The residents of Street 105K can hear the train before they see it – a low rumble, a blaring horn, an incessant whistle.
Motorists swerve out of the way, parting like a school of fish. Children scamper to the side. A railway employee, sitting on a plastic stool at the front of the train, blows furiously on a whistle, waving people out of the way with a walkie-talkie.
Residents in Por Senchey district’s Kakab commune have fought against this railroad ever since it was announced last year, some burning tyres in protest.
After halting the project temporarily, officials reopened construction. Now, two weeks after its official launch, residents say the Royal Railways train – which runs twice an hour, day and night, shuttling people between the airport and the city – is no more welcome.
“I have no words,” said one woman, a proprietor at a small mechanical shop, who declined to give her name. “We can’t seem to win over them. It runs 24 hours a day. It shakes the ground.”
As the train pulled into view, blaring its horn loudly, she glared. “We have protested since before they started this project,” she said. “Now that it’s already built, you want to interview me. Will it make a difference?”
