Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for April 16, 2015

Great storytelling, Mike! Combined with great artwork, Joe!

History repeats itself!

That applies to the train robbery as well.

Top of th’ morning to you, Gweedo.

Note that there are neither close-ups nor fully-lit shots of people’s faces tonight.

[For the occasional critics who’ve claimed the strip consists of nothing but “Talking Heads” – Though those tend to look nice here as well.]

I really like the use of silhouettes.

Good morning Tracy fans. Will they find the train or will the mystery deepen? Y’all have an amazing day my friends.

Remember the train scene in “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution”?

Some internet sleuthing indicates that Mike is referencing The Newton Gang and their 1924 train robbery in Rondout, IL

… apparently not too far from the city in which Tracy resides.

I’m suspecting either Sherlock Hound or Michael Kurland are owed a tip of the hat here.

I just want to say thank you to Sydney E. Phillips for providing the strips from Piggy Bank’s last story. However, I think there might be need for a minor correction (or maybe not). I read Kilian’s 90s run years ago, and don’t have easy access to it now, but if I recall correctly, Piggy’s wife Greedelia wasn’t in Piggy’s first story, but didn’t debut until his second story. Thus, she wouldn’t have one more story than Piggy with her cameo in France, but the same number, six.

Spectacular lighting and great angles in that tunnel.

This episode of Sherlock Hound – http://youtu.be/Eq0Z_Exq6M4?list=ELJ7W8YJE1z_8

I think Kurland’s The Infernal Device has Lord East foxed by a gentler kinder Professor Moriarty who robs back priceless Indian treasures from a ‘special’.

Good morning guys!

Good morning Gweedo. I do like this story. Where in the world is the train car, though?

I spotted the Night Probe thing too, though there aren’t too many ways to make a railcar vanish off the track. I think they’ll find it, empty. Time for some procedural detection.

So I guess Tracyville looks like Chicago, acts like Chicago & quacks like Chicago but is Tracyville?

The Sherlock Hound episode stsparky linked to has a brilliant and perhaps innovative solution as to how such a heist might be accomplished.

(Repost from very late last night)… In the UK members of steam restoration societies amongst themselves call railfans ”Gricers”. The speaker’s tone of voice, facial expression, body language and accompanying epithets make it perfectly clear exactly what type of gricer is being referred to. The term in itself is sort of neutral and refers to people on your site usually in clean anoraks who have paid their entrance fees and have thus contributed towards restoring whatever it is you are working on and have the right to walk right up to you and say or ask absolutely anything. Sadly, there is no way of compelling them to engage their brains at any point before speaking. Take great care to make no assumptions whatsoever when you, in your greasy overalls wielding a nail gun, angle grinder, paintbrush or whatever, are about to be addressed by a gricer. You have been warned! http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gricer____________________

In an episode of the old “Mystery Movie” series “Banacek”, a rail car carrying an automobile prototype vanishes en route to its public unveiling. How the theft was carried out, and by whom, was very interesting.

My guess is they find the rail car empty and the big question now is how to fence off what amounts to an eighteen wheeler full of gold bullion. Who would have been dumb enough to ship a $1B in gold even CLOSE to Chicago? Tracy’s best bet is to find out where the Mayor was at the time. They might even find her fingerprints all over that lever! Maybe Blago’s, too!

Joe, Mike, Shelley, Shane and Jim score again!!!

Mystery solved! Gold car located! Culprits apprehended!

There’s also “The Lost Special” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a non-Sherlock story (although someone who may be him makes an appearance at one point with a possible solution which turns out to be wrong) about a stolen train.

@cpalmereqs: thank you my friend.________@Anyface: I’t’s been awhile since I saw that movie. I’ll have to watch again. ________@rvldejung and RailScout: thanks for info.________@avenger09: good illustration.________Be happy and healthy my friends.

So from the information we have at the present time, it looks like the Gold Car was the last car on the train (unless, maybe it was the only car- just a locomotive and the one special car behind it)The train must have stopped in the tunnel for some reason, so the crooks could uncouple the car.Mr. OCD says they “took it down the old track” how? They must have had their own motive power. They sure didn’t push it by hand!I would think that tunnel would be swarming with FBI, Federal Marshals, the Railroad Police (where’s Jim?) I can’t wait for tomorrow, so we can have more details about this. Really great art going on here, too.

