A Wow Experience

Going to and from Douglassville last evening by way of West High Street, I observed tanker car after tanker car sitting hooked up to each other in a train which must have been over a mile long. I've never seen a train this long in all my extended life. The train was not moving but sitting still in the rail yard yard paralleling West High. Most of the cigar shaped tanker cars looked like they were new. I thought, they probably are new since all the horrible news lately is about old tankers blowing up, some in urban areas just like on our tracks running through the heart of Pottstown.

These tanker cars, often referred to as "a pipe line on wheels", if new, are a good sign and if they were built in the states, they would be a tribute to the USA's manufacturing engine. News reports continue to tell of our economy rebounding with new jobs being created. It certainly would be wonderful if my conjecture was reality, wonderful if America became the "the little engine that could" again. I'm keeping my eyes open and hoping you do the same.

Ronald C. Downie