The Vehicle And Cargo Inspection System (VACIS) - Date/Artist unknown.
4 December 2013
X-Rayed Trains Rattling Windsor Residents
Windsor Ontario - Windsor residents living near an X-ray machine designed to inspect rail cars say the process is too
noisy.
The vehicle and cargo inspection system, or VACIS for short, inspects U.S.-bound trains travelling the CP Rail line just east of Walker Road.
Cars are X-rayed continuously each day.
Resident Chris Woodall says he and his neighbours have to put up with a lot of noise.
"It's a startling noise. The trains stops, sits, and idles for a few minutes, and then starts again, with a large bang and a series of sequential bangs
with each of the cars," Woodall said.
"As they stop the train, the braking system locks up and has a nice squealing noise to accompany it."
Woodall said there should be a noise attenuation wall built to help homeowners cope with what's going on.
Woodall claims a federal environmental assessment was conducted in 2005 and found there would be no impact of the surrounding area.
"As they increase train traffic, what has become a single rail yard in the neighbourhood, has essentially become a rail yard," he said.
Windsor's rail issues committee has agreed to send a letter to CP Rail to discuss possible noise mitigation options.
"Our railway will be reviewing the concerns expressed in Windsor and will be discussing the situation with them," CP Rail spokesperson Ed Greenberg
said in an email.
"CP works directly with communities about our operations as we value our relationship with local officials."
The vehicle and cargo inspection system is a gamma-ray scanning system that captures an image of the contents of a marine container, rail car, or
truck.
Border services officers use this unit to quickly scan a shipment in order to detect contraband, weapons, and other potentially dangerous goods.
Author unknown.
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