Blaring train horns at all hours irk Guelph people living near tracks, city says hands are tied

People who live near a set of tracks in Guelph say they're fed up with trains blaring their horns in the middle of the night as they move through the area.

But CN says it has to operate this way until it can make upgrades to the rail infrastructure in the area.

Several people have taken to Twitter or have emailed CBC Kitchener-Waterloo about their concerns about the trains.

"I'm not even sure I can handle one more night of this. It's untenable," Stef Clarke said in an email.

Clarke is a teacher and lives across the road from the tracks. She said when they bought the house 16 years ago, they knew they were near train tracks and that there would be activity, "but not in the middle of the night."

On Monday, she tweeted videos of the noise just after 2 a.m. and 3 a.m.. Along with the trains blaring their horns, you can hear screeching from the wheels and dinging from the signals.

"These horns were blaring pretty much non-stop. So between 1 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. there were two very brief reprives of about 20 minutes, where you thought: 'Oh finally, it's 3:30, I'm going to be able to get some sleep.' And you just start dozing off and then it would start again," said Clarke.

City Coun. Phil Allt told CBC K-W he's heard from a number of residents in the area upset by the train activity.

"There were people in tears," said Clarke of her neighbours, many who came out to vent to one another in the early hours Sunday about the sleepless night.

"It's not like we're over-reacting. We've all tried," said Clarke. "I have a neighbour two doors down who has those Cochlear implants — so they're buried in his skull — and he disconnected them and he could still hear it."

Infrastructure needs upgrade

In a statement, CN's senior adviser for media relations and public affairs Alexandre Boulé wrote that the company is sorry for the "inconveniences and will continue to engage with the city and review its operations in order to mitigate as much as possible frustrations by local residents and the city."

Boulé noted CN took over control of the section of tracks from the Goderich Exeter Railway in late 2018.

"Unfortunately, the rail infrastructure inherited by CN requires significant investment for safety and efficiency purposes," Boulé wrote.

He said the rail company has started making investments and "will continue to invest in safety through 2020."

"These investments will address many of the issues leading to current frustrations," Boulé said.

Boulé did not immediately respond to a request for more details on what the exact problems are or why the trains have to blare their horns in the middle of the night.

'It needs to stop'

In a video shared on Twitter, Guelph Mayor Cam Guthrie said he had spoken to a representative at CN Rail.

"I let them know I wanted this operation, it's unacceptable, it needs to stop. I didn't get the answers I wanted," Guthrie said.

Guthrie said CN informed them there were some investments needed for the area, although he was unclear what those were.

"I'm very disappointed," Guthrie said.

"They gave me no timeline as to when these investments might be taking place. They did say that they were sorry for what is happening and that they're going to try to move things as quickly as possible."

Guthrie said he doesn't see this issue being resolved in the near future and he's considering what council can do to "send a clear message" to CN "that what they're doing needs to stop as soon as possible."