See, you're providing a reason to care that doesn't exist in the word problem. That's fully supporting what I would have wanted in school.
If you don't like it or aren't good at doing it even while not liking it, the problem is not the problem.
I have no sympathy for this complaint.
Back when I took calculus in high school, my teacher explained how traffic speed cameras used mean value theorem to prove a car exceed the speed limit.
Here, there's an actual problem, actual actors and observers, and a motivation.
It answers the question why is this useful to know, or to be able to answer.
This is trivially resolved with "and the first train is carrying an urgent package for a passenger on the second train. When will the trains meet to deliver the package?".
But on the exam form, that's just extra irrelevant noise.