[Magdalen] Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.

[Jim Guthrie]

I remember the lead tinsel from the box of well-saved ornaments and wrapping 
paper -- and when it was replaced by plastic. Lead tinsel was also dangerous on 
a tree with electric lights, as it could melt into a bulb and cause a short, 
setting the tree on fire. I believe its manufacture was banned at some point.

However, the business with a third rail is NOT urban legend. One need only short 
the third rail to the ground (easy to do in snow or other moisture.

Those interurban and railroad employees who decided to urinate near a third rail 
and hit it were NOT standing on a rail when then lost their (ahem) private parts 
in a painful manner, for example.

When I was a kid, I remember sledding at Westwood Station (an embankment leading 
from a third rail that kids used as a place to sit (protection board on top) ad 
even to lean their sled against. And I remember exploding sleds too -- again, 
not touching the running rail, but just grounded.

And then there was the hobby of some to throw metal hangers toward the third 
rail and watch them vaporize -- most spectacularly if they did connect the third 
rail to the running rail, but on wet days, just to the ground.

Of course, some of this stuff DID stop trains.

But then squirrels, raccoons and certain other unfortunate creatures could stop 
a rush hour on the New Haven Railroad by shorting out the overhead wires or 
transformers.

Cheers,
Jim Guthrie //Listening to the Lessons and Carols from Kings as I write this//