WHEN LIFE HANDS YOU LEMONS, MAKE TZATZIKI.

In February, the Tom & Jerry's gyros-beef-and-many-other-treats Chicago in Sycamore suffered a major fire.  The building was beyond salvage and the owners moved to temporary quarters on the other side of Sycamore.

Once site clearance at the original location was completed, the owners sought building permits to build another restaurant there.  Sycamore's city council used the occasion to change the zoning of that lot, as well as of other restaurant lots nearby, including a McDonald's that was doing a planned on-site replacement of its stand.  You know, the kind of rig-a-ma-role that has held up rebuilding in the Pacific Palisades for over a year and kept California's high speed rail authority from operating trains on even forty chains of track.

Never mind any of that.  The new Tom & Jerry's opened for business on Monday.  "Tom & Jerry’s Restaurant reopened with a new building nine months after the fire and five months after construction broke ground on May 1."

Let's say the restaurant, and its crew, have a loyal following.

So many people attended the ribbon-cutting that the restaurant’s parking lot was at capacity before the grills were fired. That caused groups of people to park on the west side of DeKalb Avenue and walk across five lanes of traffic without a crosswalk to be among the first to order at the new, but old, location.

That's taking long chances for a gyros or a beef as the eatery is on the inside of a curve in Sycamore Stroad, or DeKalb Avenue that far north, and motorists honor the 40 mph speed restriction more in the breach.  The new restaurant is laid out much like its predecessor at that location.  I must check it out, see if the Christmas trees that get season-suitable colored lights, e.g. red and white for Valentine's Day and purple for Easter, are back.

ELECTION DAY.

The Cold Spring Shops flag hoist, by the dawn's early light.

The rains came a few hours later, and they persist.  My impression of turnout at the local polling place, which serves two precincts, is of decent to high turnout, consistent with what little I'm hearing from the news broadcasts I'm bothering to pay attention to.

NOTICE OF DISCONTINUANCE.

Chicago opinion columnist John Kass calls it a career.

It’s time for me to wind down the website. Past time. I held on too long because it had cost me too much in pain and psychic blood at the hands of the jacobin newsroom union that destroyed the once-great Chicago newspaper that I loved. And I loved it for those decades and decades.

But I’ve run my race. Now it is time for me to go. Past time. I didn’t want to consider it once. I was afraid. I wouldn’t even dare brush up against it.

Especially when clinging  rather desperately to some old man dreams of myself as Laertes in his garden, an old man still hoping  to prove his worth as the warrior he once had been, still insisting he had spears left to throw.

But I’m old now. There are no spears.  Five strokes in three years convinced me. After that wonderful Indian Summer that we just had, the sky grew cold and  I finally came face to face with it: Betty explained the math. Five strokes in three years, she said, And you can still speak, you can still read and use a search engine, you can read Victor Davis Hanson and Plato, you can still discuss the great ideas.

But another stroke? I didn’t need any further convincing. I couldn’t contemplate the alternatives.

He took what they dished out, and he did it his way.

Over the years, Mr Kass took on the Combine, the chumbolones of Chicago's Democrat machine, correctly noted the folly of using tax money for public radio, and in many ways continued the combination of sass and wit of Mike Royko.  Readers are suggesting he bestow one more Golden Moutza to close out the year.

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.

MORE STEAM TRAINS TO CONNECT PEOPLE.

The cheerful ferroequinology story of the summer was Big Boy venturing off Union Pacific metals to participate in a semiquincentennial event in Philadelphia, with echoes of a Reading Iron Horse Ramble along the way.

Steve Smedley photograph retrieved from Trains Magazine.

Big Boy is back in Wyoming, and as far as I know 2102 has not serenaded Mrs Travis Kelce outside Reading.

The return of big steam to excursion service continues.

New Mexico Heritage Rail photograph retrieved from Trains Magazine.

Santa Fe 2926 has operated previously in the modern era.  She's steamed up as part of expanded operation on New Mexico Heritage Rail trackage, along historic Route 66.  The trackage carries the New Mexico Rail Runner commuter trains.  Don't take a wrong turn at Albuquerque!

Closer to Cold Spring Shops headquarters, Railroading Heritage of Midwest America, working out of the onetime Rock Island Lines shop complex at Silvis, has performed a hydrostatic test on Union Pacific TTT-6 freight mauler 5511, the next step toward operating it.

