SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Some Sacramento homeowners are concerned about freight trains making a lot more noise than usual.
The area of concern is near W and 20th streets, around the WX portion of Highway 50 in Sacramento.
“The screeching to a halt, the slamming together of the freight train cars, the blaring of the horn,” said Stephanie Duncan, describing the loud noise freight cars have been making for the past three weeks.
Some neighbors say it could be because of a homeless encampment that is just feet away from the train tracks forcing trains to come to a complete stop, have an employee get off the train to make sure the tracks are clear before the train can continue on.
Neighbors say the train stops and blows its horns over and over at all times of day — even at night.
“At night, people are trying to sleep but during the day it is also a problem because when the trains have to slow down and stop, all the crossing arms come down on W, X and Broadway, which holds up all the traffic that is trying to traverse,” said Duncan.
The tracks are also near an affordable housing project that burned last month. Humberto Lopez hopes these incidents are not a trend.
“Hopefully it does not progress to more worst things to happen in future,” said Lopez. “It is tiring to hear honking at night.”
Neighbors say they do not want anyone near the tracks to get hit, but their concerns and frustrations continue to grow.
“The city has an ordinance in place, a critical infrastructure ordinance, which says people are not allowed to camp within 25 feet of critical infrastructure, train tracks are on that list. What the city needs to do is enforce its own ordinance,” said Duncan. “If they are not going to enforce it, why even have it?”
ABC10 reached out to city officials and Union Pacific and have not heard back as of publishing.
Duncan says one of the neighbors heard back from a Union Pacific representative who said they could come out next week to clean up the area.
The Sacramento RT Light Rail, which used a different track further away from the encampment, does not come to a complete stop.
