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Green Maned Lion said:
Acela150 said:
SarahZ said:
Sesame seeds won't affect a drug test. Go enjoy a burger. :)
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You don't realize how ecstatic I am to hear you say that! I'm going to Five Guys first thing tomorrow and getting a burger! I'm sending you a thank you hug through my computer! :) Plus I've managed to eat relatively healthy since my surgery to the point where when I saw my surgeon Last Thursday he was surprised to see that in the month since my surgery I've lost about 10-15 pounds instead of gaining 10-15 pounds. I used to eat junk food all the time and when I found out I wouldn't have my thyroid for the rest of my life and a pill would take it's place kinda was a wake up call to start eating healthier. I had the local Pizza shop deliver a pizza and Buffalo Chicken Cheesesteak a few days after I got home but that was over a month ago. That's really the last thing I've had to eat that was "Junk Food".
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If you want a really good burger, like REALLY good, go to the Willow Grove Park Mall. There is a place there called Burger Monger that offers 100% Akashi Kobe beef, and is seriously in the same price bracket as Five Guys. Phenominal.
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Thanks for the suggestion GML. I live about 20 minutes from there.
 
I'm a little further away but I tend to find myself on your side of the river more often than you'd think. My Wife's and mines general opinion of the Philly metro area, New Jersey in general and South Jersey in particular is well summed up by a certain song by the Animals.
 
GML, I take it you're not referring to "Bring it on Home to Me", "Baby Let Me Take You Home", or "Hallelujah I Love Her So". :)
 
as a young man i attended Illinois State University for a graduate degree

everyone said i went there to be as close to Normal as possible
 
There is a town in central Illinois called Oblong. (Don't believe me? Google it.) Yes, there once was this classic newspaper headline:

NORMAL MAN MARRIES OBLONG WOMAN
 
So Andersone, how did that work for you? Are you now close to Normal? :)

I read that about the Normal man marrying the Oblong woman. The towns around here have really strange names.
 
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It's good to be near Normal.

OTOH in Polk County, MN there's East Grand Forks, Fertile, and Climax. The Polk County Fair is held near Fertile. My excellent 2nd grade teacher was from Fertile. (Her first name was Myrtle -- really)

You can only imagine the possible news headlines. Along about 6th grade, we had a game of making up possible headlines.

Sorry (sorta) for the free associating.

Let's get back to Normal.
 
Yup - you get the idea.

Back to Normal

PS - Fertile really is fertile -- good deep Lake Agassiz soil, far enough from the Red River it doesn't get flooded too often. I'm starting a thread on small places in ND from GFK - MOT as possible places to visit.
 
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No discussion of unusual town names that offer opportunities for snarky headlines, puns, or bad jokes is complete without at least mentioning Pennsylvania which has Intercourse, PA; Blue Ball, PA; Bird-in-Hand, PA; and Paradise, PA, all in Lancaster County. Sadly, the eastern Keystone corridor does not go through and have stations at any those towns. :( :p

Getting back to the original topic of this thread:

Acela150 said:
#50 departed last night with a crew short on HOS. The re-crew got stuck in a heap of a mess of traffic leaving it stuck with an Outlawed crew.

This is the second occurrence with in the past month or two where this has occurred. Most recent memory shows Train 48 leaving CHI with a crew short on HOS and the crew going dead en-route with the train ending up well over 10 hours late!

It seems that Amtrak needs to step up the hiring for Crews in and out of Chi-town.
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The Hoosier State may go away on or shortly after October 1. Which means Amtrak will have more crews than it needs for the CHI-IND corridor. If the constant delays for the Chicago LD trains other than EB go back to normal levels as construction and maintenance projects wind down this fall, one would hope that Amtrak will be able to avoid having crews depart CHI too short on HOS in the future.
 
Hoping that -- if the Hoosier State goes away (not really good) -- there will be a crew or two freed up at CHI --

Those crews will have to be trained and qualified on their new assignments -- that takes a month or two, to learn all the tracks and signals etc.

Bigger picture -- with BNSF hiring like mad for the oil patch - and the old crop of senior people expiring on the retirement law on ALL railroads --

AND -- all the railroads including AMTK being so out of practice with hiring many crew --

We can wait and hope, but expect the new batch of rookies will not be up to snuff for a decade or so. Unfortunately.
 
The Keystones do go through Paradise. It is literally where they meet up with the Strasburg. There has been on and off talk of a cross platform transfer station.
 
Texas has hundreds of towns with unique names, my favorite is Cut and Shoot! (in the Big Thicket North of Houston)

Honorable mention to Dime Box,Old Dime Box,Shiner,Paris and Muleshoe!
 
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I'm just a few miles from Climax, MI, and Hell, MI is 90 miles away.
 
SarahZ said:
I'm just a few miles from Climax, MI, and Hell, MI is 90 miles away.
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Road sign entering Hondo, Texas:
" Welcome to God's Country, Don't Drive Like Hell Through It!"

( When the Sunset Ltd is running Late,ie in daylight, you can see the sign from the Train which is blowing through @ 79mph on the old SP Sunset Route!)
 
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Not far. Unfortunately, if you make the wrong turn you can end up in Blue Ball instead of Intercourse.
 
No mystery on the headcount reductions, the U.S. economy is about to go in the dumper. The recession started last Fall.
 
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