He’s on a Toot: It’s Highball Time

--A 61-year-old engineer who loves the clickety-clack of wheels against steel has won the right to operate a half-size train around his house in Glenarm, Md. Joe Prosser, whose dream of owning a railroad evolved during years of commuting to work by train, says he will start laying 1,000 feet of track on nine acres as soon as the weather warms. After two years of legal battles with the Baltimore County Board of Appeals and an investment of more than $50,000, Prosser recently received approval from a county Circuit Court judge to run the train. Several neighbors opposed the project because they feared the train might create an amusement park atmosphere in their quiet neighborhood. “We’ll try to act as if it doesn’t exist,” said Stephen Stauffer, whose home overlooks the Prossers’ front yard. There are restrictions. Prosser must plant hedges as a screen and can blow the train’s horn only once each time around the track. Prosser said he hopes to have old “Iron Horse” rolling by late spring. “I’m interested in having a train to ride through the woods and watch the birds,” he said.

--Isaac Asimov, the prolific writer of science fact and fiction, has been elected president of the American Humanist Assn., the group announced in New York. A professor of biochemistry at the Boston University School of Medicine, Asimov has written more than 300 books since his first was published in 1949. The association describes itself as dedicated to affirming that human beings have the ability to improve the conditions of life by applying intelligence and morality to solve the world’s problems.

--Firefighter Capt. Richard Moore has been carrying around the same wooden plug for 16 years, just in case he came upon a gas leak. He finally got the chance to use it. He was called to an apartment building in downtown Tacoma, Wash., after a construction worker accidentally dislodged a gas meter, forcing the evacuation of nearly 50 tenants. “When I first arrived, I was afraid it might be the main line,” Moore said. “I was afraid my plug wouldn’t fit. But when I saw it was only the gas meter, I took out my plug and inserted it, and it was all over.” His old fire truck captain “made all of us carry wooden plugs for emergencies like this, but I never got to use the plug for a gas leak before,” Moore said. “I got in the habit of always carrying it with me.” The plug stopped the leak for 30 minutes while Washington Natural Gas Co. made repairs. Moore stuck around until they finished. Then, “I insisted they give me back my plug,” he said.