TAIL TRACK.

Barring signal troubles, links to any posts of substance ought to work.

I KNEW SOMEBODY WOULD GO THERE.

Somebody did.  "Brewers Playoff Hero Jake Bauers Makes Accidental Case for Medicare for All."

There's nothing like a Common Dreams contributor to turn a feel-good story about a nearly accidental most valuable player in the league championship series into tendentious leftist propaganda.

While generating headlines throughout the pennant race due to his outstanding hitting and field play, Bauers journey to the top of Major League Baseball has Cinderella elements. Just two years ago, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Bauers was ready to retire from the sport’s highest level.

“He had been playing professional baseball since he was just 17, spending more than a decade bouncing across seven different organizations with little success,” the paper reported. “After batting .199 for the Milwaukee Brewers in 2024, he was frustrated, burned out, and ready to move on.”

Life outside baseball intervened, but in a way familiar to millions of American families, not just pro athletes who can earn millions in lucrative contracts and endorsement deals.

“Bauers’ wife, Lauren, learned she was pregnant with the couple’s second child,” the WSJ explained. “Suddenly, Jake’s plan to become a stay-at-home dad while Lauren returned to her teaching job no longer seemed viable. They needed health insurance—so Bauers begrudgingly decided to give his floundering athletic career one last chance.”

It's not as though a journeyman player who has been in the Cleveland and Tampa Bay organizations as well as with the Brewers has the lucrative contracts or endorsement deals of a Shohei Ohtani or Francisco Lindor.  And didn't the so-called Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act obligate school districts to provide health insurance coverage, and didn't the triumphantly-titled Family and Medical Leave Act ensure maternity leaves?

LET THE THING BE PRESSED.

According to Curt of Flopping Aces, "Iran Is Losing Its Missiles, Its Money, and Its Nerve … And the World Is Already Planning What Comes Next."  The opening paragraphs suggested that fixed fortifications remain monuments to the stupidity of mankind.

The Islamic Republic’s president has admitted that 1,500 personnel stationed at its missile launchers were killed, confirming devastating losses inside the regime’s most important military force.

Masoud Pezeshkian said some of those personnel had remained inside launcher shelters for months without returning home. He intended to praise their sacrifice and shame what he called “freeloaders” in society.

These were not ordinary infantry losses. Personnel stationed at ballistic-missile launchers include crews trained to transport, erect, prepare, fuel, arm and fire the weapons that form the backbone of the regime’s conventional deterrence.

They also coordinate targeting data, prepare launch sites, operate inside underground missile facilities, conceal equipment and relocate mobile launchers before they can be detected and destroyed.

Those skills take time to develop. Missiles and damaged vehicles can eventually be replaced. Experienced crews capable of operating them under attack cannot be regenerated quickly.

The admission also reveals the effectiveness of American and Israeli intelligence. Mobile launchers are designed to disperse, hide and move rapidly. Underground “missile cities” were presented as nearly untouchable. Losing 1,500 personnel around launcher operations indicates that launch sites, shelters or crews preparing to fire were repeatedly located and struck.

Pezeshkian’s description of personnel remaining underground for months exposes the operational strain. Crews were living under constant threat, with limited rotation and little confidence that leaving their shelters was safe.

That helps explain why the Islamic Republic’s launch tempo declined as the conflict continued. The regime was not merely consuming missile stocks. Its launch infrastructure and the trained personnel needed to operate it were being depleted.

The Islamic Republic has spent decades presenting its missile force as the untouchable foundation of regional deterrence. Pezeshkian has now provided an official number showing that the force was penetrated and suffered heavy specialized losses.

He intended to deliver a speech about sacrifice and unity. He instead admitted how deeply the war damaged the military capability the regime depends on most.

Good.

THANKS YET ANOTHER MILLION.

Over the weekend, the Blogger visit counter ticked past sixteen million.  The view counts for individual posts showed enhanced interest in a few musings late in the previous week.

Whatever your motivation is for looking in, and whether you are carbon-based or silicon-based or a Dodger fan frustrated with runners left on base, thank you for your continued interest.

Five business days for business, then the World Series begins.

MAKING A JOYFUL NOISE.

A carillon is a challenging instrument to play, as the performer is activating armstrong levers to ring the bells.  None-the-less, Marquette carillonneur Mark Konewko is up to the occasion,  getting into the post-season spirit with Marquette University’s carillon bells.

