The Official Dome O' Foam
"Foamer's Brain"
(This is your brain on foam!)
- our original logo lately banished
from the front page

1958 2023 atomic pink naugahyde edition

Wx4 Card Catalog

Latest Claptrap:
9-10-2025


Drone O' Foam?
Welcome to the Grab Bag, our virtual 55 gallon trash bag loaded with content that will shock, amuse and ultimately drive you to the safe psychological waters of Train.com. This is where all of the odd humor off the front page has wound up over the years.

2023 update: The Grab Bag has been on Wx4 since the beginning and has never experienced a do-over, so we figured that it was time. Thus, we have selcted a 1950's motif all trimmed out in atomic pink and blue naugahyde, since we get a kick out of the pop art / science of the time that highlighted our rosy future replete with nuclear-powered everything, yet with no nuclear fallout. (As an aside, we are pleased that atomic power has not found a way into Precision Scheduled Railroading.)

We also would like to point out that we have retained Grab Bag's original banner as a historical artifact, produced using an online engine in the days before we learned Photoshop. It also goes well with naugahyde.
Retired, but not forgotten logos
sic transit gloria mundi







CAPTION THIS!

wx4org@yahoo.com
  • 6-29-23: Tony the Tiger loses his head in response to a pay cut by Kellogg - Bromley O. Wilf, Swamp on Tyne, Northumberland, U.K.
  • 7-1-23: Why it is important to firmly attach a "do not hump" placard to a shipment - Bob Blue, Gravity Iowa
  • 8-22-23: Inadvertent problem with protective tarp reveals super-secret USAF hypersonic wind tunnel, camoflaged in "Tony the Tiger" crushed velour. - Clarence Clarksdale, Tonopah, Nevada
  • 10-17-23: This must be the mascot for Precision Scheduled Railroading: Large claws and no head. - Omar Sanchez, Colorado Springs, Colorado
  • 4-30-24: It is a perfect graphic representation of what AI is, and what it portends for humanity! - Gary Greenblat, Amityville, New York. Staff: So AI is the next Amityville Horror, then?
  • 9-27-24: The Lion King in the aftermath of unfortunate grade crossing incident - Benny Kutz, Arbuckle, Ca
  • 12-29-24: Omar says this is "the mascot for Precision Scheduled Railroading". I'd argue, that rather than the mascot, this is the fellow who came up with the idea.



a Gallery of All Things Dome

Miscellaneous Claptrap:

Real Railroad Stories:
These stories are entirely true, as far as you know.

Wx4 Commentary:

We celebrated our 15th in 2018, only to discover later that Wx4 actually went online in late 2002.


Our 20th Anniversary logo - designed by Ikea
(click on image for full poem)

new 3-2-25: J. R. Signor continues on as Wx4's chief supplier of railroad merriment with this delightful poem from the 1926 pages of Brotherhood of Firemen and Enginemen Magazine. It undobtedly received rave(n) reviews.* Interestingly, the poem's autho shares something with today's rappers. Both employ 'sampling' (acceptable theft) as the basis of their works. *OK, Staff apologizes for this pun. It was the best that we could come up with in a pinch.
Security Alert:

Update Your TSA Railfan Pass NOW!
(click on image)

A heads up: We have lately learned that our TSA Railfan Pass issued - as displayed on these pages in 2016 - has expired with the issue of the new 2024 pass.

The pass is an absolute requisite should you wish to photograph vital U.S. railroad infrastructure, such as run down yard offices and 10 mph sidings. If you elect to forego the pass, you may be setting yourself up for arrest under the Railfan Traitors Act for suspicion of being a ChiCom or Russkie spy, or worse, an immigrant! Contact your local TSA office.
Puzzle or Allegory?
You Make the Call

This looks like your run-of-the-mill switching puzzle that might appear in Model Railroader or foamers@groups.io, but no, it appeared in "SBW VIII, HO [NO?] 6",
whatever/whenever (1980's?) that was.
At first glance, Staff figured that this was just another one of those switching puzzles to work out on one's 4x8 plywood model railroad, but the "SPTCo" and the thinly disguised commentary about company officials soon awoke us to the puzzle's true purpose, as an allegory describing the way things worked at dearly departed SP.

