Wednesday, September 8, 1982
Page 4
Daily Nebraskan
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Railroad crossing problem needs action, not talk
At the beginning of last semester, the Nebraska Public
Service Commission said students who illegally crossed
the railroad tracks on 14th Street near the Harper-Schramm-Smith
residence halls would be arrested. None
have been.
During the semester, the Missouri Pacific Railroad
told students and administrators they would devise a
way for students to cross the tracks without having to
wait for long periods of time and without having to climb
under stopped train cars.
Students still are waiting, may still be climbing under
cars and the railroad has found no solution.
Sometime during the heat of the spring argument,
the railroad said it would investigate constructing a
pedestrian overpass for use when trains blocked the
crossings.
At a meeting last Wednesday, a Public Service Com
mission official said he has seen no such design.
It seems next to nothing has been done to move the
trains in a reasonable amount of time and allow
pedestrians and motorists to pass. The only thing that
has transpired is discussion - along with accusations of
who's dragging their feet on settling the issue.
Back in January, when the Daily Nebraskan first
Opposition strong
to Soviet pipeline
The reasons are many for opposing the
3 ,500-mile natural gas pipeline from
Soviet Siberia to Western Europe. Among
them:
- Though it generally is right not to
use trade as a weapon, it generally is wrong
to trade with an implacable foe that
seeks - as in this case - to rule the world.
- The .technology the Europeans are
now selling to the Soviets - compressors,
turbines, rotors, etc. - is ours. What's
more, the British and French companies
were well aware that the contracts they
signed with General Electric, at least,
contain clauses stipulating the 1949
Export Administration Act, recently in
voked by President Reagan to prevent
sales to the Soviets, must be observed.
- The pipeline issue is splitting the
Western alliance and making the Europeans
more dependent on the Soviets.
- Precisely when the Soviets' principal
producer of hard currency, oil, is peaking,
reported the matter, Missouri Pacific conductors and
engineers told campus security that students were
climbing under stopped trains, endangering their lives.
Their complaints prompted the Public Service Com
mission to announce that it would enforce trespassing
regulations by arresting students who either climbed
under or bypassed cars at unmarked crossings. The com
mission said violators could be fined up to $500.
The announcement prompted student reaction.
Residents of the three halls said they were held up for
minutes, half-hours and sometimes longer when trains
stopped. They missed classes and appointments.
Railroad officials earlier said they raised the issue
only to protect students. That may be true.
But at the same time, those officials said students
were violating crossing regulations for convenience. Last
Jan. 11, the Daily Nebraskan quoted a member of the
Public Service Commission as saying "our views are
totally from a safety standpoint. We're not worried
about the lawsuits. . .but about the health of people
trying to cut thiough there to save a minute or so."
Well, the trains have stopped for more than a minute
or so. UNL Business Manager Ray Coffey said at last
Wednesday's meeting that the trains have stopped for
on minutes at a time. Tom Mockler. president
of the Residence Hall Association, said a train blocked
the crossing for 36 minutes last week.
A city ordinance states that a train may block an inter
section for only 10 minutes. Coffey said he will be
working with the city to enforce that ordinance.
We encourage Coffey to start that work immediately.
The approximately 1,500 students who live in Harper,
Schramm and Smith cannot miss classes because a
conductor refuses to move cars. Nor can those students
injure themselves crawling under a train.
The solutions offered thus far - building an overpass
and arresting and fining violators - are inadequate. An
overpass is not cost-justified and would not be used. And
if fines and arrests are to solve the problem, then Missouri
Pacific should be penalized likewise.
The obvious solution is to ensure that Missouri Pacific
abide by the law and move its cars from the intersection.
Until that is done, those forced to wait at the crossing
longer than 10 minutes should report the train stoppings
to police, campus administrators and the Missouri Pacific,
with specific information about when and how long
the cars were installed.
Perhaps that will help turn "discussions" into actions.
f L Ross
3 Mackenzie
the pipeline will bring them roughly $10
billion in much-needed revenues annually.
- Thereby, with its technology and
dollars, the West will be subsidizing an
inefficient, militaristic, aggressive, totalitar
ian society.
No wonder President Reagan, quite
rightly, is hanging tough against the
European rope-sellers. They are using our
technology to aid the Kremlin, and in the
process are rendering themselves more
subject to Kremlin blackmail. But there
is still another reason to oppose the pipe
line, and it is decisive: The pipeline will
be built - is being built now - with
slave labor from the Soviet concentration
camps.
The morality rate on prisoner-built
projects while he was in the camps was
"higher than during the Stalin period,"
he has said. In a Washington Times inter
view, he spelled out the prospects for
labor on the pipeline.
