnie Driver), whom he jilted in high school, now works as a radio DJ.