To the Editor:

Why do proponents of the huge railroad maintenance facility feel it necessary to resort to insults and personal attacks on those of us raising legitimate concerns? Why not help us get answers to our questions instead?

Case in point is Jeff Reynolds’ recent attack in The Times Record with the insulting headline, “What planet do facility opponents live on?” (Aug. 9, Page A9). Reynolds accuses Mary Heath — a member of the Merrymeeting Greens, which opposes the rail facility — of “ignorance,” “pre-emptive hysteria” (whatever that is) and “crafty” public relations.

In the process, Reynolds continues to spew falsehoods and misleading information.

For example, he takes issue with Heath for pointing out that Amtrak uses older, polluting engines for the Downeaster by claiming that Amtrak “uses the newest diesel-electric locomotives.”

He’s being disingenuous. They may be Amtrak’s “newest” engines, but they were built more than 10 years ago, before the EPA enacted more stringent regulations limiting diesel pollution. The only reason these engines are operating today is because the Environmental Protection Agency granted Amtrak a waiver.

Reynolds also continues to insist homeowners are at fault for buying homes near the railroad tracks, as if we all should have known more than 20 years ago passenger rail service would be restored.

His logic ignores two key points: First, we have nothing against the trains that run daily past our homes. It’s the maintenance and layover facility that will bring added noise, vibration, air and light pollution to our neighborhood we have a problem with. Two different issues.

Second, Reynolds claims that the tracks in Brunswick West have been in continuous operation for 100 years. He’s wrong. Our neighborhood was developed after the 1971 planning report recommended residential development in what is now the Brunswick West neighborhood. The recommendation obviously considered the demise of railroad activities that started prior to 1971.

In fact, all railroad activities ceased on the proposed facility site by 1988. Yet Reynolds and other proponents seem to believe that we are all clairvoyant, able to peer well into the future and anticipate this huge disruption to our way of life.

The reason Reynolds, Wayne Davis and others continue to insult and attack us is obvious: They clearly don’t have the facts or the truth on their side.

John MacKillop

Brunswick