Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be. It is just past 12:00 a.m. in "The City." A current temperature of 35° is a drop from today's high of 47°, but tomorrow's high of 50° promises to be even better. Later this morning, the temperature will drop no further than it is now. Next week, we'll see a series of cooler days, but I think that spring has sprung. In fact, the first day of spring is just eight days away.

A short time ago, locomotives 2057 and 2019 were heading south on the first of their nightly runs. They should be back around 2:00 a.m. In tow, they had as a first rail car one lone box car. That was followed by 11 covered hopper cars, then one of those dreaded black tank cars. That lone car was followed by 10 more covered hopper cars and then six more of those dreaded black ones. The Shadow used to intone on his radio program, "Who knows what evil lurks in the minds of men?" "The Shadow knows!" He would then laugh in a very sinister sounding fashion. Similar to the Shadow, I don't know what lurks in those dreaded black tank cars, but given the recent evidence of explosions, spills, and other mishaps, I'm not sure I want to know.

On Wednesday, the Canadian government proposed tougher regulations on railroads that would mandate outer jackets, a layer of insulation and thicker inner walls. Instead of walls that are 7/17 inches think, the new regulation calls for walls that are 9/16 of an inch thick and would require thermal insulation between the walls. Railroad operators are opposed to the thicker walls, because they would cut down on the amount of oil the cars could carry.

Last year, there were an estimated 500,000 loads of crude oil hauled on the rails of the U.S. and Canada. A proposal for electronically controlled brakes that would stop the cars at the same time, instead of sequentially, as is done now, was not in the proposal. The railroads are opposed to the regulations. The last regulations were written by the railroads, not the government regulators.

Yesterday, we continued the saga of the faltering computers. We went to the local cable office and picked up a new modem and WiFi box. Naturally, the wireless printer is now offline and I have to attempt to repair that in the next few days. Additionally, Sugar the Weather Dog and I took our first walk in the morning. Then Mary and I went to my doctor's appointment. The afternoon was spent in computer purgatory.

Today, I have no real plans. I want to do as little as possible. Maybe that reading I didn't get to, more playing with the girls, and that's about it. The sun will rise at 7:57 a.m. and set at 7:51 p.m. That means that we are nearing 12 hours of daylight. I'll take it. Ciao.