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:
12-29-24


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
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. Contact your local TSA office.
Furthering the peculiar disparity between the two movements is that, as the schedule notes, the latter train carried "male passengers only". Staff's best guess is that this was a heavy mail and express train that worked every fencepost along the line, and that the company felt that the switching associated jostling was simply too much for genteel ladies to endure. Maybe.

Not convinced, Staff took its investigation into the heartland of lazy research, Wikipedia. (Say what you will about Wikipedia, but in our experience, its information is usually less wrong than Chat GPT.) Sure enough, the first thing that we ran across was the poster seen here in all of its (apparently lifted from the Library of Congress website) decadent glory. It certainly puts a whole different spin on things, doesn't it?

Could it be that train #386 was in fact a leisurely booze cruise for well healed gents? It makes sense to us that the natty fellows seen here would have considered 2 ½ hours as being a bit rushed for a proper meal of Cabinet Whiskey, followed by requisite Peebles Perfectos. Why not simply stretch the affair out to a day long activity, one which by timetable authority disallows the pesky, moralistic intercessions of high-minded spouses. And, if we take the image at face value, the snail-like pace of #386 gave these boys ample opportunity to earn their keep by literally overseeing the operations of their plant.

We all miss the Golden Age of Railroading, don't we? At least, we men do.
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.

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The original Wx4 logo:
size mattered at one time