Let Roll Out the Barrel and Take Me Out to the Ball-Game ring out.

SOUND UP! Bells atop Marquette University tower play "Roll Out the Barre... https://t.co/3vd5nnMwfL via @YouTube

— Stephen Karlson (@StephenKarlson) October 16, 2026

Next week Friday and Saturday,  Brewer Nation is at the World Series.

YE WHO NOW WILL BLESS THE POOR, SHALL YOURSELF FIND BLESSING.

The Holiday Trains that used to run under Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern auspices continue this Festive Season, with the Canadian and United States trains covering Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern metals.  Scroll down for a list of performers.

The United States train will make half-hour long performances at Pingree Grove, 9 am and Byron, noon of the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, 24 November, on their way to Zwolle, Louisiana, covering territory Kansas City Southern's train used to serve.  The stock then returns to Chicago to wind up a little bit south of Saskatoon, with a 5.15 pm call at Gurnee and a 7 pm performance at Sturtevant on Tuesday, 8 December.

These trains run to provide entertainment and an opportunity to make cash or in-kind contributions, to the local food banks along the Holiday Train's routes, and to the Salvation Army where the Holiday Express calls.

Mark your calendars and make a note in your shopping list.

FRIDAY short TAKES.

The World Series field is taking shape.  No Braves.  No Dodgers.  No Yankees.  No Red Sox.  Hey, Chicago, whaddaya say?  No White Sox.  No Cubs, no.  What the heck is a uniqlo, anyway?

The entire three-peat dream was built on the idea that this rotation was unbeatable in October. In 48 hours, Milwaukee solved it.  "They may have a bunch of Hall of Famers, but we've got a bunch of gamers.  And the gamers won this week."

The following meme is not authorized by the Milwaukee Brewers or any sports broadcasting outlet.

The compilation of pithy elaborations on traditional Cold Spring Shops themes is a way of clearing out assorted bookmark entries.  I do not intend to resume weekly Friday short takes.  By all means follow the links.

CURMUDGEON CALL.

"Dodgers player says MLB broadcasts are airing 'soft porn ads'."  He's not referring to Garrett Mitchell home runs.

In a social media post, Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Alex Call said Major League Baseball playoffs broadcasts have featured "soft porn ads" and that "parents shouldn't have to worry about this."

Call is not on the Dodgers' active roster for the NL Championship Series – but is with the team – and posted on X about how his son wanted to watch a game with him and that the commercials left him trying to "justify ... half-naked women" on his screen.

Advertisements featuring Megan Fox and Sydney Sweeney have been in heavy rotation during this year's playoff broadcasts across multiple platforms.

I wonder if the accompanying Sydney Sweeney photograph is on a Los Angeles skyscraper.

IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE DIFFICULT.

Only yesterday, I offered a suggestion.  "All that might be necessary is for scholars who work in or teach critical studies to treat its core premises as assumptions leading to testable propositions rather than as tight priors."

WORK-LIFE BALANCE.

Los Angeles Dodger catcher Will Smith almost had a feel-good story someday to tell his new child.  "Smith, and his wife, Cara Martinelli Smith, announced the birth of their third child just hours before the first pitch on Wednesday."

Then came the game.  Jackson Chourio hit a lead-off home run against onetime Cy Young honoree Blake Snell, and Robert Gasser left the game with five innings of shutout ball.

Uribe followed rookie starter Robert Gasser and he loaded the bases on walks to Teoscar Hernández, Kyle Tucker and Shohei Ohtani. Smith, who came in hitting .043, doubled to left-center for his first hit of the NLCS.

DL Hall took over from Uribe, allowing one hit and striking out two before turning it over to Trevor Megill in the eighth.

That double got between Brewer outfielders that the broadcasters have been comparing with ball-hawking strong safeties, and it sounded and looked like it was going out.  "The day you were born, Daddy hit a grand slam" didn't happen, but the double he did hit did give the Dodgers a 2-1 lead.  What that clip doesn't tell you is that the hit off Hall was not in the sixth inning.

RAILWAY PRESERVATION IS CHALLENGING ENOUGH WITHOUT GETTING LAWYERS INVOLVED.

