As America goes to the polls, with a choice ‘from the sublime to the ridiculous’ (and I’m being very careful not to say which is which), here’s a nice little story from Model Railroad Hobbyist.

Election campaign train dirty tricks

The story is told of a prankster in years past who was not a big
fan of Richard Nixon and who used to follow him around during
his political campaigns to pull disruptive practical jokes.

One day, Nixon was in the middle of a whistle-stop speach on
his campaign train when it suddenly pulled out of the station.
Apparently, the prankster had donned a rail worker’s cap and
signalled the engineer it was time to leave town …

One from a gentler time, perhaps?  However, I suspect it couldn’t happen now – health and safety would be on the politician’s side….

And to restore a little sanity, two topical UK railway links……

BBC program last night (now on iPlayer), ‘The trouble with our trains’.

And ‘ScotRail fined over train and station standards’.  I liked the bit that said that, “performance inspectors found areas which missed targets included station toilets, ticket machines, train seats, toilets and cleanliness.”  Not much else to go on, really…..