1 Air Traffic Control: Sorry HL16, we're diverting all flights from Moscow.
2 Terry: What's the problem?
3 Air Traffic Control: There's a rail line parallel to the main runway. A cargo of minks, ferrets, and stoats has run amok on a 2TE116 locomotive.
4 Steve: Weasels on a diesel?! Crikey! Now it's gettin' ridiculous!
4 Terry: Now it's getting ridiculous?

I asked some train fanciers for the name of a genuine Russian diesel locomotive, so I could use it in this strip and give a thrill to all those Russian locomotive experts who read it.

I was expecting something cool like a Grozny & Stukovich Model K "Wolverine" Mark III. Unfortunately Russian locomotive models are all apparently known simply by a bunch of letters and numbers. And since they used to be contracted out by the communist government to multiple manufacturers all over the country, there's no tradition of associating a single manufacturer name with any of them.

So you get something boring. But at least it's authentic.

Oh, and minks, ferrets, and stoats and all members of the weasel family.

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2018-07-18 Rerun commentary: The stoats had to travel to the train station across a river.