Council calls for train noise testing

The Port-Enfield Council will push the State Government to carry out noise testing along the Le Fevre Peninsula rail corridor, in the wake of resident anger over a four-fold increase of freight traffic adjacent their homes.

Cr Bruce Johansen will raise the issue at the council’s July 13 meeting after the Portside Messenger Last week reported Mersey Rd residents’ complaints that the noise from the 160 trains using the corridor each week was becoming unbearable.

Cr Johansen said the State Government must recognise the residents’ concerns as valid.

“Over the past decade we have attended many, many meetings and workshops with the Transport Department with the same outcome,” Cr Johansen said.

“They maintain we do not have a problem.”

He said while the council was told the 2007 upgrade of the line, which saw the track doubled, would fix the noise and vibration problems, it clearly had not.

“There are 78 houses that border the Mersey Rd section of the line, but even people one house back would be affected by the increase in traffic.

“Yet not one dollar was spent on noise abatement measures.” A spokesman for Transport Minister Pat Conlon confirmed no physical noise barriers were installed during the upgrade.

“The old single track featured passing loops, where idling locomotives sat waiting for trains to pass … it was these idling locomotives that were the main source of noise,” he said.

“The track duplication eliminated the need for further noise mitigation measures.”

The department said the results of the most recent noise monitoring in 2008 when an average of 30 trains used the line each week fell within EPA guidelines, and there were no immediate plans to do further testing at this stage.

via Messenger News