Railroading Heritage photo retrieved from Railfan and Railroad.

The locomotive last operated in Union Pacific service in 1956, and remained in Union Pacific storage at Green River and Cheyenne, ultimately being donated, along with other steamers, including Challenger 3985, to Railroading Heritage.  That might be one of the other steamers disassembled in the background.

The TTT is a somewhat more powerful mudsucker than the Chinese QJ steamers on Iowa Interstate's inactive roster.

HOW'S THAT CONFERENCE REALIGNMENT GOING?

Last fall, ESPN's Ryan McGee's version of the Bottom Ten included Northern Ill-ugh-noise.  It's another year, another conference, and leading the list is Northern Ill-ugh-noise.

The Other Huskies were bitten by the Georgia State Not Southern Panthers 35-14 last week. Props to NIU for equally distributing its losses, with one each to teams in the Big Ten, Missouri Valley, Big 12 and Sun Belt. That is, as we say on "Marty & McGee" "apro-pro" because I can never remember which conference NIU is now in.

Not that it matters this Saturday, as they have the Flying Byes of Open Date U., to use Mr McGee's terminology, followed by an evening homecoming game with the Flying Falcons of Air Force, which also play in the Mountain West.  Off we go, into the bowl chase yonder.  Both the university's orchestra and the community symphony orchestra have performances scheduled for that Friday and Saturday.

COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS, DOING WHAT THEY D**N 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.

Saith the reporters, "Hurricane season is broken. Two oceans are historically out of whack."  How so?

The 2026 hurricane season has been remarkable, from the potentially record-breaking calm in the Atlantic Ocean to the hyperactive eastern and central Pacific Ocean.

Only seven tropical storms have formed in the Atlantic, while 18 tropical storms and hurricanes have formed in the Pacific. In a normal year, the Atlantic and the eastern Pacific hurricane basins see similar activity, with 14 to 15 named storms, including seven to eight hurricanes by the time the season ends on Nov. 30. This year, the Atlantic hasn't yet produced a single hurricane, while the eastern Pacific has already produced eight.

What's interesting about this season is that a few of the storms that have occurred in the two basins originated in Africa and were influenced by the same powerful climate phenomenon, El Niño. But the results have been very different, with fierce hurricanes in the Pacific and unremarkable tropical storms in the Atlantic.

Maybe it's time to look more carefully at the observations and recalibrate those extrapolation models, which are excessively sparse anyway.

THERE'S A PROTOTYPE FOR EVERYTHING.

Illinois Railway Museum operated its night trains Saturday and Sunday.  The "coach train" included several of the usual heavyweight coaches, plus sleeper lounge Villa Real, dining car Galt House, not carrying passengers; and ten section observation Inglehome.  Power for the evening was a recently acquired Amtrak F40PH with Operation Lifesaver additional markings.

I wonder if George Gershwin got the idea for Rhapsody in Blue while riding a twelve-wheeled heavyweight car.  Inglehome had a drumhead for the evening.

I could put together a reasonable facsimile of this train, perhaps with a rainbow of paint jobs, and have it orbiting the basement during the upcoming open days.

Hicks Car Works have two photo albums featuring the daytime Saturday operations.

EXCESSIVE SPORTS HYPE?

In the course of a lament over gridiron parents taking the joy out of youth football, Pajamas Media's Tim O'Brien notes, "Little League baseball players should not have 'walk-up music' any more than youth league football players should have 'recruiting videos,' but they do."  I might still have some of my nephew's Greendale Youth Football trading cards (no, they did not come in Topp's bubble gum packs) but I digress.

Rather, dear reader, I want to consider a recent high school football game in which St. Joseph took an early thirty point lead over Mount Carmel, only for Mount Carmel to rally back and win the game.

It made for compelling television.  Television?  Television.  "Mount Carmel football stuns by overcoming 30-point deficit to win on national TV."  Specifically,  on ESPN.

There might not be another game as thrilling as Mount Carmel played on Friday night.

In a nationally televised game, New Jersey visiting St. Joseph Regional High School went up 30-0 on the Caravan just one play into the second quarter. It was the definition of a rout.