The Northeast's last narrow-gauge coal railroad, East Broad Top, ceased common carrier operations in 1956, but the owners never sold it for scrap, perhaps contemplating catering to tourists in the manner of Rio Grande's Silverton Branch.  The owning family ultimately conveyed the railroad to a foundation dedicated to preservation although with only a short stretch of track in excursion service.

THIS DOES NOT HAVE TO BE DIFFICULT.

A Ryan Quinn essay in the house organ for all wokeness, all the time, in higher education asks "Can Colleges Achieve Viewpoint Diversity Without ‘Affirmative Action for Conservatives’?"  

As is often the case with these things, it's people who should know better using political party registrations as a proxy for faculty intellectual predilections, a form of potted demography only possible in states that require primary voters to declare a party preference (that's not necessarily an affiliation, as crossover voting is a thing) in advance of a primary election.

THE DESPERATION OF THE TEXAS COMMUTER.

"Would you take a train to avoid San Antonio's I-35 traffic?"  We're not talking about a suburban commute, we're talking about getting to Dallas.

How many times have delays on San Antonio's I-35 made you late to an event? For some Texans, navigating construction, crashes or overzealous drivers is so inconvenient that they're looking for other options.

In a controversial TikTok post shared on Wednesday, October 7, one user, Heather Roberts, wrote that they would rather take a double-digit-hour train ride than brave the infamous highway. The post showed them on an Amtrak, surrounded by blankets and pillows.

"I'd rather bedrot on a train for 10 hours than fight traffic & be annoyed for 4-5 hours to get from Dallas to San Antonio," Roberts captioned their post. "But that's just me."

The Amtrak route from the 210 to North Texas takes roughly eight hours and 35 minutes, according to the Amtrak website. It's a tempting option that may not cost as much as you think. There is an option to book a private room, which starts at $191. However, coach seats start at $27, less than it costs to fuel up your tank. Still, some social media users weren't sold on the option.

At least there's one train each way between San Antonio and Fort Worth and Dallas. San Antonio to Houston, three days a week, and the train is coming from Los Angeles or New Orleans.

Texans have contemplated something resembling a Passenger Rail corridor service for years.  There are commuter trains between Fort Worth and Dallas and both of those cities have respectable-looking railway stations.

We've dealt with high fuel prices and congested roads and house prices for years: somehow the Suburban Experiment and reliance on those automobiles or Texas-sized pickup trucks goes on.

MAKING AESOP LOOK LIKE ADAM SMITH?

It's a clunky comparison, although George Washington Law's Jonathan Turley's "The Fair Share Myth And Other Socialist Fables" is spot on.

In my book, Rage and the Republic, I address the false claim that the wealthy are not “paying their fair share.” In fact, the top 10 percent already pay more taxes than the bottom 90 percent combined.

In 2023, the top 1 percent paid an estimated 38.4 percent of all federal individual income taxes. One can certainly raise the need for additional taxes to support public works, but it is simple demagoguery to claim that the wealthy do not pay their fair share when the top 10 percent pay an estimated 75 percent of federal income taxes. The U.S. income tax system is already the most progressive in the developed world, even before additional New York state and city taxes are added in.

Regular readers are aware of that algebra as well as the tussles over tax treatment of capital gains.

The record of ever-more-generous welfare states is not encouraging.

Amid a rash of capital flight, many ask why Mamdani would want to continue taunting the wealthy and portraying them as freeloaders. The fact is, wherever it gets a foothold, socialism becomes self-perpetuating. Wherever ruinous policies destroy an economy, demand increases for government services and welfare. Citizens become more dependent on government as wealth is diminished.

Gooder and harder, whether it's Britain or California or New York City.

HIGHER EDUCATION IS BEYOND PARODY.

It's hard to top "What’s Wrong With Civility?" in the house organ for all wokeness, all the time, in higher education.  It's about what you'd expect of the colleges of deaducation these days.  "Civility can be a tool of engagement. But history has shown it can also be used to oppress the powerless."

Never mind that "civility" and "civilization" refer to being able to live among others, which is to say, being able to rub along tolerably well with others, and up until, well, if not last week, at least in the days before the corona shutdowns when Donald Trump first came on the campaign trail and the remnant Militant Normals on campus were making fun of Student Affairs silliness, calls for civility on campus might well have served to make those Militant Normals live by bourgeois norms.  "Those traits confer evolutionary advantage among their adopters, and their absence among non-adopters serves as stranger danger."

