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Town of Mount Royal residents used to seeing 62 suburban trains a day pass through their self-described “garden city” are up in arms over the realization that the number will rise to 550 a day with the coming of the REM rapid-transit light-rail line four years from now.

Since the rail line running through their community of 19,500 people will serve as a feeder line to four separate branches of the rail network once the project is completed, trains will be passing through TMR at the rate of one every 2.5 minutes during rush hours, which stretch over six hours each day. Outside of those periods, the trains will run roughly every five minutes. Trains will be in service 20 hours a day, from 5 a.m. to 1 a.m.

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“You have hundreds of families living around the track, some of them have balconies almost on top of the railway track,” said Georges Sayegh, who has lived in the community for 29 years. He helped collect 500 signatures on a petition protesting the plans. “There is a noise impact as well as a visual impact. You will see trains all the time. …