Until, the Caravan staged a comeback for the ages. They stunned the high school football world, as Jordan Lynch's Mount Carmel squad overcame that 30-point deficit to shock St. Joseph and win its first game of the season.

That's right, a nationally televised, if on sports cable, game, involving a New Jersey team visiting the Chicago area.

THE STUDENTS ARE BACK ON CAMPUS.

Well, most of them.  "NIU student charged with attempted murder ousted from fraternity, not living at chapter house."  There's always at least one zoo fraternity, this year's first candidate is Tau Kappa Epsilon.

“The Delta Eta Chapter of Tau Kappa Epsilon is aware of a serious incident involving a former member of our organization this past weekend,” the post reads. “Effective immediately, the individual has been removed from the chapter and is prohibited from participating in chapter activities or returning to the chapter house.”

The fraternity’s statement doesn’t mention a stabbing specifically, but said the incident, which was not fraternity-related, “occurred independently” of the chapter, based on available information.

“The Delta Eta Chapter does not condone violence or serious misconduct,” the statement reads. “The alleged actions of this individual do not reflect the values, expectations, or standards of conduct expected of our chapter and its members.”

Nearly four and twenty years of Cold Spring Shops with no prior mention of the Tekes in our posts.

The usual sorts of start-of-semester follies are under way, at Northern Illinois University and elsewhere, and we'll have more coverage of them next week.

DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?

Fittingly, a troupe that debuted as Chicago Transit Authority (the eponymous agency brought legal action to get that name changed) asked that question.  For years, the South Shore Line, properly the Chicago South Shore and South Bend, issued all-year-around printed timetables, advising that all published times shown were those in effect in Chicago.  When both Indiana and Illinois were on Standard Time, the South Bend passenger had to mentally add an hour; for that part of the year when Illinois and the Indiana Region observed Central Daylight Time, the South Bend passenger might not have had to make any changes, as Indiana was far enough west in the Eastern Time Zone for those counties on Eastern Standard Time to stay on Eastern Standard Time.  Those changes might not have inconvenienced too many passengers on the east end of the railroad, as, well into the 1960s, the railroad offered a memory pattern schedule with hourly South Bend Limiteds, with Gary Expresses on the half hour.  Conditional and positive stops for the morning Limiteds sufficed to serve any passengers from LaLumiere or Hudson Lake or New Carlisle for Bendix or downtown South Bend.  These days, the conditional stops are gone, although with all trains pulling out of Michigan City to form South Bend departures, there are morning departures for any local passengers so inclined.

Conditions were more complicated on the North Shore Line, the much-lamented and more than a little bit missed Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee.  Yes, the railroad operated entirely in the Central Time Zone.  After the War, though, Illinois observed Daylight Saving Time whilst Wisconsin did not.  So much for agricultural interests favoring Daylight Saving Time.  The cock crows at sunup, irrespective of what's on the clock, and farm kids know about morning chores before they head off to school.  Thus, when Wisconsin did adopt Daylight Saving Time, that ended on the final Sunday in September, whilst Illinois stayed with it until the final Sunday in October.

A RAINY FREEDOM WEEKEND FOR RAILWAY PRESERVATION.

The Chicago Aurora and Elgin Railroad quit business on 3 July 1957 upon receipt of a favorable court ruling.  The Wheaton Shop blackboard is now property of the Fox River Trolley Museum.

Preservation operations began on a short stretch of electrified trackage in 1966.  For Indepedence Day, visitors were offered rides at the 1966 price of fifty cents.

A short stretch of the Aurora Elgin and Fox River Railroad remained in service as a diesel-powered railroad to move coal from an interchange with Illinois Central to the state hospital in South Elgin.  The Railway Electric Leasing and Investment Company made a deal with the railroad to operate trolley cars, initially on a very short stretch of electrified track.

CLOSING DOWN AHEAD OF THE RAIN.

In 1957, the Chicago Aurora and Elgin Railroad abruptly suspended all service just past noon on 3 July.  Passengers at Desplaines Avenue were more than a little bit cranky when the train they were hoping to board all of a sudden was moved past the platform without boarding, and nobody offered any substitute transportation.  Things got more interesting as offices closed for the holiday.

These days, the Illinois Railway Museum offer visitors a chance to experience living history, as we documented for 2016 and 2017.  Everybody is in on the plot and there's no unpleasantness when the trains set down at the Seemann Road platform.

