Hello,
I enjoy watching the Youtube videos of the NYTA operations, especially the front end or operators view. I’ve noticed that when trains leave Penn Station, go through the East River tubes and then exit, they give a horn signal. This happens immediately after they exit the tunnel and are climbing towards the Sunnyside yards area. Any ideas on why they do this?
Possibly to warn people in the yard. What signal do they use?
Mark
To me it seems like it is several random taps on the trains horn. I notice that they give a horn signal when entering the tunnels headed towards Penn Station to probably warn anyone in the tube of the train. Just didn’t understand the one for leaving the tube. I don;t think they do this when leaving the Hunter’s Point station and going above ground.
Any time that a view of the oncoming train may be impaired, it’s not a bad idea. We do it for many rock cuts account hikers.
This guy continuously uses the horn while passing a standing train:
(failed in trying to embed a clip)If the above doesn’t work try this?
https://youtu.be/aashBtwbRWM?si=e6Vk6BIgX3DOTZnD&t=2784
Regards, Ed
By turns trains can be surprisingly quite and overly loud at the same time. Remember several years ago two CSX employees that were inspecting their train at control point F Tower were struck and killed by an Amtrak train on its adjacent right of way. The employees were in the vicinity of their train’s locomotives and could not hear the approaching Amtrak train.
When I was still working an employee dismounted one of the trailing locomotives of his train to walk to the lead locomotive and was struck by a train passing on the adjacent track and killed.
Railroad rights of way are DANGEROUS.
The problem was that there were two trains approaching at high speed in opposite directions, in an area with many echoes, and both engineers were continuously laying on the horn as soon as they saw the conductors. One of the NTSB’s deductions was that the conductors associated the horn with the train they could see, and never suspected a train behind them.
I don’t think the NTSB investigation considered that the locomotive noise masking the approaching train’s running noise was a factor.
I went back and watched some of the videos. It seems like they are giving two long, one short, and then another long on the horn. This is also what seems to happen when they approach any construction or maintenance areas. The area just outside of the tubes into Sunnyside Yards is almost always under some kind of construction. So, I think that it may be a standing order to give a signal and it is a restricted view, as mentioned in some of the other posts, so that explains it.
Many thanks to you guys for the responses and helpful information.
2 longs a short and a long used to be the standard for approaching a rail crossing.