Essex Terminal Railway says its train whistles meet the rules, but won't release 3rd-party report

The president of a rail company at the centre of neighbourhood noise complaints in Windsor, Ont., says that an independent report shows the company is following federal noise regulations.

The report, prepared by a third-party group for Essex Terminal Railway (ETR) at the request of Windsor's city council, is not being made public, a move that's irked some people leading the push for solutions to the loud train whistles. 

John West lives in South Walkerville and says that the whistles — which are used to warn people as trains pass through rail crossings without protective safety devices that are level with city streets — keep him and his son up at night.

"It's a matter of health, of not getting restorative sleep, having difficulty with memory, having difficulty functioning," said West, who has lived in his home for 17 years and said the frequency of whistle noises increased within the last two years.

West said that the decision by ETR to keep a report into the decibel level of the train whistles secret is outrageous and that there are no regulations or guidelines that prevent the rail company from releasing the full report. 

Windsor city council first asked for the report on the whistles in April. 

"There's a decibel range for whistles on trains and we regularly test our whistles," said ETR president Tony De Thomasis. 

"In many cases noise studies, any of that information is typically confidential and proprietary information and many companies don't release that."

De Thomasis wrote in an e-mail to city administration that "ETR is compliant within the minimum/maximum decibels level readings for level crossings."

He told CBC News that in some cases, the readings were below the mandated range, which the company is looking into.

He added that the whistles have not gotten louder but more frequent because of increased business for the company leading to additional train crossings. 

The report was requested by city council after a meeting where administration presented potential solutions to the noise complaints. 

One solution includes upgrading the infrastructure around the crossings to allow for the city to ask ETR and Transport Canada to limit train whistle noises, which are required under legislation at street-level crossings.

Those upgrades would cost millions of dollars across multiple crossings, which Ward 4 councillor Mark McKenzie said the city can't afford to do.