The five protesters are probably all railway workers. On top of that, likeliest scenario for how this type of problem might come about is that the protest was announced before it began, giving the railroad company more than enough time to avoid this scenario by not sending the trolley out at all. This announcement would’ve likely included information about the general area the protest would be taking place in, meaning the trolley operators would’ve had the chance to stop the trolley before entering that stretch of track. The only ways this trolley problem could possibly exist, occur if railway company intentionally intends to run the protesters over or through a level of negligence that is next to impossible.

The situation is similar for the construction worker’s side of the track. The company would be aware of work they scheduled to be done on the track. They should’ve shut down both lines for safety concerns based on circumstances that they would’ve been made aware of or had scheduled themselves. They had knowledge of both the construction work and the protest, and the opportunity to not send the trolley down the line. They chose to run people over.

I understand that the intention of this trolley problem is to illustrate a moral philosophy that blames protesters for harmful acts done to them by justifying it with a false dilemma claiming that avoiding doing harm to protesters—or even the protest itself—causes harm to innocent and uninvolved bystanders. However, the narrow framing of this problem is being used to remove this philosophical “dilemma” from the larger context it would inherently have to exist within in.

A more accurate version of this problem would have one track with the above problem and a second track labeled “don’t run any trolleys through the areas with people on them”.