Many thanks indeed RailScout for your ”Sanding-Disc Sandwich” and your ”Captain Obvious”. Despite being alone, an involuntary out-loud chortle escaped my lips as I pictured you inviting your favourite new gricer friend to go forth and multiply through your very tightly-clenched teeth! Open days are a necessary evil but occasionally the odd gricer can really brighten the gloomiest and most frustrating of days. I remember a blond kid of twelve or so in a ra-ra skirt and bobby sox who blew my sox off by being patient and waiting until I paused and then asking me if she could ask me about steam injectors. She had been ‘reading up’ (no Internet in those days) about steam engines and she really didn’t see how you could use steam at so many PSI to add water to a boiler at exactly the same PSI? Noted two nearby parents glowing with pride as their genius-level daughter flummoxes the engineer in the overalls! Did she know what a venturi was and what happened at the narrowest part when there was flow? Big blue eyes: Yes, the pressure was at it’s lowest. Could she imagine two concentric decreasing nozzles firing into an expanding receiving nozzle? Big blue eyes: Diameter of the smallest nozzle, please? Me: The centre nozzle, about a 1/16” fed with live steam via a valve with a lever. Big blue eyes, pointing to the Injector Control Lever up in the cab: That One? Quite made my day, I must say. I let her folks treat us to tea and sandwiches while I explained the outer nozzle was cold water from the tank via a non-return valve and the receiving nozzle was permanently connected to the boiler below the water line. Was she happy? No… not until I explained that the dry steam jet went supersonic as it entered the receiving nozzle dragging the cold water with it. I swear you could actually see the lights come on and that got me the smile that made my day! ____________________

Great stuff….TBC..

Jimmy Choo had to get the jump on all of Chicago’s politicians for all that gold! And that’s doin’ something!

that quote is from Marianne Williamson. sorry for not adding that part..Looks like Owen is spot on with his detective work and investigation. This story is picking up some really good momentum. Praise the Lord, (literally) Spring is showing its fruits here at Cakleberry Farm is south west Pennsylvania.

this seems a little bit TOO COMPLICATED for a train that was supposedly “just rolling thru” doesnt it?

Sigh I’m definitely getting old! I JUST NOW realized that there’s a serious mistake in today’s strip. All those poems are clouding my judgment! LOL!

@John Russell: you are welcome. Thanks for the kind words and the quote on forgiveness. It is much needed in our world.

Quite a few reality checks have been noted. One more: if the railroad went to the trouble of walling off the old siding, they would also most likely have removed the switch to prevent any possibility of a derailment.

Yes !Geedalia Bank did not appear in the first Piggy Bank story (boboscar is indeed, correct) … but here she is. in the South of France, enjoying her ‘treasures’ in June 1998 . . .

Here’s a video about Switching Rails, I’ll let those with keener eyesight make the call.

Owen Cormac Desmond has given Tracy all the clues he needs to move on this case. Now it’s up to the MCU to get down to business.

Good one, Gweedo – It’s legal here !!! – Murray for your appreciation of my once in a lifetime ”gricer” experience. A kid doing a pretty good job of looking exactly like a life-sized preteen Barbie Doll stops at a respectful distance, waits for you to pause and isn’t chewing gum was the first surprise. Very well spoken, not in the least patronising and coming out with a seriously technical question far beyond her years fairly knocked me for six! I take my hat off to you and your WWII Vet friend for fabricating fresh bearings from scratch… painstaking, highly-skilled precision work requiring great patience. For everyone on the team a ride on the footplate was a very rare privilege indeed. There were always far more people deserving a ride than there were rides available, so to be granted one you sort of had to make a pretty good case for one! Once up there, however, you were allowed a couple of blasts on the whistle but were obviously not allowed to touch anything else. ____________________

Wow!! Great scenes! Beautiful!!!!

What a coincidence, Gweedo! My wife and I are taking our granddaughter to Durango in August. If you are taking the train to Silverton, you don’t wanna rob the train. Rob the ticket window instead! That is going to be the most expensive cost-per-mile trip you’ve ever taken! It’s a neat trip. Be sure to take a leisurely float trip down the Animas River while you are at it – heh-heh! I don’t know if your heart will take it, though! When we did it 30 yrs ago, it was rated a “5” white water trip.

You might know more than the average bear. If you know what I mean.

Here’s even more information about Railroad Switches

@JPuzzleWhiz: catchy tune. Thanks for posting it. Have a peaceful night.

Survivors? What’s that all about? Oops, wrong day, to soon! LOL!

@rvldejung

Thanks for the wonderful story! Many years ago I was one of those precocious-but-respectful kids, and managed to make a career of it.

they are some copycats