What would Captain Kirk make of it? The 6.50 a.m. Enterprise service from Belfast Central to Connolly Station was stopped in its tracks on Monday morning outside of Newry, Co Armagh.
However, Klingons on the starboard bow were not the problem rather - wait for it - it was the rain. The state-of-the-art Enterprise was unable to climb a gradient due to wet tracks which caused the wheels to slip.
Long-suffering passengers have become used to a litany of excuses for the poor service: electrical failures; frozen points and, once, the engine actually went on fire. Wet tracks is a new one and does not augur well for the coming winter. What happens if snow falls and melts the wrong way? It could be a major catastrophe.
After a half-hour delay the Little Red Train, sorry, the Enterprise, did manage to gain enough grip to escape the grey skies of Ulster for the blue skies of the Republic. Disgruntled commuters in Dundalk and Drogheda couldn't blame this delay on Transport Minister, Mr Seamus Brennan, as the offending rain fell outside his jurisdiction.
However, with an election in full-flow in Northern Ireland, Northerners on board were of the opinion that it was only a matter of time before Sinn Féin blamed the rain on the Brits; the SDLP blamed it on Sinn Féin and the unionists would fail to agree who was responsible.
Travellers feared the worse once again when the train ground to a halt at Rush and Lusk. It turned out that Iarnród Éireann decided that the intercity service should become a glorified DART and ordered the train to stop at Rush and Lusk, Donabate, Malahide and Howth Junction. The train finally arrived in Connolly Station at 9.47 a.m., almost three hours after leaving Belfast.