Russ Nelson, like Principle Skinner, has decided to play with his trains.

If anybody knows a link to this more generally relevant commentary, let me know. Otherwise, the genius I've linked to as The Angry Economist is no more.

I mean, I might enjoy hearing about what happened to the trains in Superior and Duluth. Superior, until I was in college had the third largest railyard in the US. I'd like to know how that came about. I suppose it had something to do with the fact that Superior had the world's tallest grain elevator and the world's longest ore docks.

I grew up in a town with the heart of Texas. If you doubted any of those claims, there was absolutely no way you could doubt the magnificence of Lake Superior herself. And no resident of Superior would had taken you seriously if you tried to. She gave us an extraordinary amount of crappy weather: more fog and drizzle than Seattle or San Francisco... but there is no doubt that we love her. On the lousiest days you can go down to her shores and light a driftwood fire, have a few beers, and/or roast a fish and have the time of your life listening to the rustling of the wave, or even of the ice in the winter...whatever sound you hear is of astounding beauty.

It strikes me dumb, remembering it. And it's all still there for you to visit. The elevators, the rail yards and the ore-docks are gone now, but the Lake is still there.