"PEOPLE GET READY" (THERE'S A TRAIN A COMING) curtis mayfield
All you need is faith to hear the diesel humming
Recently I have been privy to some e-mail with concerns of Heisley Park resident's and the CSX, NS railroads.
I got to thinking about this this weekend at a family outing in Ashtabula. Heisley Park came up and some one mentioned "oh that place with the trains?" (your getting a reputation) Yes I admitted the trains run up and down the streets there without a care in the world.
So let's get back to the honest facts. Heisley Park was built with the mainline of the CSX railroad to the north approximately 90 trains a day. To the southwest NS mainline between Chicago and Buffalo approximately 40 train a day. The two railroads run side by side about a mile to the west of the city limits.
Painesville annexed the property and soon Ryan Homes built a development in that tract of land.
So to the residents more honesty the main reason other than you might like trains for your purchase was cost. That same house built in Mentor or Concord could cost you 40% more. So price was a major factor, it wasn't the ambiance of being in a V shaped area surrounded by trains?
Were you under an assumption the trains were leaving?
So recently a resident complained about a new signal bridge erected by CSX where four tracks merge into two due to the rail yard on Lexington St. No the railroad doesn't have to acquire a building permit to erect this state of the art signal bridge. No it can't be moved further to the east, that sorta' defeats the purpose right? No city employee, manager state representative or Congressman can do anything for you. Honestly they would probably wonder if you didn't see all the railroad tracks? Kinda' like living next to an airport and complaining about planes. The trains were there 150 years before you were and will be there 150 years after your gone.
Live with it!
But... there is a problem if people in that development had any idea what those trains rumbling by at 50 plus MPH and knew what was being carried in their cars, look it up on the internet. They would live in fear every time they heard a diesel horn. Why?
In the city's and developers wisdom there was never enough of a buffer between the tracks and the homes constructed on that plat of land. Greed ran the table by the developer also by the purchaser looking for a great deal everyone. The city's first responsibility is to provide for a safe community, but greed won out.
I can't believe these lots were even considering the location next to the tracks. In this case there is no living on the wrong side of the tracks, it's just being close to them.
On a second note the reality that there is only one way in and out of Heisley Park could add to a higher cost in lives as a result of a disaster. This should be corrected as well as the city having an evacuation plan in place. That people should be your major concern
Spend more time getting the city as well as your HOA to have a working evacuation plan and more access to HP and less time on railroad signals.
Just thinking, if Carly Fiorina was such a great CEO at Hewlett-Packard why hasn't she been offered another job in the last ten years?