Railway yard noise irks neighbours

People who live near a railway yard in southeast Calgary say the noise it produces has become intolerable.

Canadian Pacific Railway has operated the Alyth facility — which straddles 15A Street, stretching from Blackfoot Trail south to 42nd Avenue S.E. — for over a century.

But since the railway consolidated locomotive servicing work at the location — doubling the size of the operation — the decibel levels have become too much for nearby residents, said Ald. Gian-Carlo Carra.

"High throttle for a diesel engine is like rock concert noise — times ten. Like, it is unbelievably loud," he said.

Area resident L.J. Robertson said the noise peaks at night.

"We have various friends that have homes there and at various points in time they are literally screaming at one another in their own homes to be heard. They cannot sleep without earplugs," he said.

Because rail companies are under federal jurisdiction, CP Rail didn’t need city approval to expand the Alyth operations, Carra said.

But the city and the railway are about to launch a study that will look at the environmental impacts of all industrial operations in the area.

"Inglewood and the Alyth yards have lived together, you know, as neighbours for a hundred years. We have to figure out how we mitigate that relationship for the next hundred years and what measures we have to take," Carra said.