In terms of voluntary compliance, I think all the rail companies have failed miserably. As recently as two months ago I sent a letter to the president of CN, Hunter Harrison, and they haven't even bothered to acknowledge receipt of the letter or to reply to it. Two or three years ago letters were sent to public relations officials in all the organizations. Some of them didn't reply; some of them said we'll work on it. Really, they've been operating on their own accord for many years; they haven't been doing anything, nor do they see this as an issue or a problem on their side.
In terms of how it impacts the residents here, the rail yard can remain empty all day long, and then they just operate at night. There's no need for that. With a little bit of planning and the use of logistics, they can organize and coordinate to do this work during the day. If it's so urgent that they need to do it outside the normal operating hours that I recommended, there are lots of other rail yards. For example, underneath the Port Mann Bridge is a humongous rail yard. They could operate day and night, seven days a week, 24 hours a day if they wanted, and it wouldn't impact anyone, because there's no one living in the area.
It impacts the residents negatively because the shunting is so forceful and violent. It even sets off car alarms in the building and rattles household items on the sixteenth floor of the building. It is not a pleasant situation, and many efforts have been made to seek a reasonable solution.
We've made recommendations and suggestions to the rail yards over many years, and they've never implemented any of them, with the exception of CN. CN does not idle its engines beside the apartment buildings anymore, and that was through our efforts. That's the only organization that ever responded in any way whatsoever at all.