I hear some of the lyric differently and it conveniently serves to reinforce my interpretation:
This song is a ballad of great loss and lament over a train that crashes into a school bus. The engineer is high on something(s) that allow him to "flee the heat", put himself to sleep a midst the drudgery. He approaches the town that he barrels through as the walls get a stone or two higher towards the center of population. His conductor admonishes him and tries to calm him. The third person teller of the tale points out that even power lines have warnings attached "floaters so the airplanes won't get caught" but the intersection of the fatal accident does not. The last thing the children on the bus will hear is the warning bell of the train ringing into the sky blue sky they will see as they die outside the bus. The song is written "piloted" in the same frame of mind of loss as the woman who is "sowing pain" with a chorus of girls to "help her sing". If one were to visit the sight today only a "field of weeds" would be there to remind anyone "remember him" of the tragedy or the driver or the train or the children. This is the fable that reminds us to be diligent, stop at railroad crossings, watch our speed.
I hear some of the lyric differently and it conveniently serves to reinforce my interpretation:
This song is a ballad of great loss and lament over a train that crashes into a school bus. The engineer is high on something(s) that allow him to "flee the heat", put himself to sleep a midst the drudgery. He approaches the town that he barrels through as the walls get a stone or two higher towards the center of population. His conductor admonishes him and tries to calm him. The third person teller of the tale points out that even power lines have warnings attached "floaters so the airplanes won't get caught" but the intersection of the fatal accident does not. The last thing the children on the bus will hear is the warning bell of the train ringing into the sky blue sky they will see as they die outside the bus. The song is written "piloted" in the same frame of mind of loss as the woman who is "sowing pain" with a chorus of girls to "help her sing". If one were to visit the sight today only a "field of weeds" would be there to remind anyone "remember him" of the tragedy or the driver or the train or the children. This is the fable that reminds us to be diligent, stop at railroad crossings, watch our speed.