I live in a town with 16 grade crossings. There are 6 that are really close together right in the downtown area. Normally there is only time to do 2 or 3 sets of the grade crossing pattern before they have passed them all. I assume that is ok. But last night a 2 am when almost nobody is on the roads that train was just blowing little peeps. Then I decerned it. It was blowing 2 half second longs, a quarter second short, and another half second long. Is it ok to fudge the rule if you can clearly see all is clear?
The short answer is yes. An engineer is given a certain amount of discretion as long as the safety of his train and the public is not impaired. And it is a way to win friends and influence people in town. And actually there is in the rules a statement which covers such a situation of close together grade crossings; if not in the rules, then in a bulletin or note in the employee timetable. All would have to hve the approval of the STB.
It seems to me, that if the engineer is doing the 2 or 3 sets of the grade crossing patterns, and then he’s past all the crossings, he’s done his job. Whether it’s long or short, the horn is blowing to warn people at the crossings.
Ive seen the thing in Hinkley, Minnesota. The coal trains wiz through a small town with losts of grade crossing at track speed. It’s almost a constant horn from one end to the other.
Related question: It’s the middle of the night, in some sparsley populated corner of South Dakota, or some other western state. On a flat, treeless plain, a train crosses a rarely used crossing. There’s not a car around for miles. In some parts of the west, there might not be a house around for miles. Does the engineer still blow the horn?
Maybe. Maybe not. It might be an exempt crossing. A farm crossing is often a private crossing which the landowner is responsible for stop, look, and listen, as with other so called private crossings. Then there might be an exempt crossing similar to the one you described; with or without crossbucks.
There is a case yet to this day of a crossing on NS Souther Tier Line in Campville, NY that does not require the horn sequence…it has cross bucks and, while aparrently a public road, it dead ends about two hundred feet beyond the track on the south side. But…once, back in EL days, a car was struck there, I don’t remember the details, so at least tw engineers blow for that crossing anyway even though it is almost 30 years since the incident.
Yes, he blows for the crossing…the rule doesn’t allow for much interpretation, it says…
From the GCOR,
5.8.2 Sounding Whistle
The whistle may be used at anytime as a warning regardless of any whistle prohibitions.
When other employees are working in the immediate area, sound the required whistle signal
before moving.
Other forms of communications may be used in place of whistle signals, except signals (1), (7),
and (8). See following chart.
The required whistle signals are illustrated by “o” for short sounds and “-” for longer sounds:
Sound Indication
(1) Succession of
short sounds
Use when persons or livestock are on the track at other than road
crossings at grade. In addition, use to warn railroad employees when
an emergency exists, such as a derailment. When crews on other
trains hear this signal, they must stop until it is safe to proceed.
(2) - When stopped: air brakes are applied, pressure equalized.
(3) - - Release brakes. Proceed.
(4) o o Acknowledgment of any signal not otherwise provided for.
(5) o o o When stopped: back up. Acknowledgment of hand signal to back up.
(6) o o o o Request for signal to be given or repeated if not understood.
(7) - - o - When approaching public crossings at grade with the engine in front,
sound signal as follows:
A. At speeds in excess of 45 MPH, start signal at or about the
crossing sign but not more than 1/4 mile before the crossing.
B. At speeds of 45 MPH or less, start signal at least 15 seconds, but
not more than 20 seconds, before entering the crossing.
C. If no crossing sign start signal at least 15 seconds, but not more
than 20 seconds before entering crossing but not more than 1/4
mile before the crossing.
D. If movement starts less than 1/4 mile from a crossing, signal may
Yes, that is true. But also, for instance, NJT’s System Timetable Special Instructions states that an engineer must blow for a crossing as prescribed whether private or publice “unless otherwise instructed.” In that case the railroad will include in special notes and instructions or by bulletin orders.
I bet he does. I do. We have a few crossings that have whistle posts. One crossing is a farmer’s crossing to access a field out in the middle of know-where, relatively speaking. I almost think the whistle posts were put up by mistake, at the wrong location. Still, even if no one is there to hear it, the horn sequence appears on the recording device, the black (orange or red) box. A MOP/Road Foreman/Traveling Engineer (take your pick of supervisory titles) downloads the tape, doesn’t see a horn sequence where he knows there is a crossing requiring the whistle to be sounded, you’re going to have to do some explaining.
Am old head engineer once told me they might not blow the horn for crossings when meeting or passing a train on an adjacent track that had the crossing(s) blocked. Now they blow for all of them when and where required.
Jeff
If you hit something, you’d better have been on the horn.
There are requirements for the loudness of the horn (somebody else can look them up). We used to use a Hancock Air Chime on our Lake Placid-Saranac Lake run, for trails and in the villages. No more. Not loud enough.
