Monty by Jim Meddick for August 01, 2021

Must have been a VERY slow train.

I remember doing this when I was a kid. I wonder now why I wanted a smashed penny.

The penny is quite hot if you pick it up right away.

Union wages musta’ dropped a bit or dues swamped ’em or the result of voting for a certain Party (phattooty) has engineers looking for pennies on the track.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/train-penny-derail/

Within the last 10 years and I’m 67 now, I put a penny, nickel, dime and quarter on some tracks as I went for a walk. Came back later and found them all. Some kids never grow up and have more loose change to piss away.

You can flip a train right over! I heard about that once when I was a kid!

Thay have become so susceptibles!

I once found a coin imbedded in the railway tie, and though we tried to pull it out, it was there for keeps. Strangest thing…. :P

Gives new meaning to hot off the press.

I was expecting a derailment.

I went to a railroad museum. They had a machine that you put a penny into and it would flatten it like as if a train ran over it. I still have the flat penny. That way, there was no worries about derailment.

Apparently mountains and railroad tunnels have miraculously sprouted in Cheesequake, NJ.

A quarter would probably work these days but DON’T put stuff on rail lines. You’ll get more than a shouting, if caught.

I should have such good brakes on my car…

I once found a rock on a railroad track. Don’t know what would have happened if left there, but I took it off and threw it in some dirt.

Scenic New Jersey.

My first year of radio electronics at voc-tech, we were in a temporary space on the college campus that was adjacent to the tracks. Every time there was a train, the students all got up to watch it and smash coins upon the tracks.

We would put stacks of pennies on the rails in hopes of a single large squish. Sometimes it worked and sometimes you got a couple pennies that would spit out at high velocity. A miracle none of us ever got beaned.

The most I recall was 4 or 5 high producing a big squish. You could see the overlap, and sometimes you could still see the memorial or Lincoln. More than 5 was always a shotgun shell.

Busted!

Now the RR should have the Pinkertons raid Monty’s home and take him away in cuffs for penny-ante criminal behavior….

My grandparents used to tell my cousins and me that that would derail a train, in an attempt to get us to stop. It, uh, had the exact opposite effect…