Source of construction material

What country supplied material for the Transcontinental Railroad?

—J.T.

Transcontinental RR Train Stations

From: "Felber, Mary" mfelber@aia.org
Subject: 2006 Richard Morris Hunt Fellowship

... I’m looking for great people to contact to arrange the program for the 2006 Richard Morris Hunt fellow, Christopher Loustau. His area of interest is specific: Train stations along the 1st transcontinental railroad from NY to SF. Please send me contacts for anyone you can think of to give the big picture/overview and specific architects, engineers, conservators, archeologists, etc that would be interested and be interesting for Christopher to meet. ...

Mary Felber
Director
AIA/AAF Scholarship Programs
1735 New York Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20006
(202) 626-7511

Purchasing railroad maps

From: "m gross" duckergoose@yahoo.com

I am interested in ... original maps, I may want to purchase. Can you tell me the prices of [railroad maps]? ...

—Max

Great grandfather Blodgett

From: "Mike & Sue Blodgett" santa000q@yahoo.com

My name is Sue Blodgett and my husband's great grandfather was a part of the working crew when the track was laid. He received an Elgin railroad watch when either he retired or when the track was finished. I am not sure. I am looking for any information about him. I know his last name was Blodgett and that is all the information I have. Can you help me to find out anything else about him. I know I am not giving you much to go on. I think he would have worked for the Union Pacific side but not for sure on that.

—Sue Blodgett

PAYPAL'S DELAYED DELIVERY OF FAKES SCAM

WARNING: PayPal refuses to act on fraud that has been brought to their attention whenever a seller delays shipment of the fake item until after a PayPal complaint for non-receipt is filed.

This serious problem with eBay auction payments has been repeatedly brought to the PayPal Protection Services Department's attention, but PayPal adamantly refuses to modify their defective policy and procedure, stating: "In accordance to PayPal's User Agreement you may only file one PayPal Buyer Protection claim per PayPal payment either for Non-Receipt of merchandise or for receiving Not-as-Described. You are not able to file for both reasons."

Consequently their promise that "PayPal does not tolerate fraud ... we will investigate and take appropriate action" is worthless under these circumstances (delayed delivery + fake item) as PayPal's "Resolution Center" refuses to investigate the fraud dispute and won't take any action when the fraud is discovered and reported to them.

[Note: Hopefully, PayPal will eliminate their egregious recipe for getting away with selling fake items (simply by also delaying delivery), so that removal of this post would be merited.]