To the editor:

I write about all the fuss about the train facility between Church Road and Stanwood Street in Brunswick. The people in the neighborhood seem to think it is the end of the world.

I was a kid in that area from the time I was 5 years old until I was a teenager. The trains never bothered us much. You must remember that they used steam engines, which were much noisier than the engines now.

There was a lot more going on then too, as they were shifting cars all around and making up freight trains to ship out. These engines were very noisy when they would leave from Church Road and try to get going, as it was uphill all the way to deep cut with a full train.

The only time the trains bothered us was during the first two or three weeks. The we never even heard the whistles blow when through trains would blow them when approaching the Church Road crossing.

I lived on Church Road in the same house after my parents moved to Harpswell Road to take care of the ice business.

My wife and I moved into the house on Church Road when we were married. We lived there for 10 years, and the trains never bothered us.

Three of our children were raised there. They used to walk to the Dairy Joy on the corner of Pleasant Street when 4 or 5 years old, holding hands. The trains never bothered them.

When we moved to Bailey Island in 1958, my wife said the whistles were what she missed very much.

Donald W. Coffin
Harpswell