RB038 Set the Record Straight

Miss Anderson is the teacher at Beaver Creek Elementary School. Two of her students, Justin Alexander and Peter Kloss, who are not paying attention in class and may fail if their work doesn't improve. The boys' only interest is sports and creating plays for those sports. The boys' fathers were college athletes whose only interest is also sports. Justin's and Peter's dads petition the school board to have Miss Anderson fired. The men accuse Miss Anderson of being prejudiced against sports because she is physically handicapped. Then the fathers convince other parents that Miss Anderson is an unfit teacher. What can Bill do to help Miss Anderson defend herself and keep her job? What will Miss Anderson do in the face of all this public opposition?

How much does that choo choo cost?

I thought you might be interested in just how much a typical train with 100 to 130 cars might cost if you were considering purchasing one.

Let's start with the train's engine, or more correctly engines. It is likely that your train will need four engines, two pulling and two more pushing the cars. And those pusher engines require computers with software that controls and limits how hard those engines push to keep those engines from derailing the train. Your engines will cost roughly $1.65 million to over $2.0 million each depending on the extras in each. So engines will cost you a total of roughly $8 million.

Then there are those 100 or so cars you need. One box car will be $86,000 - $96,000. Coal cars are $72k to $82k a piece. Your typical tanker car is $80k. A standard grain car is $75k. Those piggy-back cars come in sets of three at a cost of $175k - $200k or in sets of five at a cost of $250k - $275K. That means you will have to spend about $9 million for your 130 cars.

That gives you a grand total of $17 million for your very own freight train.

Now if you feel that hauling passengers would be better and cheaper for you, consider this. Engines for commuter trains start at $2.5 million and go over $4 million. Passenger cars cost from $1.8 million to over $3.5 million each. You can see that it doesn't take too many engines and passenger cars to equal or top the price of a good sized freight train.

Maybe we are all better off letting the railroads purchase their own trains and we will simply take advantage of the goods and services these good folks provide.

Junction City Railroad Days

Junction City Railroad Days begin this Friday, July 31, at 4:00pm. There will be activities and games for young and old in the town square. The railroad will be exhibiting its newest and fastest engines at the rail yard on the north side of town. All sorts of classic trains, such steam engines, will be in Junction City courtesy of several train collectors from around the country. Also an array of various types of cars from coal and hopper cars to tankers to box cars to flat cars. And what would Railroad Days be without intermodal cars. Maybe you know intermodal by their more common name, piggy-back cars. Catch the latest piggy-back cars, containers (i.e. truck trailers) are stacked two high on well cars that are flat cars with short walls that give the cars extra rigidity and strength.
Railroad Days are sponsored by the railroad and Canyon City Truck Lines. Leonard Grant, truck line owner, and Spencer Neihoff, railroad manager, came up with the idea for Railroad Days ever since Chief Ranger Bill Jefferson convinced these two men to combine the efforts of both businesses to improve delivery service in all kinds of weather. By the way Ranger Bill will be the event host Friday.
Bus service will be provided for Railroad Days events around Junction City all weekend. Also most communities in the tri-county area have arranged bus trips to and from Railroad Days. Knotty Pine is no exception. There will be one bus to Railroad Days on Friday afternoon and two buses each day on Saturday and Sunday.

RB037 The Shortage

Ranger accountant John Peterson has become distant and irritable. Then he disappears one evening. His wife asks Bill to find John and his problem. John is an honest, hard-working man. He does excellent work for the forest service and has his books audited annually. But John has a major problem. He has a shortage in the books of several thousand dollars and can't find the mistake anywhere. What can Bill and the boys do to get John out of this problem? Will Bill tell on John? See that figures really don't lie.

"Sleeping Death" note

If you are like me, then you may not know much about the disease sleeping sickness. I thought that sleeping sickness was a disease only found in very hot, humid climates in places like Africa or lands close to the equator. I also thought that the tsetse fly was the only carrier of the illness.
Actually that is only partially true. Sleeping sickness (Its medical name is African trypanosomiosis.) is only found in Africa and is passed by the bite of the tsetse fly. A special form of the illness in animals is called animal African trypanosomiosis. Also several conditions that cause lethargy in man are referred to as sleeping sickness or medical fatigue.
But back in the 1910's and 1920's another form of sleeping sickness swept the entire world. It is an unusual form of encephalitis (a disease that attacks the brain) called encephalitis lethargica. This form of encephalitis spread quickly all over the world and lasted more than 10 years. It disappeared as quickly as it appeared and has not been seen in the world since. This sleeping sickness was also spread by mosquitoes just as in this week's story. There doesn't seem to be any fear of this form of sleeping sickness coming back. The disease may have had genes that quickly mutated helping it to survive and spread as it did. But the mutation process apparently eventually killed off encephalitis lethargica.
The writers of Ranger Bill worked hard to write stories that were in the news at that time or were historically correct. I think this is one of those historically based shows that we don't have much knowledge of today.