This piece can be understood as an allegory to our mortality and yet maybe there are alternatives in the message.  Make no hasty assumption about the train's destination and the scene changes. Possibly this is just a routine conversation between a conductor and a passenger?   These questions may come to the viewer as the text is read, the pendulum swings, the lights flash with the sound of the train.

The design started with a clock that I enhanced with brass, copper and steel additions to simulate a railroad locomotive, albeit a strange one, with glowing wheels and flashing lights. Trains run on time schedules, so we have a quartz clock with two pendullums evoking rail crossings. The 20 sec sound of the steam locomotive leaving the station can be set as a  chime  every 30 or 60 minutes, running continuously or turned off.  A  train signal light is mounted behind the pendulum, and changes from red to green every 10 seconds. The lights protruding from the clock are vacuum tubes protected with copper cages which are clear anachronisms and add mystery as to the kind of train we have here. They flash consecutively around the clock, one flash per second.

The clock stands approximately 30" tall and consumes approximately 25 watts from the included 12V wall adapter.