Fayettenam

 It could make an engaging series in the Fayetteville Observer.  What is "Fayettenam?"  I have been trying to coin a phrase which could describe the reality of Fayettenam.  Half a year ago it was "Afternoon Aerial Assault."  Look up in the Carolina blue sky and chemtrails crisscross like a latticework holding up aberrant aircraft.  What are these aerial maneuvers?  I remind myself Ground Forces Command is a few miles away, and troops are returning from Afghanistan.  The last time we had such a latticework was when Trump mounted his military campaign to assassinate that Iraqi General.  Later is was written, almost a year to be exact, it was the largest military maneuver in recent history.  While military activity is the most convenient definition, it is not the true source of the phrase "Fayettenam."  With Interstate I-95 and the drug traffic that accompanies it, there is one more significant player in the coining of the phrase "Fayettenam."  President Biden is a staunch supporter of rail.  I think it is Amtrack, but I can't be sure.  In the Northeast Corridor, the most widely used passenger rail service, probably there are many host companies.  Amtrack would be one, and his son was on the board of this organization for a while.  The definitive perception that needs to be clarified is, the Northeast Corridor is light years ahead of the American South.  The freight rail system in America is known as the "Spaghetti Bowl."  It is a mishmash of different lines that have been in place for scores of years.  In recent years, and I mean the last thirty freight rail has reestablished itself as a Fortune 500 entity.  John Snow, a former Secretary of the United States Treasury, largely is responsible for this resurgence.  While railroads mostly were bankrupt in America, hobbled by a lucrative and competitive trucking industry, Snow waged a campaign that injected steroids into freight rail by the advent of AC traction.  This invention single handedly increased the profits of Class A railroads by increasing the amount of freight they could move efficiently and with profit.  AC locomotives, created by General Motors (EMD) and General Electric greatly advanced the concept of railroad traction with the aid of the PC and semi-conductors.  They took clunky DC locomotives and designed and built highly sophisticated, micro-processor controlled systems that allowed the diesel prime mover to function more efficiently.  AC traction motors took the place of DC motors, and inverters began controlling the speed of each through a complex network of high voltage processing with a computer.  If one were to compare the Northeast Corridor to the American south, the analogy would be beautiful swan and ugly duckling.  Joe may ride the Acela Train, but we down here are stuck in "Diesel Knock" territory.  The control of the American South is by CSX who is headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida.  While they begrudgingly allow Amtrack to travel on their rails, they don't like it.  Similarly there is no improving the passenger rail system in the American South, because CSX, a major Fortune 500 company, won't have it.  They have tried operating high speed passenger trains on these antiquated lines, and they only cause death and destruction.  "Fayettenam" wholly and completed is defined as such because of "Diesel Knock."  Fayettenam is a diverse, widely used, hub of rail logistics for the United States military, for DAK Americas (who manufactures plastic bottles), and for Cargill.  In the next year Cargill has decided to invest twenty five million dollars into its plant on the Cape Fear River.  They not only crush soybeans to extract their oil, but they dry the husks to make animal feed.  The Spring is their busy season, because the South American soybean crop has just been harvested.  Rail, CSX specifically, is crucial to their operation.  It is convenient that the I-295 inner loop gets its concrete from Fayetteville Block.  This once small company has grown into a behemoth with this lucrative contract.  Norfolk Southern has the privilege of providing their raw materials  with its own line coming from Fuquay Varina.  It is easy enough to justify economics in a small southern town, and Class A railroads built America, but the wild card in the stew that makes Fayettenam what it is is a short line railroad from Southern Pines.  The Blue family laid rails in the great pine forests of the sandhills, felled the trees, and provided turpentine to the United States Navy.  When businessmen with eyes wide open came through and saw the great swaths of open rolling tundra, the Pinehurst Golf Resort was invented.  The Aberdeen and Rockfish is touted as one of the few highly profitable short line railroads in America.  Hence it is given glowing reviews.  The reality is this little strip of track transects the cities of Fayetteville and Hope Mills.  They have increased their activity exponentially, and what once was a fairly unassuming one train daily routine has become a 24/7 debacle of the ferrying of freight shunted from both CSX and N/S.  They have upgraded their small yard behind Berean Church and School and now assemble trains there all hours of the day and night.  What once were well-respected middle class neighborhoods and Cross Creek Mall, now have succumbed to the ills of the ghetto.  Our property has become devalued, because the Aberdeen and Rockfish has exploited its business model.  Nary a home or business owner had an opinion or a choice about the activity of the Aberdeen and Rockfish.  They sneaked into downtown Fayetteville in the middle of the night and built their crossover across the mainline railroad tracks to assure their own success.  It is this model to this day they follow.  They trains literally are in out backyards, and we have nothing to say about it.  Because of the deregulation of the Bush regime, "Fayettenam" has proliferated.