The Illustrious GE ES44AC

Many of your lucid thoughts come from sleep.  Unfortunately sleep is rare to me.  I can tell you which vehicles are disturbing my sleep and causing both physical and emotional pain like an Amtrack timetable.  Hunter Harrison has put a stop to that, and the integral industries surrounding our home have begun to complain.  Although Chemours is under investigation for malfeasance, it would seem they have an opinion about CSX-T's newly implemented high earning operating plan.  In the past I would know the time by The Aberdeen and Rockfish's operation.  Their local arrives at 10:45 a.m. and departs at 1:45 p.m.  As necessary as it crosses Skibo Road it blows the necessary series of  alerts for grade crossings.  You knew what has happening from the sound of a Leslie train horn.  While Fort Bragg has been preparing for World War lll, local train whistles have been mute, but their activity has  escalated.  This happens when Fort Bragg is "in the field" or rather practicing war-time maneuvers in the Normandy Drop Zone.  Camp MacKall has taken more responsibility in the War Against Terror.  Because I have been exhausted from lack of sleep caused by the practicing of war, I have been in bed.  That has given me the opportunity to reflect upon a transportation system providing logistical support for what my be the worlds largest military base.  Ironically the activity at Fort Bragg pales in comparison to the activity of Hunter Harrison's new company.  We shall only have to wait to see if his entrepreneurial railroading philosopy will make the trip from Canada to the American South.  It would seem his presence, while short-lived, has provided a stock bubble for  shareholders.  Much has been reported about the management coup transpiring at CSX-T after Mantle Ridge hedge fund purchased a 4.9 stake and demanding the hiring of retired Harrison.  Only in the last few days has he taken a medical leave of absence.  Wall Street aside only locals can know the real scoop.  Harrison's thugs would show up at hospitals and harass injured employees demanding they do not disclose details or receive their medical entitlements.  They were threatened.  Interesting way to run a company.  If my instincts are correct as sleep-deprived as they may be, Mafia-type business is on the rise all over the world.  Washington is no exception.  Once Gucci Shoe Guys wore designer suits and carried big checks to Washington lawmen.  I would suspect in this day and age they now are carrying weapons and consummate threats.  Because my schedule is disheveled and erratic the day begins at 8:45 a.m.  This is the new fifty.  It used to be 5:30 a.m.  For the longest time it was 3:30 a.m., the witching hour when the walls would bleed and floors would shake.  Then it became 6:00 a.m. for a while.  Now it is 8:45, and I have to get out of bed, pee (or lately try to pee because of prostate issues), and go downstairs to open the curtains.  After doing so I am overwhelmed by a feeling of exhaustion and make my way back to the bedroom to sleep.  Upon entering my room it dawns on me that my room has become unusually hot, and I must open the window and insert my fan.  Recirculating the air in this small bedroom usually alleviates the pressure that has built up from train number one.  It take approximately one hour and a half for this what must be Hunter Harrison extended freight to lumber through downtown.  It may stop and change personnel.  At about ten it is calm again.  At eleven it starts anew but for a shorter length of time.  At noon it is the bomb, and I mean the big one.  I have to get out of the room, because my head is pounding, my joints are aching, and my sciatic nerve is singing Nessun Dorma.  From noon onward we have both Amtrack consists to look forward to.  Luckily GE and their diminishing stock profile decided to become a locomotive manufacturer with large plants both in Pennsylvania and Texas.  They tout their environmentally friendly ES44AC as the most cutting edge locomotive ever built, simply because it contains a microwave tube that transmits engine diagnostics to a small Cessna and then to their central satellite for relay to Jacksonville.  "A three day repair becomes a three hour repair!"  gleefully states a GE representative.   He then proceeds to lure an attractive Lolita into their facility to show off his tool.  4,400 horsepower he tell her, and let's her get behind the wheel.  If bimbos are test driving the most powerful locomotives in the world in Texas, then Roy Moore was the foreman.  With some grease, a toe in your ass, and a pat on the back GE managed to slip its 7FDL four stoke diesel prime mover into modest Amtrack passenger locomotives.  (Damn, these clever internet boys just keep on ticking)  Bluetooth Turntable.  Self-driving cars.  And we could halt global warming and feed the world...  The GE7FDL, with its massive power footprint, eliminated the need for an auxiliary unit.  It was powerful enough, and GE had the know how, to create Head End Power and AC power for the train carriages with one engine.  It is the same tried and true engine that found its way back into the ES44AC after they fell out of love with their own newly developed GEVO engine.  Consequently the C40-9 (or Dash 9) for short still is operating under the EPA's radar.  The ES44AC is a souped up version of what all ready was the most invasive polluting diesel/electric locomotive in existence.  Yes, it was effective and as Hunter Harrison has shown can pull two mile long intermodal freights.  For those of us peons who live down by the river and not up in the Connecticut hills, that diesel microdust, infrasonic pollution, and escaping alternating current have wreaked havoc on our population.  Trouble is no one will say so.  In a world simple where we need good doctors, a lot of them, and a few good hospitals, instead we have miles and miles of bureaucratic red tape sealing the weeping wounds of the Sackler empire.  Agencies.  Departments.  Offices.  Companies.  All that perform USELESS functions for the health and well being of America's citizens except collecting our hard-earned dollar and turning it over to Uncle Sam.  It is a big circle jerk, Washington and  corporate America, and we are losing.