Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue

But not in that order. First the borrowed. The picture below was sent to me by Chris Kosary on Tuesday.

He explains:

I caught this a couple of minutes ago and snapped a couple of pictures.
This is the railroad crossing at McKinley with Rensselaer Iron in the background.
What has happened is that one of the joiner bars that link the rail together snapped in the cold spell last week and it is being replaced.  The gentleman in the picture told me that instead of sending out a crew with a multi-ton machine that could stretch the rail back into position, he was just doing it "old school" by laying out a product called a "Flame Snake" (like a rope soaked in a flammable oil-Yellow and red can in one of the images).  He then lighted it to warm the rail up so it would expand and the holes of the new joiner would match up again.
It made a lot of smoke but looked pretty cool.  There is still room for doing things the tried and true way sometimes.

Something new is a sign for Valley Oaks, which until recently was Wabash Valley Alliance. It is located kitty-corner from Royal Oaks--hopefully no one will confuse the two Oaks. The picture was also taken on Tuesday.

I saw the sign as I was checking progress on the Autumn Trace apartments. The Autumn Trace Facebook page has some recent pictures that show that except for a section on the north, the roof is complete. The commentary says that workers are starting to install drywall.

Somethings blue come from the Annual Regional Upper Elementary Art Show that is currently in the Fendig Gallery. It features art by third through fifth graders from several area schools.

Finally for something old. Here is an newspaper article from 1912 announcing that the electric utility would begin 24-hour service. I had never realized that early on power was only provided in the evening or at night, but it makes sense. The first use for electricity was for lighting and finding other uses for it did not make sense if it was only available for half the day. Now we have so many things that rely on electricity that we are paralyzed when the power goes out.