Labor Day

I didn't feel very well last night (minor food poisoning) and really wanted to sleep late this morning like most other Americans on this holiday. I had decided to do my best to ignore the cat's usual pleas to have me get up and pet him while he ate his breakfast. Unfortunately the thoroughly unionized railroads work all holidays, even Labor Day. So in two long stretches before 7:30 a.m. the local switcher kept blaring its air horn as it made its way back and forth through all the closest road crossings. There is a major intermodal terminal for the Phoenix area southeast of here, a passing siding that is most often blocked with railroad maintenance cars close by and a small railroad yard a few miles to the northwest. I don't often hear switching since most locomotives that pass here come all the way from the main line up near Flagstaff with "unit trains" of containers from the coasts and overseas or UPS trailers on flat cars mostly from the Midwest. The track is far enough away I can't hear the rumble of the trains passing. But the horns at the two intersections about a mile away were too much to let me sleep in this morning.