Last week Friday, the show was ready to go on, but the weather gods had their own say.  For safety reasons, no electric cars operate during thunderstorms, and to protect the vintage cars, the wood interurbans, which the cash-strapped interurban continued to operate right up to the end, do not run in the rain.

At about 11.30, it looked like business as usual at Wheaton, where steel cars from Elgin and Aurora combined to make up a mid-day Chicago Express.

A few Chicago and North Western Bi-Level Commuter Streamliners were operating in those days, although the control cab cars and push-pull operation came later.  The smoke is rising off Shay 5, which was pulling a short coach train.  The threatening skies are to the northwest.

OH, THE HUMANITIES!

Joanne Jacobs notes, "You can major in Taylor Swift and minor in K-pop -- but shouldn't."  That's in endorsing a recent lament for the kind of work students get away with to earn degrees.

In its early years, the University of Wisconsin-Madison offered courses covering Virgil, Cicero, Livy, logic, calculus, ethics, chemistry, constitutional law and other touchstones of a classical education.

In the year of our Lord 2026, students can stroll past Lincoln’s statue looming atop Bascom Hill on that very same campus to study video games through feminist, queer and ecocritical lenses.

Culture warriors are busy bludgeoning universities for their ideological monocultures: founding civics institutes, prohibiting diversity, equity and inclusion statements in hiring and cutting federal funding to questionable research — but mediocrity is arguably as large a problem as ideological capture.

Maybe the humanities disciplines should have stuck to close reading and creative writing.  It's not as if nobody's noticing.  "Dear reader, it's straightforward enough: think of 'the humanities' as 'those disciplines that deconstruct reality as a hobby' and you won't go far wrong.  That reality has a say in what gets deconstructed never ceases to catch the academy by surprise."

STEAMING INTO THE WEEKEND.

The downtown crossing of the Lincoln Highway (Illinois 38) and Fourth Street (Illinois 23) is a good place to photograph trains, with favorable sun angles most of the day.  Several photographers (videographers? smart 'phone owners?) set up there for Big Boy's passage on Tuesday.  Stand back, the engineer is blowing the boiler down!

Yes, I am still preparing a video that will feature a few of the moneymakers before and after Extra 4014 East's passage.

STEAM TRAINS CONNECT PEOPLE.

Union Pacific's Big Boy once again demonstrated that proposition on its way across Illinois en route to a rendezvous with brother locomotive 4012 in Scranton and an Independence Day event in Philadelphia.

That WBBM-TV report showed one of several freight trains that were going about their business on Tuesday afernoon.  As has become my custom of late, I'll let others do the train chasing, and pick a comfy spot to watch.  The weather was favorable for hanging out under a tree, and in due time there will be a video forthcoming featuring the freight trains before and after the steamer.

DISCOVERING THE ELECTRIC PRESERVATION RAILWAYS OF THE STATE LINE.

Mercedes Streeter of The Autopian stumbles upon the East Troy Electric Railroad.

Countless historic American streetcar and interurban lines have disappeared since their heyday, but I found a place where you can still experience a commute like it’s 1920. This is the East Troy Electric Railroad, Wisconsin’s last running interurban railroad, and it’s one of the most tranquil rides you’ll ever take that doesn’t even surpass 15 mph.

The East Troy Electric Railroad is one of my favorite kinds of museums. Nestled in the town of East Troy in southeastern Wisconsin, this museum doesn’t really have the marketing of the Illinois Railway Museum or the federally recognized status of the National Railroad Museum. Instead, it’s a museum that you hear about through word of mouth or stumble upon on social media, and it has the same kind of lovely charm as a mom-and-pop shop. The museum is small enough that, if you’re not paying attention, you could drive right by it and not notice it was there.

We've called attention to the East Troy Electric Railroad numerous times.  It's unusual among preservation railways in that its busiest season is fall, for apple picking and leaf peeping.

AN INTERURBAN RETURNS TO HOME RAILS.

Well, a short stretch of rail close to its old home rails.

The Village of Villa Park is working with Illinois Prairie Path, labor unions and two railroad museums to give new life to a piece of west suburban transit history.

