I went to last week's groundbreaking for the new downtown baseball stadium, which was very nice.
The weather was perfect for baseball and the crowd was congenial.
Mayor Kathy Taylor was there pitching for the stadium, despite the fact that her throwing arm was in a sling.
It was a groundbreaking like any other, but in the middle of it, the need for one of the in-progress improvements to downtown became perfectly obvious.
During the course of no more than fifteen minutes of speeches, two trains passed, blaring their whistles constantly.
I'm sure that whatever it was Reuben Gant said was interesting. I don't think anyone heard him.
I'm a big fan of the sound of trains. I once live about two blocks from the train tracks in Norman. A train went through every night and the only time I woke up was the time it didn't come through and didn't blare its horn.
That said, there's no reason to think an entertainment district – as is envisioned – is going to spring up downtown if you can't sit outside without a train blasting your brains out every fifteen minutes.
Gene Curtis, the World's retired managing editor and resident historian, tells me that it was relatively common in the heyday of the Brady Theater for concerts to stop in the middle of performances so that train could come through.
Anyway, there's light at the end of this tunnel.
Work started in October to "seal" the train corridor through downtown. Once that process is finished – sometime next spring – the trains can stop blowing their whistles when they roll through downtown.
So by opening day at the new baseball park, we should all be able to hear the national anthem without any accompaniment from Burlington Northern.
