New Woy Woy housing may need sound-proofing
It's all very well for Planning Minister Paul Scully to advocate higher housing density adjacent to Woy Woy, Gosford and other railway stations but caution is needed ("State moves to increase Woy Woy housing density", March 10).
It is one thing to promote higher density on the electric-trains-only North Shore line but quite another on the main northern line.
For many years, we lived fairly close to the northern line in Pennant Hills and, at first, all freight trains were government-owned and hauled by quiet, electric locomotives with well maintained freight cars.
However, we were eventually driven out by the overwhelming cacophony of the screeching wheels and gross industrial noise from the change to privately-run diesel locomotives and their inadequately-maintained freight cars.
After much prodding and protests, the government paid for soundproofing of all nearby existing houses where we once lived.
When partaking of a quiet coffee in our chosen Woy Woy cafe, conversation is regularly shattered by the ear-splitting noise generated by the many passing freight trains which can be headed by as many as four gigantic locomotives hauling massive numbers of freight cars all playing a different unpleasant screeching tune.
Unless we return to the era of quiet electric locomotives for freight trains, as most modern systems employ, such housing as Mr Scully is planning will need to be soundproofed to the same standard as those built under the flight path to Sydney airport to give nearby residents a modicum of peace from this heavy industrial noise pollution.
SOURCE:
Email, 11 Mar 2025
Lance Dover, Pretty Beach