Call for meeting over stationary trains
VILLAGERS have decided enough is enough and are to set up a meeting with rail chiefs to try to stop the freight train problems plaguing their community.
VILLAGERS have decided enough is enough and are to set up a meeting with rail chiefs to try to stop the freight train problems plaguing their community.
People living near the Felixstowe-Ipswich rail line have for years put up with noise and fumes from trains waiting at signal lights and say action must be taken.
Freight trains from the port's northern terminal can stand for up to 20 minutes at Trimley Station as they wait for passenger trains to clear from the line, and while they wait they leave their engines running.
Residents of Chatsworth Crescent and Eaton Close have the trains standing just yards from their rear gardens pumping out diesel fumes and chugging away.
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Some say the noise is intolerable and worse at night when they can hear the trains idling, while they cannot use their gardens in summer or leave back windows open because of the fumes.
Trimley St Mary Parish Council is now to write to Network Rail and the Port of Felixstowe to demand a site meeting with officials to discuss the problem and look at possible solutions.
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Parish and district councillor Mary Dixon said the trains should not be sent up from the port until the line is clear or the signal was about the change.
"I am sure there is a solution to this problem and we need to talk face to face to people to explain to them the problems. What we need is a bit of common sense and flexibility," she said.
Council vice chairman Jean Harper said: "Residents do not look forward to the summer because that's when the problems seem to be worse. I think a site meeting would be the best way forward."
Parish clerk Lorraine Dickson said walkers using footpaths and bridleways were also suffering because they often had to wait for a long time to be able to use crossings to get over the rail line because standing trains blocked their path.
At one stage the parish council had reached an agreement with the railway authorities that if a train had to stand for more than ten minutes it would switch off its engine, but this seems to have been forgotten or disregarded.
n Have you an idea for a solution? Are you one of the residents affected? Write to Evening Star Letters, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN, or e-mail EveningStarLetters@eveningstar.co.uk
