'Why so loud?': South Walkerville residents call on city to stop late night train whistles

Train whistles are an important safety measure to protect drivers and pedestrians at level crossings.

But they’re also keeping residents in south Walkerville up at all hours of the night.

"I would be sitting there with my headphones on studying like for school, and I would hear it through my headphones, it’s like baaaaaaaaa!" said Zeena Biro, who lives just a few houses away from a level train crossing along Lincoln Road in Windsor.

The Essex Terminal Railway tracks slice through many residential streets in South Walkerville.

Biro has lived there all her life and said historically, one to two trains would roll through each day and normally during working hours.

"But the past six months or so, there’s been an increase in train volume, as well as train noise," said Mark McKenzie, the councillor for Ward 4, who can also hear the horn blaring from his house kilometres away.

One resident logged each train whistle occurrence since October. Some days, John Karel-West says the horn blasts more than a dozen times, starting at 6:30 a.m. and running as late as 1:30 a.m.

"Like, I know I live next to a train track, but like Why 11:30 at night?" said Biro. "Why do you need to be so loud?"

"It’s disturbing people’s sleep. It's early in the morning. It's late at night, and it's the increase whistle noise that's really disturbing residents," said McKenzie.

Transport Canada guidelines require trains to sound a whistle whenever they approach a public grade crossing.

Many of these crossings through the neighbourhood only have flashing lights and no safety guard arm.

Coun. McKenzie will present a notice of motion at Monday’s council meeting, hoping to work with Essex Terminal Railway to reduce the noise.

"I understand under certain circumstances you do have to blow the horn, but we're trying to make that you know, only blow that horn under certain circumstances," McKenzie said. "If somebody's on the tracks or if there's a car on the tracks or somebody's close by, to kind of warn them."

The Essex Terminal Railway Company did not respond to a request for comment over the weekend.

According to Transport Canada, municipalities may wish to stop the whistling to provide local residents some relief.

There’s a local process whereby the city can consult with the railway company about whether the request is feasible, notify the public and others that it intends to stop the whistling and pass a municipal council resolution.

"ETR you know, being kind of a local company, I’m hoping that they'll work with the city to address this noise from the trains but also, let's make it safer for residents as well," said McKenzie.