In his recent column, Doug Rooks asks, “What do Republicans have against trains?” After reading it, we’re left to ask, “What do liberals have against facts?” because his column has very few.

First, the neighborhood group he maligns as NIMBY opponents are not against trains. Never have been. What we’re against is the location of a gigantic railroad maintenance facility in a quiet residential neighborhood that is zoned to prevent such large industrial facilities from being located there. It was exactly this zoning that convinced many homeowners that their investment would be secure. But they were misled. The Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority (NNEPRA) — with the consent of Brunswick town officials — is claiming “preemption” status and ignoring local zoning laws in order to build this huge garage. Simply put, this facility doesn’t belong in anyone’s backyard.

Furthermore, Rooks makes the claim that an alternative site for the proposed $16 million railroad maintenance and layover facility — the old Naval Air Station — was considered and rejected by the Federal Railroad Administration. He also says the FRA determined that the proposed facility, the length of two football fields, would cause “no significant environmental impact.”

He’s wrong on both counts. The FRA made no such determination. (Is it too much to ask newspaper columnists to check their facts before they pontificate and malign ordinary citizens?)

It is true that NNEPRA — not the FRA — a quasi-state agency that contracts with AMTRAK for passenger rail service in Maine — hired a consultant to conduct a review of alternative sites for the facility. The consultant did indeed recommend Brunswick West as the preferred location. But it should be noted that NNEPRA had signed a purchase and sales agreement for the Brunswick West site before the consultant had completed and submitted its report. How convenient.

And it is NNEPRA, not the FRA, that has claimed that the mammoth facility will cause no environmental impact. We think their reasoning is faulty, which is why we — and Gov. LePage — have asked the FRA to conduct a more thorough, independent assessment of the situation, including a review of alternative sites. If Rooks and the MLF supporters are correct, why are they so vehemently opposed to this federal agency providing some oversight? Is it because they know their “facts” are on shaky ground?

Rooks makes other dubious claims. He says the MLF opponents are wrong to suggest the facility will lower property values because in most cases, “being walking distance of a train station increases them.”

Is he kidding? Comparing the MLF to a train station is like comparing a gas station to an oil refinery. Rooks should talk to local real estate professionals — or local homeowners themselves — who have already seen a decline in the value of homes in the neighborhood just at the potential that this facility will be constructed and operated within a few hundred feet of their bedroom windows.

Rooks also writes that the location of the MLF in Brunswick West is “critical for extending service to Lewiston-Auburn, Augusta and Rockland.” In fact, according to several rail experts, the opposite is true. If extending the service to Lewiston-Auburn (or Montreal) is the primary goal, then locating the MLF at or near the current and future hub for passengers — in Portland — would make much more sense than locating it in Brunswick, at the end of the line.

And Rooks repeats the claim that rail service will reduce energy use. How? At one time, proponents of the Downeaster may have claimed that it would take cars off the road, therby reducing gas consumption and pollution, but it hasn’t happened. The number of vehicles traveling 295 to and from Brunswick has only increased since the Downeaster began service, according to figures from the Maine Department of Transportation. And seeing AMTRAK’s trains burn up diesel fuel as they idle on the tracks in Brunswick for six hours a day, even in summer, makes claims of energy savings from passenger rail service especially dubious. And the engines used on the Downeaster are particularly polluting. They’ve been granted a federal exemption from EPA emission rules. If they were built today, they’d be illegal.

Rooks should know that despite NNEPRA’s claims that ridership on the Downeaster is increasing, it doesn’t change the fact that 90 percent of the time, the train arrives and leaves Brunswick at less than 10 percent capacity, and that’s according to NNEPRA’s own figures. If ridership is on the way up, how come the Downeaster Cafe — the train’s food service car — operated at a loss last year of more than $160,000? Rooks wants us to believe that the government can operate this most “efficient of transportation alternatives” when it can’t seem to make a profit running a hot dog stand.

So what do Republicans (and many Democrats) have against trains? Nothing. We are just trying to do what good journalists and columnists used to do: Apply a healthy dose of skepticism to government statements and PR claims. And get the real facts.

ROBERT MORRISON lives in Brunswick.