trains

[Guest guest]

I used to love the sound of trains.

But recently, in our little town of Waukesha, Wisconsin, via some

stupid paperwork glitch, the railroad must honk its horn 10-12 times

each time it passes the intersections through town. It is a federal

regulation that the owners of the railroad must be adhered to because

the city did not make intersection crossing improvements by a certain

date. Before this, there was a " quiet zone " in Waukesha. Now, this

iswhat happens. Let me describe the torture that has taken over my

nights (it used to be just torture at work and coming home was a

solace, an escape, but not now!):

The train, only two blocks away from our house, crosses the

intersection there 40 times each day. It travels at all times of the

day and night. It honks the horn between 10-15 times each time it

approaches the intersection and for anywhere between half a second to

3 seconds each time. The horn is deafening. If I shut all the

windows in our house, it is still loud enough so that we can't even

hear the TV over it without blasting the volume most of the way up.

At night, I am woken 25x, in about 10-30 minute increments,

roughly.Dave can sleep right through it or gets to sleep a lot faster

once he does wake up. I take another half hour to get back to sleep

each time because it shakes me up so much. Last night, after five

days of no sleep, and I mean NO SLEEP, I finally turned on my fan

full blast and then took a sleeping pill on top of the Topomax that

the neuro doc prescribed for my migraines and 4S (it's an anti-

seizure med that is not working as yet). It's boiling hot in our

house with the windows closed, but at this point, I'll take an oven

over this incessant honking.

I'm living in hell. This hell, according to the newspapers, will

continue until AT LEAST August 17, which is when IF they get approval

for re-establish the quiet zone, the horns would stop blaring. But

they might NOT get approval and so they might continue. We might end

up moving because of this. I can't sleep under these conditions, and

the lack of sleep is making my daily 4S symptoms at work even worse!!

BTW, the Skullcandy ear plugs aren't much different than the regular

cheapo ones I already had. I really think that my ears are too small

for any ear plugs to really work. Oh well...was worth a try.

Thanks for letting me vent, guys!