Hancock, NY (on the old Erie) has six or seven crossings in short order through the village. The Sunday morning, 6 AM train is usually as gentle with the horn as they can be as they roll through.
I would suspect that as long as the horn was loud enough, and sounded within the time/distance parameters, shorter than normal toots wouldn’t be an issue.
Just don’t hit anything…
I saw a train tonight that was going through downtown. It’s finally cool, so there were lots of people out and about, including me. The engineer seemed to be going easy on the horn, out of consideration to everybody around. He would do short bursts, lots of them, I believe, just so the sound wouldn’t be overpowering to the pedestrian crowd. However, at one crossing, a motorcycle looked like he was going to take a risky chance. Mr. Engineer then just leaned into the horn, as a reminder. SD70M- loud horn / ugly nose.
The inherent humor in Murphy Siding’s question is exquisite. “does a bear ----- in the woods? the sound of one hand applauding? who’s buried in Grant’s tomb?”
The WP’s engines M5"s by rule were required to do the long long short long horn sounding sequence starting twenty seconds away from a crossing.
SP rules, required starting the horn sequence 1/4 mile short of the crossing and, this quote justifies the question posed: “prolonged OR repeated” 'til the crossing, public or private crossing, didn’t matter.
That rule quoted from the ex-CR territory scares me; do legal outfits need that many bits to show that an engineer did not comply with a part of a rule? A small part of a rule?
SP had, under Ken Miller (Rules and Training Highly respected boss) driven rule wording that did not allow for interpretation. What the basic assemblage of the words meant was the briefest plainest and clearest ruled.
…rules, after all, require killing people, destroying, devastating…if properly operating your train is what you do, engineer. &
You missed the most obvious similar philosophic question: “If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?” (And my (ex)-wife’s favourite corollary, “If a man speaks and there is no one there to hear him, is he still wrong?”)
Many years ago, I remember reading the rule as, “The engineer is to sound two longs, a short, and a long on the whistle, holding the last long until the lead engine is occupying the grade crossing. If the sequence was started too soon such as to make the last long to be too long, then, instead, the sequence can be repeated as necessary. If grade crossings are too close together to complete the signal between them then the signal should just be repeated through all the crossings without regard to when the lead engine is occupying the grade crossing.”
I can see how this presents some ambiguousness to the rule (how long is too long, how do you know when to start, etc.) and later rules attempted to remove the ambiguousness, but then became way too complicated and so it was simplified and thus introduced different ambiguous meaning.
For that matter, how long is a long and how short is a short? I hear large differences from one train to another and I suppose it has to do with the particular engineer, and his mood at the time, and possibly how sticky the switch/valve is.
It’s not clear to me what the basis is for the posts like this one suggesting that an engineer has discretion as to whether to sound the horn for a public grade crossing and how long in advance the horn must be sounded. . Perhaps, this was so when whistling was governed only by railroad operating rules. But that hasn’t been true for a long time. Many states have long had laws or regulations requiring whistling for public grade crossings, subject to specified exceptions. But even that’s old news because this subject was “federalized” (except for certain crossings in the Chicago area) when the FRA "horn rule (49 CFR Part 222) became effective a few years ago, which displace any state requirements.
Here’s a quick summary of the Federal requirements:
-
A train must sound the horn in advance of all public grade crossings, unless the crossing is part of a “quiet zone” authorized by the rule, or unless one of the other limited exceptions in the rule applies.
-
The horn sequence generally must be commenced 15-20 seconds before the loco enters the crossing (it can be as long as 25 seconds if the engineer miscalculates). However, for a train moving faster than 60 mph, the train can’t start sounding the horn closer than a quarter mile from the crossing (even if this results in less than 15 seconds warning ). FRA’s rationale for this limitation is that whi
Brain fart…yes I know it is FRA and not STB. Engineer must blow at all designated crossings…those marked with a whistling post. Crossings with no whistling post do not requre horn warning but is at the descretion of the engineer and as circumstances dictate. The Employee rules also allow for “unless otherwise” provision giving the railroad descretion by timetable or bulletin order.
From a different angle: Is there a rule about “overuse” of a horn?
The horn is a tool to be used as prescribed by the timetable an the book of rules. Any other use or execssive use is at least frowned upon unless it is a matter of safety of the train or the public.
Not quite. Part of being qualified on one’s territory means knowing where public crossings are - whistle post or no whistle post (and there’s plenty without).
Simple answer: yes.
But, Zug, aren’t all crossings requiring a horn signal from a train marked with “whistling posts” and merely by memory?
You’re right. I am thinking that private crossings don’t have whistle posts. But I believe all public crossings are so marked or are supposed to be.