Saluting Alfie Crosslin/More on Rail Car Order

Alfie Crosslin the Dragon Dog is a fixture in Florence, and rightly so. His Facebook status this morning inspired us, and we hope it will you too. In Alfie's own words:

In order to love me as a friend you must understand that I am an animal lover... My heart is BROKEN REGULARLY and filled with sadness for those animals that are not loved. That are not treated with kindness and respect. That do not know kind words and gentle hands... EVERY animal is worthy of a stable environment, food, water, affection, and humane care... If you feel the same way post this on your wall. Sit. Stay. Eat. Live...... ♥ ♥ ♥

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Yesterday we blogged concerning the 95 rail car order National Alabama ostensibly produced in the past few months, to use Mike Goens' words. According to our sources at the Barton facility, the cars were actually completed in late 2010.

An initial run of 50 cars was begun in 2009 in order to ascertain how well the assembly line process worked. A second 50 car run was completed in 2010 in order to streamline the various production processes. Therefore, many of these 95 cars have been sitting around the mile-long plant gathering dust for almost two years.

We were unable to obtain the name of the buyer for the rail cars, but one source has speculated it's Norfolk Southern. If so, we sincerely hope the 95 cars are of such a quality that this rail giant will be inclined to purchase more. We also have to wonder why the buyer took only 95 of the 100 available cars; was it a budget decision, or were five of the finished rail cars unusable? We're not waiting on a press release to answer that question.

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Happy birthday to Ben Tate. His wonderful photography of Florence will live on long after us all.



Shoalanda