The Invisible Devil that Should be Gone

I have been preaching relentlessly about the ills of the rail industry since I discovered them.  Having been a model railroader since my youth, the novelty of trains always has been intriguing.  Although few of my handmade layouts ever functioned well, I persisted in building them until I could not take it any longer.  The best running layouts were an .027 mammoth in our attic on McGougan Road, and a small HO empire in our garage on Westchester Drive.  On these two pikes at least the engines ran.  Electrical continuity made its way from the electrified track to the contacts on the wheels of the model locomotives.  The trains actually ran.  When I switched to the "better " nickel silver flex track, they stopped running reliably.  They would hesitate, lurch, and falter.  After scenicking my last HO layout in that Westchester garage, I tore it down with one fell swoop of the axe.  I couldn't take it that all of that work yielded failure.  The track was coated with some black wet oxidant preventing the electricity from flowing to the wheels of the locomotives.  The trains ran like shit.  The mountainous scenery was something to behold, but with the trains not running it was ridiculous.  This was not the last railroad I built.  My last still sits on its side upright in the same garage.  It ran.  I was determined.  I did use the same kind of track, but I purchased new engines with clean wheels.  In the process my father and I had taken the locomotives back to Hayes Hobby shop.  Gentry Hayes attempted to clean the oxidation off of the wheels in vain.  Even a Dremel mototool with a grinding attachment couldn't loosen this evil substance.  I never knew what caused this failure of fun.  Only decades later working in the same garage did I realize that pollutants from the environment are rampant.  In this area of North Carolina pollutants are rife.  They have gotten worse over the years.  After coming back from abroad for twelve years, it has taken two long years to come to terms with this pollution.  Not only do I have allergies I never have had before, each and every day seems like a battle against the elements.  As a wearer of gas permeable hard contact lenses, life can be a challenge.  Add pine pollen to the list of irritants and suddenly life becomes an epic struggle.  There is one other struggle that occurs daily that should not.  We American people have enough worries.  With the "economic crisis" America finally has become a third world country.  It was inevitable.  Without someone looking after her with moral and ethical integrity, the once great nation of America almost overnight has slid into darkness.  Unguided, unled, and unfed our difficult history has returned with a vengeance.  The list is so inane.  Video games.  Television.  Music.  At one time in our history when Ms. Pack Man, Crazy Climber, and Galaxian drew the nation together in amusement, now we have become a disparate band of rogue outlaws.  One only has to turn on the television set to see its newly conceived agenda.  The programming is so far extreme right it almost is unfathomable.  Without spending millions of dollars researching the programming, only can one say that what is being broadcast on television is not good for the American way.  It is extreme.  Easily we can assign that term to radical Islamist terrorists.  Easily we can assign it to today's television programming.  Easily we can assign it to today's video games.  Music no longer matters, but it still is there confusing the populace like seventy virgins.  With all of this distraction there is one other element that in my opinion is complicating life in America.  Unlike our extreme corporate-produced mass media, this element effects us at an even more intimate level.  In certain ways it defies explanation.  To this day and since I have been raging a war against this pollutant, nary has there been even one news article about its ill effects.  It is because the railroads built America.  Necessarily they deserve a certain amount of respect in the annals of American history.  It is when these institutions with the help of newly developing electrical technology become dangerous that a line must be drawn.  No explanations have been rendered for the numerous mass shootings that have occurred in America other than a probable connection with medications.  If there were another element, an antagonist, a culprit that more directly could effect the human mind then the indecision could be lifted.  What is causing America this undue grief?  After being sick with the flu for four days straight and battling those horrific symptoms, again it has become apparent to me that in addition to our daily challenges the American people have been beset with an unfair foe.  I have been battling it head to head from my bedroom, since this is where I have been resigned. To describe "it" is difficult.  Probably it has not been described in words before.  The effects of infrasound have, but the actual entity itself has not.  In this case it is more than just a low frequency sound wave.  I may be unique, because I have a small amount of hearing loss in my left ear.  Probably this came from playing keyboards sitting in front of a drum set on the Carnival Conquest.  As many military veterans know hearing loss occurs as tinnitus.  As many people do not know, and the well established medical community in America will deny tinnitus is created by infrasound.  When there is a low frequency sound wave present the spectrum of hearing loss rings with tinnitus.  This is how I know when such a phenomenon is present.  I can predict an jet or diesel locomotive before anyone actually can hear it, because my left ear begins to ring.  It took me quite a few years to discover this trick.  Upon moving back to Fayetteville, North Carolina it has been quite upsetting that this occurs a majority of the time, because of the mainline of CSX-T.  Several expensive rail studies have been commissioned by our local government, and all of them have been ignored.  It was discovered twenty-eight freight trains travel through downtown Fayetteville every day. We had almost the same amount, when I lived near this same line in Columbus, Ohio.  It was disturbing then, and it is disturbing now.  It would be difficult to say if I didn't experience the tinnitus if I would notice the other physical invasion.  I would.  It is tangible.  As a lucky soul and talented musician I have been blessed to be a part of the four percent of the population who can sense low frequency sound on their skin.  In addition to this I have been the proud recipient of an iridotomy in my right eye allowing the aqueous humor to freely flow between the anterior and posterior chambers of my eye.  Infrasound pushes on the mucous membrane of my eye and forces the fluid to flow allowing me to perceive its frequency.  These are unwelcome gifts.  While sensitivity to sound is a blessing as a performing musician, conversely trying to survive in what now has become the "Great Void of America" is a huge hindrance.  Almost every aspect of my daily life is predicated by this phenomenon, because of where I live.  This just happens to be less then mile from the CSX-T mainline, and roughly two miles from their Milan switching yard.  Throw in the Aberdeen and Rockfish and Norfolk Southern lines and Fayettenam is one great rail whore.  It never stops.  For four days as I have been convalescing in my bedroom, the sound and vibration from the diesel locomotives has been making my life a living hell.  [sic].  This is where the corporate headquarters of CSX-T, a fortune 500 company pioneered by former Secretary of the United States Treasury John Snow, would break into mocking laughter.  The Interstate Commerce Commission assure we can do whatever the fuck we want, and they do.  Federal oversight agencies and boards have turned a blind cheek when it comes to regulation of America's railroads mainly because we are reliant upon STRACNET for our nation's security.  A study that was commissioned by Fayetteville's local government made two recommendations for rail traffic.  One was to build a direct entry into Ft. Bragg from the CSX mainline necessitating a new bridge be built over Cross Creek.  The other was a new interchange in Pembroke eliminating the same time consuming "back up" method of moving trains from Ft. Bragg To Sunny Point.  
When a two mile military train exits Ft. Bragg it must "back up" on the CSX line that runs down Russell Street before being diverted in the correct direction.  This one line could be an indication of how  unregulated CSX really is.  If this one section of track is the backbone of our national security getting military munitions overseas, then how could it be so neglected?  One only has to walk the section of track for a quarter mile to see its poor maintenance.  It is a travesty really.  Broken ties, uneven ballast, half way driven rail spikes.  It is a mockery of our cutting edge military, and yet it persists.  It persists like the continual invasion of CSX engines breaking power axles regulations and basically doing whatever they please despite the invasion of Fayetteville's citizens.  For four days straight I have sat in a room trying to get well, and my one and only companion has been the continual undulating, humming, and disturbing of diesel locomotives seemingly at large.  It never stops. There is no respite.  I have this sound in my head 24/7, and I think they enjoy it.