Run-Eight please

Assaulting the heavens! (Photo© by Robert Forsstrom.)

—Constant-readers of this blog, and apparently there are a few, know I stopped recording the local TV-news; i.e. I no longer watch the local TV-news.
I still record and watch the national TV-news, NBC’s Lester Holt. Heaven forbid I miss the latest 3 a.m. Tweet by The Donald from his Great White Throne.
The news is the only TV I ever watch. My brother-from-Boston calls my puny el-cheapo TV a disgrace, but ‘pyootering is more fun. (My money is in my computer equipment.)
And TV is no longer what it was while I grew up, only three channels out of Philadelphia, the three networks. That advanced to four by when I graduated high-school. But the fourth was educational TV = weird. It came from Wilmington, DE, not Philadelphia, and wasn’t a network.
TV was also over-the-air. Now it’s direct by wire — cable into my house. (There also is satellite-TV, received via Dish®.) Video is also much better. And of course it’s without error. If the talking-heads muff there’s re-tape.
My cable-TV guide lists hundreds of channels: wrastling theatrics through junkyard dogs. Flat-top greasers fully restore classic cars over a weekend.
I remember video where some dude shattered the gigantic wraparound rear window of an early Barracuda. Participants shamed him. Uhm, that shattering seemed staged.
Now I’ve stopped viewing the final few minutes of the national TV news. It’s always touchy-feely. Wars, fires, rape-and-pillage, murders, blizzards/tornados, the current gumint clown-show; but everything’s hunky-dory if we end smiling.
PASS; I switch to my train DVDs. I’m a railfan.
A locker-room in my YMCA has a wall-mounted TV. It’s tuned to sports-blustering. Participants bellow at the speed of light about LeBron James, who will win the Super Bowl, etc.
Or buxom hussies yammer, also at the speed of light, as if their viability is a function if how much they hog a conversation. Chicken-scratch. I can’t stand it!
Gimme Burlington-Northern Santa Fe climbing the original 3% out of Los Angeles basin. I make it through 20-25 minutes of Lester Holt, then fire up a train-video.
“BAAMP-BAAMP-BAMP-BAAAAAMP!” Three or four high-horsepower diesels claw toward a dusty road-crossing.
I’m always drawn to that: Pedal-to-the metal. Assaulting the heavens in run-eight!
Much more inspiring than “Inspiring America.”

• “‘Pyootering” = computering.
• A 3% railroad-grade is steep; up three feet per hundred feet forward. Santa Fe built a less steep assault on Cajon Pass — 2.2%. The east slope up Allegheny Mountain, which includes Horseshoe Curve, averages 1.75-1.8 percent.
• “Run-eight” is maximum fuel-delivery to a diesel locomotive. They have eight fuel-delivery options, and “run-eight” is last. It’s the equivalent of “full-throttle” in a gasoline engine, except diesels aren’t throttled.