BRUNSWICK

Trains have long been a fact of life for residents of Bouchard Drive.

The sound of horns, the scent of diesel fumes and the vibration of freight had little impact on the peaceful neighborhood when they rumbled by once or twice a week.

Plans are now under way for the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority to build a 60,000-squarefoot layover and maintenance facility on a site between Church Road and Stanwood Street.

The site, located six-tenths of a mile from Brunswick Station, is also as close as 150 feet to some homes.

An environmental assessment issued by NNEPRA says the impact of the facility will be negligible on nearby residential areas. The assessment states emissions from the facility will remain “well below acceptable levels” and that vibrations and operational noise will not exceed federal regulations.

Robert Morrison, who lives on Bouchard Drive, has a different opinion.

“It’s going to change the whole nature of this neighborhood,” Morrison said. “Kids play in the street here and nobody worries. It’s a tranquil neighborhood.

“When you build a monster facility like this, people won’t buy property,” he said. “People have moved away.”

Changes have already occurred since Amtrak extended Downeaster service to Freeport and Brunswick in November 2012. In addition to the daily passenger trips between Brunswick and Boston, trains idle on the tracks adjacent to Bouchard Drive “Monday to Friday, for as many as five or six hours a day,” according to Morrison.

Growing concern about vibration, noise and diesel fumes led some neighbors to organize formation of the Brunswick West Neighborhood Coalition, of which Morrison is a member. The coalition hired a public relations agency led by Dennis Bailey, a former news aide to then-Gov. Angus King; and retained an attorney.

“We’re talking alternate sites,” said Morrison — flanked on a recent damp autumn morning by coalition members Moe Bisson and Bob McEvoy on Church Road near the proposed site. “Ones that haven’t been seriously considered or properly vetted.”

Bisson pointed down the north side of the tracks as the fog burned off, revealing autumn color. “The new growth down there is where trees have already been cleared for the building site,” he said.

“When the train idles here,” he said, “in my house, I have to go in the basement. Because the low frequency rumble drives me crazy.

“The fact that the commuter train started in November of 2012 is just a fact. We’re not opposed to that, but we are to having a major repair facility here,” Bisson said, adding: “My wife and I have lived here since 1979.”

“When you look just across Church Road, there is the Brunswick Industrial Park,” he said. “You should locate an industrial facility in an industrial park, not in a residential neighborhood.”

McEvoy, whose home is buffered from the tracks by a wooded plot, shows stacked buckets of sand and gravel that have fallen sideways in his yard from the vibration of idling trains.

“All that was here when I bought my house in 1998 was the mainline track and a small siding,” he said. “The land that NNEPRA bought next to the tracks has been a vacant lot since 1988.”

“Prior to this ruckus, you could have slept out on the tracks six nights a week and you wouldn’t get run over,” he said.

The lot, which is contaminated with coal ash, was purchased by NNEPRA with the understanding that it would be used as layover facility or for other rail purposes, according to Patricia Quinn, executive director of NNEPRA.

Quinn says the proposed facility will solve the issues the Brunswick West Neighborhood Coalition has raised.

“The reason we’re building the facility is so that the trains can go inside and be turned off,” she said. “The vibrations, the noise and the emissions … all that will be mitigated by the facility itself.

“That’s the whole point of why we’re doing this,” Quinn said. “If we are not able to relocate the facility to Brunswick, then trains will have to continue to idle near the neighborhood during the day, and empty trains will continue to run between Brunswick and Portland to be positioned for Boston runs, burning fuel without transporting passengers.”

The assessment was done by NNEPRA, Morrison said.

An EIS, though, “is guided by the Federal Rail Association, so the control is somewhere else,” he said, adding that an EIS would delay construction for a year.

Morrison said McEvoy and another member of the coalition, Charles Wallace, were the “lifelines” of the community effort to relocate the layover facility.

McEvoy, an engineer, once worked for the Federal Highway Administration as program administrator for railhighway crossing projects. He was also a special agent for the Department of Transportation. “I’ve spent a bit of time around trains,” he said.

“It would be logical to put a layover facility at a hub,” he said, “and this is not a hub. There’s a real question as to whether this facility should be in Brunswick at all.”

Charles Wallace, a licensed civil engineer, has done environmental studies and now has a practice focused on noise analysis and control.

“They’ve educated us,” Morrison said of Wallace and McEvoy. “We’re neophytes, and that’s what NNEPRA was counting on. Now, neighbors have been brought up to speed and educated about the harms facing our neighborhood.”

“NNEPRA said this would add service, but to whom? They seem to think that if they build it, the riders will come, but this isn’t a movie,” Bisson said. “There just isn’t the ridership here.”

But Quinn called 2013 “the best ridership year ever” for the Downeaster — with a 9 percent increase in ticket revenue.

There are no plans yet for additional trains to be routed to Brunswick. That would only occur with construction of the facility, Quinn said.

Bisson said, “People should come here and see the exact proximity of this proposed facility to homes with little children.”

“Go to the rail station,” he said, “spend a week there and count how many passengers get on and off.”

ROSANNA GARGIULO is a Times Record correspondent who lives in Brunswick.

This story was edited after publication to more accurately reflect a quote attributed to Patricia Quinn.