So the other day I was sitting looking at my trains and realized I just might be a consumer junkie.
Yes me. An over consumer.
This is the story of a guy from New Jersey who got tired of shoveling snow and moved to the Caribbean. Now 30 years of warm beach filled winters I just realized that in one of my display cases are not one but two snow plow trains. To make matters worse, yes next the two plows is a jet engine snow blower.
OK I may not be a total addicted consumer. The two plows are at least different. The first is a traditional blade snow mover. The second is a fan that blows snow off the tracks. The third is a jet engine on a flat car. The jet blows/melts the snow as it is pushed along the rails.
Of course what is the purpose of plows in the Caribbean.
Well a few years ago I ran a youth program at the Little League Ballpark. The league had a rule that if a child was not doing good at school they could not play ball.
So with the help of my wife and a lot of volunteers including students from the AUC Medical School we started a reading, writing and math program to ensure the children could play. I tried to make the program fun. This one day there had been a storm and a lot of sand had washed up on the streets of the Island. Front end loaders were out in force cleaning up the mess. It seemed to take the loaders forever to move the sand.
One boy commented that he had been in New York for Christmas. It had snowed! After a long discussion about snow, snowmen, snow forts and snow ball fights he got around to telling the group about a snow plow. It made one pass down the street and the snow was pushed out of the way.
Thus the idea of a snow plow in the Caribbean was born.
So I went online and found models of three types of snow removal equipment. I bought the equipment to show the children.
The order arrived about a month later. I had to refresh the children’s memory of the storm and the plow.
So we set up a track and tried moving sand. The plow worked well. The fan spun but did not have the power to move sand. We switched to cotton balls and presto the white stuff was blow off the tracks.
The jet was a disappointment. It was all sound and no blow. The model ran into the sand and cotton and stopped dead.
After a few days of play the trains went to my house and ended up in the display case. Where they were all but forgotten.
Until next time, look in your train display case and see what unusual pieces of equipment you store in the Caribbean. Can you beat a snow plow?