LIVE BY THE PRAISE, DIE BY THE HATE.

Thus did Indiana Fever reserve Sophie Cunningham brush off the off-the-court noise inspired by her defense of Caitlin Clark and of women's sports for, well, women.

Speaking of off-the-court noise, how well did Marc Silverman's "The Bears are done being the Packers’ little brother" age?  Last week, he wrote, "The Bears have taken the North, and now they must practice what they preach and not give it back."

COMMUTER TAXES.

Brewers postseason has an economic benefit, but not for the reason you may think.

The Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC) estimates that Brewers postseason games contribute roughly $3.5 million to the local economy. But there’s another economic benefit beyond ticket sales or new “Take October” merch: income taxes.

Appearing on Wisconsin’s Afternoon News, Dale Kooyenga, president of the MMAC said, “when we have teams here, we get more income tax revenue from that.”

“If you’re a musician or an athlete, or really any job, you pay income taxes where you work,” Kooyenga said. So when “Lebron James plays here, … say he plays five of 80 games here in Wisconsin, [he] pays 5/80ths of his income in Wisconsin.”

The article does not explain whether that's the standard state income tax rate, or if Wisconsin's rules require players to keep track of "duty days" for calculation of taxes, in the manner of California's notorious jock tax that can more than exhaust the bonus a player earns in a postseason tournament.

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ARE FOR MOCKING.

Last month, we noted and noted Margaret "University Diaries" Soltan noting the University of Washington backing down from their attempt to deplorable-shame a professor who injected a political economy lesson into his alternative land acknowledgement.  “I acknowledge that by the labor theory of property the Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land currently occupied by the University of Washington.”  Undermining the Excessively Earnest People with mockery is the only way to go.  "I wonder if any academic institutions in Bethlehem have a land acknowledgement that refers to the house and lineage of David."

LET'S PUT ANOTHER PIN IN IT.

Complex adaptive systems do what they darn well please.

In mid-August, "If you don't like the weather, wait" proved to be logical advice.  "The Old Farmer's Almanac forecast is out, and the Great Lakes summary might be 'expect anything."  "The almanac forecast predicts the northern Plains and Upper Midwest could be drier at times, 'especially when the southern storm track becomes dominant.' Still, intense cold, wind and snow are possible, with clippers, sudden cold snaps and snowy periods likely.'"  So, too, with the northern hemisphere's hurricane season, which is defying all the expectations.

A fortnight later, a seer probably using a different formula than old Rob^t B. Thomas's is out with a similar prognostication.

Millions of Americans could see a harsh winter with multiple snowstorms and freezing temperatures that turn several states into an Arctic 'battleground.'

A recent long-range forecast model from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) revealed a massive shift in the bands of heavy precipitation between December 2026 and February 2027.

That map shows a growing chance that the entire US East Coast will see above-average precipitation this winter, from southern Maine to the tip of Florida and stretching across the country into Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas as well.

On the West Coast, California is also expected to see above-average precipitation this winter, which likely means feet of snow in the Sierra-Nevada mountains and other high-altitude areas out west.

While more precipitation than usual does not always guarantee snow, several independent forecasters have predicted that at least 19 states should be bracing for a potential blockbuster storm season.

According to independent forecaster Direct Weather: 'We do expect nor'easters to be a frequent event this year up the East Coast, and these do tend to be snow producing at least for somebody depending on where that low [pressure system] is located.'

Meteorologist Ryan Hall added that a stretch of the South, Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, including Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, the Appalachians, the Carolinas and Virginia could be in the greatest danger this winter.

Hall said: 'On my map, this is the winter storm battleground, and this is actually where my forecast has changed the most. I'm now a lot more confident than I was a few weeks ago that somebody in this corridor is going to get a big snowstorm or a big ice storm this winter.'

We already saw a nor'easter that formed in sub-tropical waters and brought havoc to the east coast before the first hurricane to make landfall did so on the Florida gulf coast last week.

As far as that mid-October frost: not here, not with a record daytime high just set in Milwaukee where it's actually hotter than it is in Los Angeles.  The roof and panels are open at the baseball park.

On the other hand, the northerly latitudes of Montana got some snow over the weekend.

BE AWARE OF TRAINS.

The Galesburg train-watching camera is useful for documenting all the ways Amtrak trains turn up late.

