Dartmouth condo owners finally win battle to silence train whistle

Some downtown Dartmouth residents are relishing the sweet sound of silence.

The train whistles in the middle of the night, that have been keeping some area residents awake, have been silenced.

A few people told CBC News they did not hear the whistle over the weekend.

The CN train whistles started because the construction of the King's Wharf condo project put pedestrians and cars close enough to the crossing that the whistle became necessary.

To have them stopped, extra safety measures were needed, including more signage and better lighting. The cost of those measures was shared between CN and the developer of King's Wharf, Francis Fares.

Long, frustrating journey

"We're excited. It's been a long, long journey," said Fares.

He went on to say he could have more easily "climbed Mount Everest ten times" in the amount of time it's taken to get the proper safety measures in place to get the middle-of-the-night cacophony to stop.

Those measures included more signage and a fence, the cost totaling about $50,000.

Fares said CN Rail finished inspections of the new safety additions on Friday, then issued a directive to engineers to stop blowing the whistle near King's Wharf.