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Another variant is to have the question answered in a humorous or joking way, revealing the problem was not mathematical but merely the set-up to a humorous trick-question. Although not train-related, a common example is something like: "One man leaves Tropetown going 80 mph. Another leaves Idiompolis going 75 mph. Where do they meet? IN JAIL! Because the speed limit is 55!"
Often times, vital pieces of information are left out, such as the distance between the cities, or that Train B makes a 20 minute stop in Clicheville. To show a character is smart they'll come up with these vital missing facts as part of their answer. The most common answer is normally something along the lines of "
See also [[Writers Cannot Do Math]], [[Everybody Hates Mathematics]].
{{examples}}
* Endlessly parodied by satirists when given any opportunity to put the boot into the people running the train service.▼
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* Very common in ''[[Zipi y Zape]]'', where they get those as asignements half the time and one entire long story is set around solving one. [[Vague Age|They do this when they aren't asked simple multiplication]]. [[Book Dumb|Which they have trouble with anyway]].
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* In ''[[Wayne's World]] 2'', in a vague dream sequence: "Ask me a question", "Ok, if a train leaves a station...", "No, a question about your life"
* Mentioned during Roman Moronie's trial in the movie ''[[Johnny Dangerously]]''.
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* Used in ''Deskset'' with Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn; once seriously, a second time as a joke when they were all a little tipsy during the Christmas Party.
* The problem is poked fun at with a non-train variant in ''[[Sky High]]'' as something of a [[Funny Background Event]]. Will is having a quiet, introspective moment while his friends are in the background doing homework.
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== [[Literature]] ==
* A variation of this problem, using riverboats instead of trains, is faced by Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse when he joins the navy in Neal Stephenson's ''[[Cryptonomicon]]''. He answers with a multi-page dissertation on the problem, attempting to take into account such variables as the speed of the current at different points of the river and the effect it has on the absolute velocity of the vessels. This isn't [[Obfuscating Stupidity]] of any kind; the actual
* The Dodecahedron presents a similar puzzle to Milo, Tock and the Humbug in ''The Phantom Tollbooth'', but one that contains cars, roads, and insufficient information. Tock solves it anyway.
* One of the [[Shadowrun]] short stories in ''Wolf & Raven'' starts out with Wolf about to be run down by a car, and feeling like he's trapped in "one of those math problems".
* A (nonfiction) book parodies of one of these was used to demonstrate how the two hemispheres of your brain work: (paraphrased)
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== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
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* ''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]'' also used it, with the added twist that she had to then prevent them from colliding....''with her house.'' (She fails)
* One of the characters on the ''[[The Wire]]'' tries to use one of these questions (substituting cars) for his 8th grade math class, but cannot finish the question because the students demand to know what types of cars they are and what neighborhoods they left from.
** In an earlier season, a juvenile drug runner can't solve a
* On ''[[Saved by the Bell]]'', one of these problems turned up on the SAT.
* [[Star Trek: Enterprise]] "Shuttlepod One" Trip starts rattling off a Train Problem while trying to determine what's wrong with the pod, only to exclaim that he never could work those kind of questions out. Our Chief Engineer, ladies and gentlemen.
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== [[Music]] ==
* ''[[Touhou Project|Cirno's]] Perfect Math Class'' (and the accompanying [[Fan Vid
* Makes an appearance in the final moments of "Fernando"'s confused ramblings at the end of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXydX9p_ZxA "You Look Mahvelous!"] by Billy Crystal:
{{quote|If a train is leaving Chicago at 11 AM in the morning, with five thousand pounds of bluefish, and another train is leaving Phoenix at exactly the same time, and Bert Convy is still hosting ''[[Tattletales]]''...}}
== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
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* ''[[Adventures in Odyssey]]'': Connie reads some kids in Whit's End a riddle about an electric train that involves the speed and direction of the train and of the wind. The question is, in which direction is the train's smoke blowing? The answer, of course, is that {{spoiler|electric trains don't have any smoke}}. Connie explodes when the kids don't get it.
* Often pondered by the navigation officer, Sub-Lieutenant Phillips, on ''[[The Navy Lark]]'' (among many other things, including references to Noddy's Big Book of Boats). The answer is usually, "Left hand down a bit."
== [[Recorded and Stand Up Comedy]] ==
▲* Endlessly parodied by satirists when given any opportunity to put the boot into the people running the train service.
== [[Web Animation]] ==
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* The
* Done in one episode of ''[[Dog City]]'' with two protagonists tied up on the bridge that both trains would soon cross.
* One of the questions used in ''[[Darkwing Duck]]'' to [[Logic Bomb|overload the brain]] of a super-genius who used a special ray gun to increase his IQ when he had a clear head. DW and Launchpad bombarded him with questions while they fired the ray at him, causing [[Your Head Asplode|his head to a-splode]].
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* This was the question that caused ''[[Doug]]'' to fail a math test.
* When Oscar Proud decided to help his daughter with her math homework in ''[[The Proud Family]]'', this question comes up. He concludes that both trains will meet at the crash site.
* An episode of ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy
* [[The Powerpuff Girls]] once had to face one of these problems in order to figure out where a train collision might occur. As they struggle to find an answer, Blossom delivers a solution: "[[Forgot I Could Fly|We're superheroes! Let's just find the two trains and stop them!]]"
** Him also gives Blossom this riddle in a [[Your Worst Nightmare]] scenario he's conjured for her, as her worst nightmare is failing an upcoming test. The question following the set-up is, "Which train will get to Cuba first?"
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* In one episode of ''[[Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot (animation)|Big Guy and Rusty
== [[Video Games]] ==
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