I was part of an engineering team that examined whether Homestake Pass or Pipestone Pass was the most profitable crossing of the Rockies. One day I was sitting in my office - which has a view of an engineering consulting firm - when the President (of the United States) or Secretary of State - I don't remember which - called to ask my opinion on the Iran hostage crisis, when suddenly the phone rang.

It was the president of the Burlington Northern.

He was angry that I did not take his call, but later understood, given the global significance of my position when I explained it to him. We laughed about it later over drinks while flying on a charterted Concord from Harlowton to Butte, where I was to deliver a talk to the MRHA.

In any case, to the point. My quantum mechanical, econometrical analysis of Homestake Pass line revealed a startling conclusion - confirmed by experiments on Berkeley's synchrotron laboratory - that the Pipestone Pass grade was the most profitable piece of railroad in that part of the United States. Well, it would have be been so, if not for one thing.

Porpoising grain cars.

In a definitive study performed in the prestigious University of California laboratory on railway car-track dynamics - performed on university time and hence funded by the generous citizens of California - it was determined that Pullman Standard grain hoppers jumped the tracks - indeed porpoised - at 24 mph, due to constructive interferences, Gaussian probabilities and various proprietary formulae, all of which can be learned by a public records search from UC Berkeley, which I have done and which you should do. Thank you undergraduates, for your generous tuition payments which funded this research (and my hobby).

But where was I?

Ah yes, I was telling you about me. By my estimates, I have knowledge equivalent to 17 university degrees. I am virtually my own university. I have 53 linear feet of books in my basement. I am a virtual master of the universe and have thought about becoming a railroad president. I have a public library card. I am a trained killer and I am virtually God's gift to history and the railroad industry.

Best Regards,
Milwaukee Road Historian