Railfanning Trivia

Today I watched as a switcher pulled some empty (at least, I presume they were empty) corn syrup cars from the Coca-Cola bottling plant across the road from where I work. The cars were identified as being from the A.E. Staley Manufacturing Company based in Decatur, Illinois. A.E. Staley is one of the largest corn refiners in the United States. Here’s where the trivia comes in: the guy who started the company back in 1898, Augustus Eugene Stanley, also started a company football team in 1920 called the Decatur Staleys. He later sold the rights of the team to a guy named George Halas and the team’s name was eventually changed to – the Chicago Bears. Their team mascot to this day is named Staley the Bear. So there you go, from corn syrup to football - all in day’s railfanning.

On another railfanning note, a few weeks ago I was able to go out in the evening and take some train pictures. I posted a few of them at trainboard.com, a pretty cool web forum for any and all kinds of railfans. Imagine my surprise when one of the shots (below) was chosen as one of the Railimages of the Week! :) I was pretty happy. Here's the shot, three engines in front of the Wachovia Tower in downtown Roanoke. Below it is a rather cute picture of Carlos and Jeremiah - I'm "train"ing the next generation of railfans!