In this light, Staff decided that it was incumbent upon us to create further refine this allegorical component by theorizing how the fellows who really ran the railroad, the switchmen, would complete the task in only two moves over the course of maybe 30 seconds.:
1) Ignore instructions and give the box car a big kick towards the tunnel to get it out of the way.
2) After noting that said car was too tall and had wedged itself inside the tunnel, go to coffee.....
Come to think of it, given the times (presumed 1980's), an even more plausible scenario would accomplish the "solution" in only one move:
1) Switch engine fails to start due to dead battery: go directly to coffee.
Either way, Staff judges that the above should suffice as our standard future response to inquiries regarding the state of The Friendly in its declining years.
As we have otherwise noted in Smokey, the Dog Formed By a Committee, well-meaning railway safety folks have put out some rather goofy stuff over the years, at least from today's perspective. Here's some more. Understand that these cartoons were intended to educate adult men on safety - adult men who probably were more affected by personal recall of past trackside mayhem than by Hannah-Barbara-like entreaties. Our only other comment here is that we sincerely hope that Norfolk Southern does not get ahold of them.
We should have paid attention:

Many years ago, when we were looking for a suitable building image to match with our foaming dome animated gif logo (see this page, top), we happened upon the ideal one. Without thinking, we adapted it to our purpose, only to learn ten years later that it was a railroad equipment repair facility, Dome Railway Services. They even have an 80 year old SW1. We bought the hat! click image
We moved Wx4 headquarters to Hawaii more than a decade ago. The lack of nearby railroads nevertheless has its compensations. By "compensations", we mean that we spend most happy hours at the Wx4 Tiki Bar making sacrifices to the volcano god, Pele. Pele likes gin. According to the rangers over at Volcano National Park - who also like gin - sacrifices to Pele should only be made at a specific spot within the park, which seems kind of fishy to us, particularly because Pele and gin do not coincide in Hawaiian folklore. As a test, we recently made an enormous gin (and Mai Tai) sacrifice to Pele at the Tiki Bar, and darned if she didn't create a "dome fountain" just for us. It even got noticed on CNN. That's nice.

The gloom of Dome, Alaska
- Ektachrome slide Wx4 Collection

Inside the Dome Railway Service shop?

Wye at Ombey (103.7 miles west of Ogden) at the top of Red Dome Pass on the old CP/SP "Old Line" via Promontory - some great "NecroFluggen" by Steve Bush


The hills of Dome, Arizona, 1959
-photo Wx4 Collection



We hated to see this graphic - one of our favorites - totaly disappear
from our site in 2023, so we elected to preserve it in perpetuity here.

home
The original Wx4 logo:
size mattered at one time

8-7-25: It's the ALL NEW
Dome Blog!
For nearly 25 years The Dome's front page has been a helter-skelter mishmash of random stuff, placed there under the singular purpose of making them fit together. All these years later Staff has finally come to terms with the realization that this may not be the optimum arrangement for the 2020's. When Wx4 materialized, Staff estimates that there were 34 websites devoted to foaming, whereas today there must be 340,000.

This means that today's viewer typically keeps track of a huge number of websites, and until now Wx4's front page has been ill-aranged for rapid perusal.

Accordingly - although we passionally hate the word, and the implicit regimented format - we are caving in to the concept and largely turning the front page into a blog. You're welcome! - Staff

It's...The Dome 2025, Phase 1

Wx4 Card Catalog - your guide to everything Dome
Log of Past New Arrivals to Wx4, 2012-2025
SEARCH THE DOME.......

About Wx4's perpetrator

Shortcuts:
Maps & Timetables Index - thousands of PDF docs
SP Maps & Timetables - latest 3-10-25
Southern Pacific Index
SP in San Jose & Santa Clara Valley

comments, contributions?; report bad links
or other issues?; donate quality Bourbon?
write to E. O. at wx4org@yahoo.com

Site Conventions
Wx4 "Staff" = for the most part me, E. O. Gibson
"Foamer"= you, most likely