“It’s inhumane”: Lower Valley residents complain of constant idle, fumes from locomotives

EL PASO, Texas -- Retired locomotive engineer Felipe Acuña has been living in his lower valley home that's located right behind a Union Pacific rail yard since the 1970s. He says for the last seven years, trains have been constantly idling and spewing diesel fumes.

He has had enough with the pollution, which he says would enter his home before he switched from a swamp cooler to refrigerated air.

A former Union Pacific engineer himself, he claims that locomotives are not allowed to idle for more than 15 minutes at a time, unless the temperature is 35 degrees Fahrenheit or below.

"I've talked to other neighbors in the area, and their mentality is that 'it's the railroad, nobody's gonna do anything about it, we've gotten so used to it, and that nobody cares about our area'" Acuña says.

He says he has contacted everyone at the local level, all the way to the federal agencies like the EPA about the problem, but he claims no one will listen.

"I've just gotten the runaround from Union Pacific," says Acuña.

"Even their superintendent would lie about the problem, saying it had been solved. It never was, and it still isn't," he added.

He claims the fumes have gotten worse since Union Pacific built a yard office right next to the tracks back in 2015.

"It's been getting heavier and heavier on the west end of the yard," he said.

ABC-7 has reached out to Union Pacific's community relations for a comment but have not heard back at the time of this posting.