"it will require enormous quantities of
forced prison labor . . . They will be the
ones who will clear the forests (and)
build the roads ... As in the past, it
is going to be human bodies that will
thaw this unlivable tundra through which
the pipeline will be built . . . Prisoners
will be obliged to work in temperatures
in the winter well below freezing. This
will be intolerably cold combined with
Siberian winds. In the summertime, disease
and insect-infested swamps also will be
encountered."
And, "Several years ago, a railroad
project of similar size was completed. On
one section alone, it took an entire division
of (troops) to guard 200,000 prisoners.
But whatever numbers the Soviets need
for the pipeline, they will get them."
Continued on Paie 5
2
Letters
Park land threatened
The so-called "land sale of the century,"
(Daily Nebraskan editorial, Aug. 30)
hidden behind the patriotic notion of
reducing the national debt is a direct threat
to national parks and forests. An act of
Congress establishes an area as a national
park. Activities outside the park boundar
ies directly affect these lands. The vis
ability in the Grand Canyon National Park,
for example, has been reduced from 200
miles to 20 at times. This illustrates that
parks and forests do not have built-in
protection against a "sane, sensible" land
heist as the Daily Nebraskan said.
Kenny Ward,
junior, College of Arts and Sciences
Blind student assisted
David Forsythe (letter to the editor)
was grossly wring in his letter of Sept. 2
stating that a blind student was mis
treated at Love Library. If Forsythe had
taken the opportunity to ascertain the
facts, he would have discovered the student
was asked to wait a short time until un
additional staff member could assist. He
was given assistance in the stacks and at the
information desk.
Dean A. Waddel,
assistant dean of libraries for public services
Wh
at other state has its own sandwich?
It's recipe time.
NEBRASKA SANDWICH
Ingredients: bread, meat.
Directions: Take the meat and put it
between two pieces of bread, with the
two bumps at the top of the bread facing
away from you. Cut the sandwich
vertically down the middle. At the bottom
( , Bob
) J Glissmann
of each half, on the sides you just cut,
take one bite. Serve.
When you turn the halves on their
sides (cut edge facing you), youU see
that you have created the Panhandle of
Nebraska. The Indentation from the
bump is up around Gavins Point Dam.
This makes a great sandwich before a Big
Red football game, especially if you
use some kind of raw meat, just so it's
red.
You might even put toothpicks in the
sandwich and mark your guests home
towns. Don't forget to remind the guests
from western Nebraska to take the tooth
picks out of the sandwiches before eating.
On second thought, they all will have
toothpicks in their mouths anyway, so
let them put in their own toothpicks.
Actually, I shouldn't kid western
Nebraskans. Some of my best friends
(and most of my neighbors) are western
Nebraskans. Some things always come
to mind when you think of people from
out there.
For one thing, they all wear cowboy
hats. This is no exaggeration. One fictitious
older friend said that he had to move from
Mitchell to Wahoo because he didn't like
how he looked in a cowboy hat.
"My head's not right for them," he said.
This guy also said that his failure to
wear a hat affected his job status.
"I'm not accusing anybody of any
thing," he said, "but I think I was passed
over for a promotion because I wouldn't
wear a cowboy hat. I didn't have a string
tie, either, so that was probably a factor
too." '
i LNo;i' A.U wes,ern Nebraskans are
ricn. Oh, cmon," you say. But it's
true. You have to be rich to afford to
drive from Lincoln to home and back
even once.
Of course, many people from western
Nebraska live on ranches (cast of North
Platte they're called farms; west of North
Platte, ranches"), and everybody knows
ranchers are loaded. One of my roommates
is from a ranch near Alliance where his
family works about 12 or 13 million acres.
Thanks to him, we're set for the school
year because he brought down two head
of cattle for us to cat. As soon as he
brings down the rest of the animals, we'll
have even more food.
No. 3. They all listen to country music.
Now this isn't their fault - that's all the
AM stations play out west. In fact, it
seems that's all they play around here,
too, since an Omaha station "went
country" this summer. When all you've
got to listen to is 'I'm Gonna Hire a
Wino to Decorate Our Home," it has
to affect you somehow.
Notice I didn't call anybody a hick
or a goat roper or a redneck, although I
have heard people use those terms to
describe not only western Nebraskans,
but central and eastern ones as well.
These people were from New York, of
course, the mob capital of the world.
I guess bugs have been known to crawl up
these people'! nostrils and show home
movies against the inside of their skulls.
That's second-hand information, though.
Anyway, when anybody razzes you
about where you come from, you can
always say, "Oh yeah? Let me sec you
make your state out of a sandwich."
There's nothing they can say.
