Recently, Union Pacific Railroad launched a new operating plan that significantly changed their freight train schedules.  Since the beginning of 2019, freight trains make multiple round-trip journeys through residential - and historic - neighborhoods of San Jose between the hours of 10:00pm and 4:00am every night.  We need to send a message, both to our elected officials and the corporate leadership at UPRR, that this will not be tolerated.

This is a wonderful community, with residents who are very active in making our community, and San Jose as a whole, a clean, safe and exceptional place to live.
 
Our neighborhoods, however, have been disrupted recently by a disturbing expansion of the Union Pacific freight railroad schedule.  According to Francisco Castillo - Senior Director of Public Affairs for Union Pacific - the company launched a new operating plan on October 1st of 2018, which includes two freight trains performing deliveries in the overnight hours;  this means that two freight trains each complete a round trip journey through downtown San Jose, Hensley, Vendome, Japantown, and Luna Park to name a few. These trains pass through these historic districts starting between 10:00-11:00pm nightly, and return at 3:00-4:00am each morning.  As is required by law, the train operators continually sound their horn at each crossing along the route.  It should go without saying that this is extraordinarily disturbing for the residents of these neighborhoods, even those several blocks from the actual railroad crossings.  
 
It is incredibly disturbing that UPRR was able to arbitrarily make such a wholesale expansion in their operating schedule without any community outreach or involvement. There are tens of thousands of residents - the very active neighbors described earlier - that are affected by this nuisance.  The neighborhoods will not simply grow to accept this brazen corporate assault on the quality of life in this area, and we are becoming increasingly organized in our efforts to put an end to this unacceptable intrusion.

Please sign this petition to let our political and business leaders know that the neighborhoods of San Jose will not accept a degradation of our quality of life in order that this company may deliver more profitability.  We will continue to organize, we will share our story very publicly, and we will not stop until these unacceptable operating schedules are shown to be untenable for the entities involved - UPRR and those receiving these deliveries -  from both an economic and a public relations perspective.