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March 21, 2006
Boxcar Mafia
To the editors: in reference to your recent article on train gangs, I’d like to note that you are “off” in several details which I’ll attempt to correct. To wit, train gangs were started by prohibition-era Irish mobsters, not “a pack of deranged film buffs from Poughkeepsie” and while I agree that the Salvadoran gangs have attempted to break into the St Louis railcar scene, they have been systematically repulsed and absolutely nobody ever leaves a Reading Railroad card in a mailbox as a threat anymore, particularly after the Chechen Mafia began setting up full 1:10 scale train sets compete with mountains, underpasses, small buildings, and railroad crossings in the front yard of anyone intended as a target. The victims, many of whom owed debts to the mafia, would pay up or get out of town. Experts feel that the layout of shrubbery may have been used to deliver a far more detailed message but to the best of my knowledge, nobody has been able to crack this code.
I don’t want you to think that this was a bad article. I value the work that you have done. Clearly, your reporter spent some time undercover. The whole ‘boxcar poker’ scene in particular was chilling but I’m left wondering whether this scene was real or reflected a certain degree of artistic license. I’ve seen photos of these boxcars and for the life of me, they all looked very dingy. “Secret boxcars inlaid with diamonds” strikes me as excessive, as did the presence of B-movie stars and on-call lounge singers and the killer whale tank. Freight cars were meant for business, not pleasure. While I’ll be the first to admit that killer whales can be terrifying, the scene Mr. Mitchell describes strikes me as more “70’s exploitation film” than “dangerous, secretive location where gangsters do their work.”
We do agree on one thing though: railroad gangs are still an active problem. Consumers around America wear all sorts of team jackets without running afoul of the Crips or Bloods. When was the last time that you saw someone wearing a CSX or Idaho/ Northern Pacific jacket? The wearer, we agree, would get capped in minutes. I’ve been told that college students in Atlanta received Exley HO scale trains in their mailboxes minutes after merely looking at the jackets online.
So thank you for publishing this important, if slightly inaccurate article and thank you for giving me the space to provide some corrections.
Makin Stuff Up | By jb | 06:23 AM
Comments
So that's what Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny did once they quit the teen lit gig...
Posted by: funke at March 21, 2006 07:21 AM