Horn-happy trains make me mad
To the editor:
Do the engineers of the many trains that go through Baker City really need to swing on the horn controls from the time they enter the city limits until they leave the city limits?
The weather has finally turned into summer and sleeping at night is
very pleasant with the windows open. That is if you can sleep through a
train blowing its whistle from one end of town to the other. All of
this through gated crossings.
I grew up by the old railroad crossing at Sixth and Carter and it was
not a gated crossing, the engineers at that time also had to sound a
warning before crossings. I learned that the warning was two long
"toots" one short one and one more long one. Now it is just one long
blast for however long it takes to get through town.
At night the engineers evidently had a little more common sense than
they do now. I am not sure if they all giggle when they come through
town at one, two or three in the morning, but I have the ideal way to
curb that activity, if the railroad company would install an air horn
right behind the engineers head, maybe they wouldn't giggle so much.
Baker City is such a nice quiet place to live, too bad it is only for a half hour at a time.
Larry Smith
Baker City
Feds can't run anything well
To the editor:
This letter is in response to Gary Dielman and Iva Mace's response to
Pete Sundin's position on the Obama health care. Gary says Pete
compares the single payer health system to a $200 toilet seat. Hate to
say it, but Pete is right, the Medicare system, not unlike the Social
Security system, is broken and probably costs more than a $200 toilet
seat. Fraud, corruption and just plain mismanagement has probably
destined the senior health care system and Social Security for an
overhaul. And our President Obama wants to pattern his health care
system after that?
The federal government can't manage anything: national parks, post
office, Medicare, Social Security or anything else it puts its hands on
without going into the red. The double billing and over-billing in
Medicare is common knowledge. Nothing the feds do makes money or pays
its way.
You guys just keep drinking your Kool-Aid and keep believing in fairy
tales and that our president will fix everything, and everything will
be OK in the morning.
Chuck Chase
Baker City
