Train Street closed after failing to meet fatality quota for 117th year running

Hoàn Kiếm, Hanoi – Controversy ran amok in the capital last week, following authorities’ decision to close down the iconic tourist hotspot known colloquially as train street due to the destination’s consistent failure to meet projected fatality quotas.

Built in 1902, the French-laid train tracks are yet to kill as many people in Hanoi as the French themselves did, but that didn’t stop representatives from the Ministry of Tourism in their quest for ever-more brutal tourism products.

“While we welcome a certain level of diversity within the tourism industry of Vietnam, Hanoi’s train street simply hasn’t been pulling its weight in terms of fatal incidents,” claimed Nguyen Châm Biếm, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Tourism tasked with evaluating the effectiveness of train street.

“Our roads will continue to remain the cornerstone of fatalities – claiming more than 8000 lives in 2017 alone – but in the same year, just 133 people perished in railroad related wrecks, many of whom did not even die on ‘train street’” Nguyen said, using air quotes to emphasise his point.

“But we do expect to see strong fatality growth in Dalat’s abseiling sites, drunk drowning off Cát Bà is also projected to rise, whereas dying of sheer boredom at pagodas nationwide remains strong, it’s just unfortunate that the number of tourists splattered by 15km/h trains has only really declined over the street’s 117 years of existence,” lamented Nguyen.

While Hanoi authorities have issued strong warnings to influencers not to storm train street, a resistance movement by the name of “Fame or Death” has gained traction via a GoFundMe campaign that aims to reinstate Instagrammers’ ability to make softcore porn on the historic Hanoian street.

Among the 300 or so signatories to the campaign for freedom of selfies, Xe Lửa Danh Nhân is perhaps the anomaly. At 57 years old he is, by far and away, one of the campaigners closer to a natural grave, but the Hanoi-born train driver claims his shot at stardom “has been shattered by the train street closure.”

“I know we never pulled in the same number of grizzly deaths as say, the Hà Giang loop, but without all those screaming Caucasian faces whizzing by me incredibly slowly, my Facebook Live videos are going to be little more than lacklustre clips of life on a really slow train,” argued Xe.

Among the pastier of the delegation arguing for looser restrictions on drinking in the vicinity of public railroads was Desmond Van Winkledom, an influencer from Monaco who prides himself on “finding the unfindable” and an erratic scarf collection.

“My quest for a selfie-aggrandising online glorious death will not be stopped by flimsy barriers and corrupt cops,” Van Winkledom posted on Instagram last night.

“If people don’t get an artistically warped vision of my life, then why must I face the mediocrity of strained bowel movements in unsanitary toilets and my own linguistic incompetence while travelling in Vietnam? #GuessI’llFindSomewhereElseToDie #Outrage #Like&Subscribe” the human septic tank wrote.

At press time, local police reported one officer was being treated for injuries after being hit by a train while playing Candy Crush at the time of guarding the now-banned street.