If you have ever played Monopoly, then the name Reading Railroad will sound familiar. It was part of a four-railroad syndicate that often provided good cash for a player's investment in the rents it generated from a hapless opponent who landed there.

Today, you are that hapless player as Washington treats your tax dollars like Monopoly money.

The Berks Area Reading Transportation Authority (BARTA) is asking engineering firms to bid on the best way to renovate the Reading Railroad's Franklin Street station in order to fulfill the requirements of a $1.5 million grant received years ago from Washington.

Sounds like a good use of your tax dollars, doesn't it?

Well, not so much.

See, the Reading Railroad hasn't stopped at the Franklin Street station since 1981 and, as of this posting, has no plans to start up again!

Not to worry. Maybe the $78,280 federal Transportation Enhancement grant to move a caboose in Princeton, West Virginia can be re-jiggered so that instead of our money being used to move the caboose from outside the municipal building to a museum in town, it can be shipped to the Franklin Street station in the off-chance a train ever runs through there again in need of a caboose.

Taxpayers just passed "Go" but only Washington collected the $200.