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Every couple of nights Su-Laine Brodsky is woken up by a giant crash outside her bedroom window.

Brodsky lives beside a railway line in Vancouver’s Strathcona neighbourhood. For years it was barely used, but CN recently started using it for freight traffic.

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“We’ve got freight trains running through this predominately residential area 24-7,” said Brodsky.

“Trains are running day and night, and they’re often doing really loud operations. It’s not just going through the area, it’s starting and stopping and shunting, which is assembling and disassembling cars.

“For some people the shunting is the biggest concern, because it sounds like an explosion, and it’s basically outside people’s bedrooms.”

Guy Wakeman lives nearby in the Stamps Place complex, which houses 1,500 people.

“For awhile (the shunting) was happening at three, four, five in the morning, and it’s constant,” he said. “You could always hear in the background the noises of the waterfront. But not like it’s right outside your door, which is what it feels like now.”