Sometimes the camera captures people taking long chances.

That train, arriving a year ago 6 June, stopped short of the crosswalk.  Last week Wednesday did not turn out so well.

The Knox County community is mourning the loss of 31-year-old John Glasgow, and many are calling him a friend and valued member of the community.

Glasgow, of Little York, died in what is being called a tragic accident, confirmed by Knox County Coroner Jacque Dare.  Police were called to the Galesburg Amtrak Depot on South Seminary Street about 12:20 p.m. on a train-pedestrian collision, according to city spokeswoman Kristin Robinson.

He was pronounced dead at the scene, Dare said.

Glasgow, who was fluent in Mandarin and did his master’s degree work in Nanjing, China, was the program director at the Association of Illinois Rural and Small Schools.

In a joint statement, the association, along with the Regional Office of Education #26 and the National Rural Education Association, called it a devastating loss.

“John’s impact on the rural school community extended beyond a single entity, and his commitment, care and support of rural and small schools were felt globally,” the statement said.

The trio of authors encouraged those feeling the grief of Glasgow’s loss, “to reach out to your own circle of family, friends and faith for the support you might need.”

The statement also asked, “everyone [to] respect the family’s privacy as they navigate this unimaginable loss.”

It's not unknown for a train-watching camera to capture an unusual occurrence.  The Galesburg feed of the collision was locked down and by common consent the Galesburg chat, which is particularly active whenever the passenger trains call, will not speculate on what happened.  Family members, colleagues, and friends are coming to terms, a locomotive engineer will be having nightmares, and other passengers waiting for that train saw something beyond disturbing.  R. I. P.

JOE MAGARAC'S NEIGHBOR.

Mike Ditka, the quintessential Chicago Bear, dies at 86.

Still revered as “Da Coach” and ringmaster of the 1985 Bears, one of the most dominant and perhaps the zaniest Super Bowl-winning team in league history. Ditka was enshrined in the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame and the Bears said during a ceremony in 2013 that his “No. 89″ jersey will be the last one retired by the team.

He was born in Carnegie, Pennsylvania, the son of a welder who changed the family name from Dyczko. He grew up in nearby Aliquippa, close to the coal-mining and steel-manufacturing plants that dotted the western part of the state, a big, talented, three-sport athlete and All-American at Pitt whose bruising style made his first nickname, “Iron Mike,” a good fit.

In Western Pennsylvania, you learn to play through the whistle.

The Bears play at Green Bay this Sunday at noon.  R. I. P.

THE LIBRARIAN AND THE CAR KEYS.

A fortnight ago. my Chicago Boyz colleague David Foster responded to "[Y]ou couldn't circulate a manifesto to millions of followers using a teletype machine and stepper switches; you couldn't run multiple errands on the way home from school or work without a motor vehicle; and somehow Super Sized humans are a different sort of public health problem than starving humans" with a Twitter exchange that inspired a full-length post in which he noted,

The invention of the printing press drove, over several centuries, the decentralization of information and opinion influence. But with the coming of the steam-powered printing press and associated equipment (expensive) and the telegraph network for information transmission across thousands of miles, there was a re-centralizing effect. This was further driven by the introduction of broadcast radio, and, especially, television, with their limited availability of frequencies / channels.

The early days of the commercial Internet, especially with the addition of message boards and blogs, drove a new decentralization in a way analogous to what the printing press had done. A single individual could now take on the factual errors or the misrepresentations of a heavily-capitalized news organization and actually win…the old saying that you can’t win against somebody who buys ink by the barrel was no longer so true.

But with the coming of social media, there has been a re-centralization effect: algorithms could be tuned to deemphasize or totally suppress certain voices or opinions. Facebook, YouTube, and the (pre-Elon) twitter all did this, sometimes at the best of the government.

There is a clear risk that AI will further drive the re-centralization, as popular LLMs become regarded as The Single Source of Truth and people lose the habit of searching more broadly. And there is a very serious danger that governments will seek to control this source of truth.

That's something that was already on my mind.

There are no solutions, only trade-offs. A future post will explore reasons to be wary of information companies with relatively free rein to develop new forms of machine learning, or artificial intelligence, or enhanced data scraping, as well as of governments either regulating that development, allegedly in the public interest, or in controlling it.

