Acquision of EBT Hoppers

For the record, I was on the RGRPC board with JBW back in 2000 when he worked out the deal to get the five EBT hoppers for only about $30,000, and that was a damn good deal.
There were only three real problems (1) the GM at the time embarked on an unnecessarily high-cost refurbishment program -- note the excessive side-panel replacement on JBWX -- that hemorrhaged far too many dollars (consequently, Marvin and other did the work far more cost effectively); (2) brasses had to be temporarily borrowed from the historic tank cars and producing replacements always seemed to get put off; and (3) a couple of unqualified commentators with megaphones were always looking for ways to take cheap shots. History has proven JBW right.