HAVERHILL, MASS. (WHDH) - The peace Paul Bellos and Chelsea McQuaid once felt in their Haverhill home is derailed.
The couple said the noise from trains just behind their house has reached intolerable levels.
“It literally just surrounds you. There is no escape from it,” McQuaid said.
“The best way I can explain it is if you’ve ever been to any concert …. when you hear the low bass, the reverb coming out,” Bellos said. “That’s what it is in the house and there is no way to stop it and it just vibrates at that low frequency consistently.”
The couple said the pitch from the trains shakes their house and rattles their patience. The Bradford train station sits just beyond the couple’s backyard.
“After the train is gone I actually still feel a vibration,” Bellos explained. “My ears ringing is when I said enough.”
Research shows repeated exposure to high decibels can cause hearing loss.
So, Bellos started tracking the noise with a decibel reader. Over the last two months, he’s tracked levels that are equivalent to the sound of a hairdryer to a low chainsaw. He says the noise can blare for 20-40 minutes; a cycle that repeats from around 5 am to 1 am.
“I don’t get to bed until 1 am. because my ears are ringing so loud and I get so frustrated trying to relax,” Bellos said.
McQuaid and Bellos acknowledge they chose to live near the tracks but said the noise was never this loud for the first three years.
“Yes, we moved near a train station but we chose the house because even though the train station was right there it was still at a lower level,” McQuaid said. “They had just replaced most of the windows and stuff to block out the noise so it wasn’t supposed to be a problem.”
But now it is.
They believe part of the problem lies with the construction of a new apartment complex across the tracks that is bouncing the sound back toward their house.
Other neighbors agree.
“Even sitting in the living room you can feel the house shaking and I don’t recall noticing that before that building went up,” said John Hogan, another resident who lives by the tracks. “It sounds like a deep rumble, it actually vibrates the house.”
Keolis the company that operates the MBTA commuter trains insists that the noise isn’t coming from anything new.
“The MBTA Commuter Rail team prioritizes the continuity of safe operations and the protection of assets while minimizing the impact on neighboring communities whenever possible. While idling is a necessary part of the safe and reliable operation of Commuter Rail service, we are committed to keeping residents informed,” a Keolis spokesperson told 7 Investigates.
The Bradford station also serves as a layover site, which means trains park there, idle there and get serviced there during off hours. This also means more noise is created.
“When trains are in an MBTA layover facility, Commuter Rail crews must perform federally mandated tests and safety inspections that require trains to idle. This is a crucial step to ensuring safe and reliable service,” a spokesperson for Keolis explained.
Neighbors and city leaders believe that the only real way to eliminate the noise is to move the facility.
“We’ve talked about sound barriers in the past but ultimately just move them you know is the real answer,” said Haverhill mayor Melinda Barrett.
Barrett has been working with residents and Keolis to mitigate the noise at the station for years.
“Over the years a lot of people have tried to move the needle. I think we’ve moved it a little bit and we’ll stay vigilant in putting our efforts towards reminding them to be good neighbors if a solution is still a ways away,” Barrett said.
The long-term solution of moving the layover site is actually a plan MBTA started to put into motion years ago. The MBTA told 7 Investigates it spent $5 million to buy land and start planning for a new layover facility but doesn’t have any more money to actually build it.
“I’m hopeful that is the ultimate move,” Barrett said. “ It would be much better; much improved.”
In the meantime, Barrett said the city is doing what it can to address residents’ complaints. She has directed the police officers to monitor the noise around the station.
“I work with our police force to try to work with the guys in the yard, the maintainers, to let them know to be considerate, they have neighbors very close and work it that way,” she explained.
She recommends that residents reach out to her office and the police with noise complaints.
“We usually at least try,” she said. “We’ve had fan complaints a lot this year and I think we’ve been pretty responsive and Keolis has been responsive in those cases.”
Bellos said he’s reached out to local and state officials but still the noise continues.
“I have had a lot of joy sucked out of me from this,” Bellos said.
Bellos and McQuaid said they’d be fine with the level of noise going back to what it was a year ago. They hope their voices can be heard above the noise sooner rather than later.
“Just be quieter that’s ultimately what we want, just be quieter,” McQuaid said.
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