But Greg Lukianoff and Adam Goldstein did most of the heavy lifting for me.  Their version of the tradeoff emerges as "What everyone should be afraid of: tyranny over truth itself."

I'LL BELIEVE IT WHEN I SEE IT.

Our President hopes to do Andrew Carnegie, Elbert Gary, and Joe Magarac one better.  "President Trump Announces Largest-Ever Steel Plant Coming to Iowa."  The president's political allies in Iowa's Congressional delegation and in state and local government all join in hailing the development.  There's something off about the project, though, as I will argue at length below the jump.

THEATER KIDS DOING WHAT THEATER KIDS DO.

Today in first world problems?  "Watertown students stage silent protest during Spirit Week." Why?  "Students at Watertown High School used Spirit Week as an opportunity to make a statement Wednesday, staging a silent protest over the cancellation of the school's planned production of Flashdance."

The silent protest, complete with social media.

Unattributed montage retrieved from WTMJ.

Why the cancellation?  "Theater students and parents previously told TMJ4 that the musical had already been modified to address concerns about age-appropriate content."  Presumably the bits where the leading lady chucks a rock through a window and yells "Go f*** the blonde" are among the modifications.  But the district superintendent has spoken, and the drama faculty will select a new musical for the drama club to perform.

THE TEAM PLAYING ATLANTA ALSO WON.

The Milwaukee Brewers will have at least one more opportunity to thank their fans.

It is now a race to eight wins.  Fittingly, Aaron Ashby, who recorded double-digit wins in relief, highlighting his team's ability to break ties or come from behind in the middle or late innings, pitched three innings for the win, and the baseball gods showed their sense of humor, with Garrett Mitchell taking a game-tying home run away from Manny Machado, perhaps the current Padre and former Dodger most disliked by Brewer Nation.

There's Sprecher as well as some Oktoberfest beers chilling in the 'fridge.

BUYING INTO AMERICA.

My position on immigration and assimilation has long been "Give these kids an America to buy into, and an America that buys into these kids, and we'll be OK."

That picture is from the 2016 Oktoberfest season at the Bavarian Bierhaus near Milwaukee.  The youth soccer players doing some fundraising for the Bavaria youth soccer program are now young adults, and, who knows, some might be starting families and bringing up the next generation of Bavaria's players.

Last weekend brought us Milwaukee's lakefront Oktoberfest, which shared the weekend with baseball playoffs, and buying into American cultural appropriation was in Ordung.

That's a candid shot, several of those festival goers had been posing together for photos to share alike.  As you see, they're serious about their beer, with a half-liter cup and a liter souvenir Maß or two on that table.

DINNER, WITH A SIDE OF TRAINS.

Ralph Spielman offers Trains readers a list of twenty independent restaurants coast to coast that offer rail cars to dine in, depots to dine at, and trains to watch between courses.

Some have an on-site railroad car to dine in, others have train-watching sites, and a few have both. Many are family-friendly. While some chain restaurants would work for the rail-minded, the listings here are all independently owned restaurants. Check whether adult beverages are on offer; they are not always a given.

His list covers much of the country, including the intriguingly named Notch 8 Grille in the former Boston and Maine station in Northampton, Massachusetts; Wallingford, Connecticut's Trackside Brick Oven Pizzeria, using a Philadelphia rapid transit car in a nod to the old trolley diners; Valhalla Crossing in Valhalla, New York, the station that once rated a note in the passenger timetable, "Remains will be checked to Valhalla;" and the Whistle Stop at the junction of the Hoosier Line's main routes in Monon, Indiana, which includes among its artifacts the late Ralph Johnson's Best Brothers Circus.

The article got me thinking about some of the logical eateries that didn't make the cut.  The Berea Depot, using the old New York Central station at Berea, Ohio, the crossing point of the New York Central's Big X, is closed although the station remains.  Michigan Central's Ann Arbor station now houses the Gandy Dancer, which appears to cater only to private parties such as wedding rehearsal dinners.  The Milwaukee Road Oconomowoc station is now Maxim's at the Oconomowoc Depot (I must go to Maxim's again, I must go to Maxim's again) which includes a vintage coach set up as a table car.  Hard by Cold Spring Shops headquarters is Pizza Villa, where the upstairs dining area includes picture windows with a view of the Overland Route.  Seating is first-come, first-served.