I seem to detect a hint of annoyance in Ms Taylor-Corbett’s letter (March 19) presumably because her brilliant idea to get other readers to write letters in support of hers backfired when The Voice printed my letter.
Looks like she scored an own goal or shot herself in the foot doesn’t it?
Firstly working in areas where noise levels exceeded 96 decibels regular hearing tests were obligatory and these prove my hearing is normal and A OK.
Her original letter implied train horns were being sounded all night.
The footcrossing she refers to is a considerable distance away and I note no complaints from others in the estate, particularly those who live next to it.
It is better to use locomotive horns than kill some stupid idiot who has not looked and believe me there are lots of idiots when it come to footcrossings.
What you call a stop board is actually called a signal and it is there to protect Woolram Wygate and Park Road crossings and the section of track ahead where another train may be occupying it.
What do you want, trains to go straight past and kill a few road users or plough into another train?
In the old days there were two signals there, one being in a goods loop where slower trains used to stand for ages at a time.
I became aware that a diverted Virgin Trains high speed train had been standing there for ten minutes, a 7.10pm (14th), which was due to an operational problem and that it was there until 7.30pm.
By the way you forgot to complain that passengers on it were looking at your house.
I have no fence, verge or anything between me and the track, but do have a welded rail joint not flush with the top rail surface so do benefit from the sound of the old bolted rail joint.
It seems to me that you throw your windows open so you can really hear the sound of trains so you can complain.
From what you say you would have readers believe your house vibrated like it would if six men were using pneumatic drills next to it.
I did note a couple of wine glasses vibrating against each other today when road traffic was passing but when an 800D 1,500 tonne freightliner train passed by 6ft from my window they did not.
The predecessors of the high speed trains were diesel locomotives with twin 18 cylinder, two stroke units with twin opposed pistons in each cylinder (72 per locomotive), rated at 3,300 horse power, being at the time the most powerful locomotive of their weight in the world.
Now lady if you wanted noise you could hear them even from miles away in the dead of night, even the air used to reverberate as they went past.
What you want to do is live in the real world and not some insular sanitized plastic computerised make- believe ideal virtual world and conform with what the vast majority of us do.
You won’t do any good stamping your little foot and jumping up and down.
David Mead
Hawthorn Bank
Spalding
