Ah, the passing of another era. Eons ago, when I was but a small cub scout, (early ‘60s) our den mother, (my mother to be exact) took us down to Black River Junction on the NP to see the tower there. She knew the operators and was able to get us in. For whatever reason, there had to be some change in alignment of the switches and I was able to pull a lever on one move and another young fellow got to make the other move. For a nine year old this was pretty heady stuff and everything moved smoothly, I assume there was LOTS of grease.

Which brings to mind two things; grease was not controlled, (environment did not exist then) liberal use was better than miserly use. And, what an era, for a woman to bring a dozen or so squirmy youth onto RR property without a ton of releases and lawyers, this will never be repeated ever again I assume.

Our trip down through the bum jungle along the Milwaukee just outside of Renton is a whole ‘nother story.