The Chicago Aurora and Elgin Railroad was an electrically powered interurban rail line that connected much of west suburban Kane, DuPage and Cook counties to the Loop. Passenger service operated between 1902 and 1957, and freight service ended two years later. Most of the railroad’s right of way, including the portion that went through Villa Park, was converted into the Illinois Prairie Path walking and biking trail.

Now, Villa Park plans to bring one of the old CA&E railcars, known as Car 321, to the former train station near the intersection of Ardmore Avenue and Central Boulevard. Union laborers would restore the exterior to its original condition and rehab that interior so it can be used to host community events. The village plans to build a short stub track to mount the railcar on, and a shed to protect it from the elements.

The Roarin' Elgin shut down late enough into the emergence of a railway preservation movement in these United States that there were interested buyers of cars for preservation, and its inability to attract sufficient capital to completely replace its fleet of wooden cars with steel cars meant a substantial roster of wood cars of relatively low scrap value were available to preservation enthusiasts.  At one time, the seven cars numbered 315-321 all remained in preservation.  Car 318 was the casualty of a rough shunt on Penn Central en route from Indiana to Wisconsin and became a parts donor to sister cars in the Illinois Railway Museum collection.  Car 315 is being rebuilt at the Rockhill Trolley Museum in Pennsylvania in closer to as-built condition, meaning revealing the stained-glass arched upper sash windows that many an interurban covered over to make the car look more streamlined, and Car 316 has received a similar backdating at the Fox River Trolley Museum.  Car 319 returned from an Ohio mobile home park to the Illinois Railway Museum a few years ago, and it often runs in the Roarin' Elgin wood car train.

IT'S TORNADO SEASON.

Model railroad swap meet season is winding down, as later sunsets and warmer temperatures draw people out of their basements.  One of the final shows of the year in the North West Frontier is the Depot Stove Gang show at Lena-Winslow High School.  The traders run heavily to secondhand HO scale trains, as well as Lionel and American Flyer.  The show offers a convenient excuse to patronize a local craft brewery that knows how to make lagers and stouts.

It's probably a good thing this sort of craft project wasn't a thing when I was in kindergarten or elementary school as I would be tempted to add a dome or two to each of those tank cars.

School administrators are comfortable enough with the traditional forms to post advice in the lunch room.

You'd think some of those things would go without saying.  Such, though, are the times we live in.

And now the students, and their teachers, and the support staff, have a new challenge.  "Lena-Winslow School District prepares to go back to school after devastating tornado."  That storm hit Friday a week ago, as students were gathering for a concert.

Part of the school’s roof was ripped off during Friday’s storm, causing damage and leaving students and staff sheltering inside.

Band director Renee Schultz says dozens of students were already in the building for a music event when the weather quickly turned.

She says the moment the tornado hit was intense.

“It felt like the building got picked up and sucked up,” said Schultz. “There was a pressure change and then it was like how people describe it, like a freight train and the doors shaking and all of that.”

Despite the damage, no one was hurt. Superintendent Tom Chiles says students and staff responded quickly and professionally.

“Their reaction to the whole situation couldn’t have been any better,” said Chiles. “I thought our adults handled it really well and then the kids listened to those directions very well and that’s why we didn’t have any injuries.”

The storm left visible damage to the building, including the stage area and parts of the roof.

Chiles hosted an open house Wednesday which allowed families to walk through the school, ease some anxiety and feel more comfortable after what many describe as a traumatic experience.

“I just felt it was important that if kids really did feel a lot of trauma, to have mom or dad with them when they got back into the same space again,” explained Chiles.

One parent says their six-year-old daughter was at school when the twister hit.

“So, we wanted to make sure to stop back in and make sure she was good to go, and it looks like so far so good,” said Morgan Howe a parent at Lena-Winslow School District.

Chiles says repairs will take time and could be costly, but much of the building has already been secured and cleared for students to return.

The kids listened when the adults talked, and that made tornado day less bad than it could have been.  Classes resumed Thursday.  If the Depot Stove Gang announce tornado relief efforts we'll let you know.

A FALLEN COLOSSUS.

For years, ferroequinologists have used the concrete coaling tower east of YD Interlocking (where a secondary line once crossed the Overland Route) to frame their photographs.

That's a short Chicago and North Western business train, which might have been a corporate extravagance even then, on an inspection trip in May 1989.