IMAGINE NO VANDERBILTS. The newest Trains hit my mailbox, with an editorial, "Time to get back on the radar," noting the redesign of Monopoly^(TM) without railroads. (Electronic debit cards rather than pastel paper money, a version with Hobbit horses in place of iron horses, and a Revised Standard Version with famous streets throughout the U.S. replacing Atlantic City streets, some of which no longer exist, and four congested airports in place of the railroads are now on offer. Apparently the traditional Atlantic City version with its imagineered railroads and utilities will remain on offer for now.)

The editorial, which is not available online, laments that at the very time freight railroading has become an industry with the potential to earn the replacement cost of its capital and incremental improvements in passenger rail have demonstrated some usefulness in alleviating urban congestion, the redesign moves railroads further out of public view, with potential adverse consequences for attracting good people (the cowboy-era work schedules can't help) and obtaining government money for infrastructure improvements such as grade separations. (There are no longer cabooses to wave at, and steam trains are few and far between, and slow 125 car coal drags more of an annoyance to motorists already frazzled by insufficient expansion of the road network and maltimed traffic lights.)

On the lighter side, one wonders if the game redesign updates Uncle Moneybags. A cigar-smoking, mustachioed, top-hatted capitalist with a portfolio of four railroads works. But a holder of rental-car concessions in four major airports?? Please.