UFO sighting for Evelyn Glennie

Broken engine sent residents into uproar

By Tony Dobrowolski, Berkshire Eagle Staff
Article Launched:11/15/2006 03:02:52 AM EST

PITTSFIELD — Christine McAllister is not alone.

The Williamsburg Terrace resident is just one of scores of residents who live between West Stockbridge and Hinsdale who have heard a mysterious, heavy, screeching sound several nights over the past week.

Residents of West Stockbridge, Richmond, Pittsfield, Dalton, Hinsdale and Lanesborough deluged The Eagle with phone calls and e-mails yesterday in response to yesterday's article in which McAllister said she had heard a mysterious noise.

McAllister said the noise sounded like a UFO had landed. Residents yesterday offered a variety of opinions, comparing the noise to a loud snowblower, a generator, a jet engine and a malfunctioning air-raid siren. An elderly woman said the noise sounded like the warning sirens that were broadcast during World War II.

But most people believed the sound came from a train.

And they were right.

Mike Norton, a dispatcher at the Dalton Communications Center, said Dalton Police were informed by the CSX Railroad that the mysterious noise came from an engine that had a broken bearing. According to Norton, CSX Police informed the Dalton Police that the rail line had pulled the engine from service on Monday morning so the bearing could be replaced.
"That was the last time it went through here," Norton said.

According to Norton, Dalton Police Sgt. Lawrence Higgins was on duty Sunday night when he heard the mysterious noise. He drove up Housatonic Street and walked to the CSX Railroad tracks behind L.P. Adams Co. As the train went by, Higgins took down the number of the engine, which was 4787, Norton said. He then gave the information to CSX Police in Selkirk, N.Y.

CSX Police later informed Dalton Police that they had checked engine 4787, found that it had a broken bearing on its turbo-drive system and had taken the engine out of service so that it could be fixed.

"I don't think the engineer could hear it because of the (other) engine noise," Norton said. "We talked to a guy at the CSX office in Boston, and he said they had previously received a complaint about 4787."

Higgins could not be reached for comment yesterday. Media representatives at CSX corporate communications in Jacksonville, Fla., did not return inquiries from The Eagle.

People who believed that the noise came from a train stated in e-mails and phone calls that the sound was much louder and stronger than anything they had ever heard. Mary Taylor of Dalton, who lives near the railroad tracks, said the noise is so loud that it shakes the building where she lives.

"It's a stone building," Taylor said.

James Stockley of Pleasure Avenue in Pittsfield said he assumed the noise came from a train but wondered if the demolition of buildings on the former General Electric property was "changing the echoes throughout the city."

A Hinsdale resident, who failed to leave his name on a phone-mail message, meticulously recorded when he heard the noise, providing specific dates and times. He compared the sound to a "747 taking off" and said he had already e-mailed the CSX Railroad claiming the sound violated Hinsdale's noise ordinance.

"It sounds like a UFO, even though I don't believe in that kind of stuff," Judy Hall of Oak Hill Road, Pittsfield, said in a phone-mail message.

"Since I have no idea what kind of sound a UFO makes, I can't come to the conclusion," wrote John Brate of Southbrook Lane, Pittsfield. "If, in fact, it was a train, I hope they fix the problem, because it is very distracting, especially in the middle of the night."

A man who failed to leave his name on a phone-mail message said he was convinced that a local construction company was making the noise.

"I'm 90 percent sure," he said.