Maybe I just hang out with a disreputable crowd, but I have yet to meet a roadmaster who doesn’t gleefully tell stories about their “creative inventorying” or outright theft of track materials. Keeping these guys from squirreling away track parts and tools would be like trying to keep them from breathing, or trying to keep a trainmaster from using profanity.

Now, I’m sure the ones over in the Palouse are as honest as the day is long, but we just need to know the date and latitude we’re dealing with.

So, I would HOPE that WSDOT would have taken an extensive inventory of everything on the ROW as part of buying the P&L and CW. When title is transferred or the new operator takes over, it may be necessary to remind some people that there is an inventory out there and the WSDOT is serious about checking the list twice and finding out who has been naughty and nice. Giving the naughty a decent period of time to put things back where they belong would also be fair play.