This is from the Wellsville Daily Reporter. I thought it interesting considering the amount of anti train noise reports we see.
By KATHRYN ROSS/Daily Reporter
WELLSVILLE – The lonesome sound of the train whistle echoing through the night is a melody welcomed by most.
At the end of 2003, residents of Wellsville began hearing a sound they hadn’t heard in the area for years. Some wondered what was it when a chugging echo from a distance vibrated airwaves, floors and walls, or when the blast of a whistle cracked through the sound of cars going by, dogs barking and interupted the 11 o’clock news. Others, with older ears and longer memories knew instinctively that the train was coming.
“I still get about 80 percent of the people telling me that they love hearing the sound of the train whistles at night,” said William D. Burt, president of the Western New York and Pennsylvania Railroad (WNY&PR) that runs along the old Erie-Lackawanna tracks through the heart of Wellsville and Allegany County.
After several years of working on the legal logistics, financing and support the railroad was reintroduced into the county in 2002. Trains began running regularly in the fall of 2003 after an inaugural trip from Hornell to Salamanca.
Today Homeland Security prevents Burt from revealing what is being transported on the trains as they chug through Wellsville, sometimes at a rate of a couple a day.
But he could say, “It’s mostly coal from the Monongahela coal fields, south of Pittsburgh and its going to Central New York state where its used to supply most of the electric power for central and upstate New York.”
One positive, Burt said, is the coal is rolling through Wellsville is not nostalgic. With the old route from Meadeville, Pa., to Hornell (the Erie tracks) open, the coal is getting to its destination a whole day sooner.
“That’s cutting the cost of the production of electricity in New York state,”