The Wx4 Funnypapers
last addition: 11/26/04
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In 1970, a Penn Central crew set-out two cars full of U.S. Mail on a spur... somewhere. The railroad finally found the cars two years later.



Two glowing tributes to the former craft of railroad firemen:
1970
Mad Magazine, Early 1960's





Where would railroading be,
Without Simon LaGree?




It seems that the company I work for is in a state of perennial existential crisis. And it invariably has but one solution. A local conductor drew this up at my special request during one such episode in 1996. He's really too talented to work for a railroad, wouldn't you agree? Perhaps one of you copyright lawyers out there might put in a good word for him with your clients, for whom you are currently writing me a nasty cease-and-desist email. Thanks!



This mid-1960's postcard from Idaho reminds me that I absolutely MUST get out the kids' Mr. Potatohead stuff and render a likeness of the Boise Locomotive Works locos that I run. I wonder if, when talking to clients, Boise salesmen are required to ask "Would you like fries with your order?"




Now, some thirty years hence from the publication of the above, the local public is beginning to ask "When are we going to rip out those antiquated Caltrain tracks that we just spent several hundred million dollars overhauling, so that we can spend ten billion bucks more to extend BART trains to San Jose, even though BART is slower than Caltrain? What in the heck are they thinking? Er, sorry about the rant - this sort of thing is why us engineers are confined to cabs closed off from the public.

That's very observant of you - yes, this has nothing to do with railroads. In a weird coincidence, I clipped this comic thirty years ago because it tickled me, and now the wife raises these stinking rats with wings - which doesn't tickle me one bit.

date unknown

In the 1960's, Midwest and Northeastern railroads were so bad off that Congress flirted with outright nationalization of the bankrupts. The immediate result: Conrail. The politicos allowed the Midwest lines to wither and die.