(The following story by Kara L. Richardson appeared on the Courier-News website on June 27.)
RARITAN BOROUGH — Noise and fume complaints from neighbors of the Raritan rail yard have spurred NJ Transit to make systemwide changes to its diesel train engines, which have been running non-stop for fear they wouldn’t start up again.
During a Raritan Borough community meeting Saturday, John Leon, NJ Transit’s senior director for government and community relations, announced that within six months, the agency’s 104 locomotives will be shut down when they are finished running at night.
Nine locomotives are docked each night at the Raritan yard off Johnson Drive. There are seven NJ Transit rail yards that house diesel equipment.
Leon said the diesel engines had been kept running all night because NJ Transit officials worried the locomotives wouldn’t start up again in the morning. The engines are kept on for months at a time.
“We did not want to leave our commuters stranded. We needed to balance reliability with being a good neighbor,” Leon said of complaints about engines idling at the Raritan yard.
Adrienne Schwall, an Obert Drive resident, lobbied government officials and agencies including the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection; the federal Environmental Protection Agency; Somerset County Health Department; Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-Harding; state Assemblyman Christopher Bateman, R-Branchburg; Raritan Borough Mayor Jo-Ann Liptak and Borough Council members to join her cause.
She rallied her neighbors about the issue, and more than 100 people showed up at Saturday’s meeting.
“For a small town, it was a big turnout. We are interested in public health, in the health and well-being for us and our children,” said Schwall, who has two children.
Rail yard noise
Schwall, whose back yard is about 1,200 feet from the rail yard, started to complain to government agencies last fall about the noise.
“It’s like a trumpet,” she said.
Last fall, she asked the Somerset County Health Department to investigate. Her complaint led her into a government quandary.
A Somerset County Health Department inspector measured the late-night noise Sept. 19, 2006, and found the level was louder than 50 decibels, which is the statewide limit from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. The health department issued a notice of violation to NJ Transit on Oct. 4, 2006.
However, the NJ Transit rail yard fell within federal regulations, and the health department couldn’t take action, Somerset County Health Director John Horensky said. He said the notice was forwarded to the state Department of Environmental Protection.
On May 29, a Somerset County Health Department inspector made another visit to the neighborhood near the rail yard.
The noise measured 73 decibels at Obert Drive. It was 90 decibels, about the sound of a police whistle, at Weiss Terrace. Again, Horensky said, the notice of violation was forwarded to the state.
During her investigation about the noise, Schwall learned the diesel train engines were kept on all the time. She worried about the fuel emissions, especially because her teen daughter has asthma and her number of asthma attacks had increased since the family moved to Obert Drive about six years ago.
Schwall is dissatisfied about the NJ Transit proposal to turn off the locomotives at night.
“I think it’s too little, and it will be too late because they’re not doing anything for six months,” she said.
Leon said it will take NJ Transit six months to equip all 104 NJ Transit locomotives with new batteries and starters. Plus, he said, NJ Transit employees must be taught how to operate the new equipment. While only nine of those engines are parked at the Raritan yard, he said, they rotate around the state.
Making changes
There are more than 22,000 passenger trips each day on the Raritan Valley Line — which runs from Newark Penn Station to High Bridge. The Raritan Valley Line trains are fueled, cleaned and prepared for service at the Raritan yard.
“That yard is a crucial facility to make sure those trains are maintained for their daily passengers,” Leon said.
The rail yard, built by the Central Railroad of New Jersey, has been there 150 years.
The last train arrives in the Raritan yard at 2:07 a.m. The trains start running at 4:30 a.m.
Leon said NJ Transit expects to have a savings of diesel fuel, though those figures, nor the cost of implementing the new starters and batteries, were not available Tuesday. Most importantly, he said, “We believe this will have a significant reduction in noise and emissions.”
In the meantime, the state Department of Environmental Protection is conducting a health-risk study near the Raritan rail yard, Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman Karen Hershey said.
Liptak was impressed by the NJ Transit plan.
“I think it was a sincere effort,” she said. “We need to trust them to do this. If they don’t, we hold their feet to the fire.” Leon cautioned that while there may be an improvement by the change, “This is a very active rail yard, and there will always some activity there.”