Episode
The Eséka Train Disaster of 2016 | Episode 109
- Published
- Jun 8, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3211
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Summary
We've described some pretty fairly awful commutes on this show before. On today's very special "return-to-Africa" episode, all people wanted to do was get to work, but the weather got bad to the point where the road said "you shall not pass, your life is in danger". The train took a look at all this and said, "hold my beer”. On today’s episode: you will learn how the location of today’s story sounds toasty and hot to the uninitiated, but is actually one of the wettest places on earth; we will describe a claustrophobic and unenviable situation somewhere between the roller-skating in the back of the truck stunt from Jackass combined with the trash compactor scene from Star Wars; and I will actually say that no one choo choo chooses to be in today’s kind of disaster, which I only call out early to ask for your forgiveness. And if you were listening on Patreon: you would learn about the US military’s ambitions to turn its enemies into bee-coated, gay, diarrhea fanatics, and how they inspired Mikkos Cassadine’s aims of destroying the world in the 1980s; we’ll visit a place so rainy that you will have no choice but to assume I’m lying; and we’ll walk through a list of all the different, awful things that can happen to your spine. Also, at the end of this episode, I’m going to announce the results of a naming contest we held for our hungry gorilla friend, and I will share the story behind it, which, fair warning, is extremely emotional. People describe travel by rail as a romantic way to see the landscape. Well, I don’t know so much about that, but in this very special and intimate episode, a lot of people were brought closer together. I wanted to shout out Joyce Mokou Kontcheu (ask how to pronounce) who sent me my very first fan mail from Africa! That’s a big deal for me. Th…