Today trains run down Thurmond's rails laid with promises we thought included us, made us integral to those trains, controlling them. Those trains controlled us. Today, trains still run through Thurmond, still sound horns at crossings where tourists gape their tourist-gapes, where grass reclaims what we wrested from this steep slope. Us? We melted into America: most to nearby towns, some to Cincy or places far-flung like bits of coal escaping from tenders serving locomotives. Stocks dove mortally, banks failed. Ours held on: two years, five years... then closed or left. Our hotels burned, fell down. Yet tightly we clung to traditions learned. Progress ushered steam engines into history. Their coal waited uselessly beside steel tracks. It heated our homes, true, but offered nothing more: we couldn't eat coal. We sought regular meals elsewhere, hungry. Federals bought up what we never owned anyway. Thurmond's landed stayed, profited, found new cows from which to milk money.
(All photographs were taken in Thurmond, WV, July 2023. Though Thurmond dried up after steam engines ceased to ply the lines–the last one in the early 1950’s–a few persons hung on. In 2020, the population was five.)
all the voices in my head 
Beautiful yet sad poem of this town of train. I enjoy reading it thank you:)
Thanks! Yes, I found the place to be one of sad inevitability.