All In The Control Of Professionals
By Art Cashin
“In 1944, in the pre-dawn chill, a freight train pulled out of Balvano, Italy. Now this was not a particularly good year if you lived in Balvano...or anywhere in Italy. As you history majors will recall, 1944 was a very active year in something called World War II. The Allies had landed in Anzio and were busy killing Italians to get them to surrender. Meanwhile, the Nazis were busy killing Italians to prevent them from surrendering. Thus the over/under on being a current Italian citizen was not quite a chalk bet.
That brings us back to Balvano and this day. As that freight train pulled out, several hundred of the local folks, hoping to find a place better or safer, scrambled aboard the freight as it slowed on its first upgrade.
But the train was not quite the Silver Bullet. As it chugged along, it labored and labored behind its double locomotives. You must remember...it was war time...the locomotives were like Spam cans and the coal was somewhere between Bituminous #1 and kitty litter.
So, it was little wonder that when the train reached its steepest incline ...inside the long tunnel into Mt. Armi, it ground to a halt. Some think the train crew simply decided to wait and re-stoke the locomotive fires. In the meantime, aboard the train, atop the boxcars and inside them, people slept soundly dreaming dreams of escaping trouble. But as the crew waited and the stowaways slept, the locomotives belched carbon monoxide into the tunnel. In less than an hour, the crew and 420 free-riding passengers of this freight train lay dead in one of the worst train calamities in history. No crash. No falling bridge. No derailment. Just a 45 minute delay. All in the control of railroad and political professionals.
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