re: #86 Sherlock Hound

Is that where Ayn Rand got the idea for that famous scene in Atlas Shrugged?

I’ve never read Atlas Shrugged, but if it involves a train stalling in a tunnel, probably so.

Update:
Found it in Cliff’s Notes, those handy devils now bedeviling English instructors online.

The Taggart Comet breaks down in the mountains of Colorado, stranding a train full of passengers. Replacement diesel engines aren’t available, only a coal burner that isn’t safe to navigate through the lengthy tunnel on the Comet’s route. Kip Chalmers, a prominent politician riding the Comet on his way to a rally in San Francisco, bullies the railroad employees into bringing the coal-burning engine despite the risks involved. The coal burner is attached, and the worst possible result occurs: Passengers and crew are asphyxiated in the tunnel. An army munitions train, running off its normal schedule, slams into the stalled Comet in the tunnel. Its armament detonates, bringing tons of mountainside down on the Taggart Tunnel.

The Balvano disaster happened during World War II. There was no collision involved but the wartime nature of the event might have suggested the ammunition explosion to Rand.