The film would avoid tidy conclusions. The express keeps moving—delays and detours fold into the schedule—and the final scene would find the train inching away from a station bathed in late light. Some passengers would disembark, others stay aboard. The conductor opens a window and tosses the photograph into the wind, letting it catch a gust and disappear between carriages. He doesn’t throw it away in anger so much as release a small, practical mercy. The camera lingers on his hand as it returns to the rail, fingers curling around the metal that has been his compass.