HUDSON – Greg McNeil competed with city, county and state officials for Ohio’s federal stimulus money and wound up winning $168,323 to silence train horns at a crossing near his home.
McNeil’s project, on behalf of his homeowners association, was one of only 149 chosen last week by the Ohio Department of Transportation from 2,222 eligible to receive $774 million in infrastructure money. His is the only submission from a private citizen to receive ODOT’s nod.
“I tell you, we were ecstatic,” he said. “This was just tremendous.”
Norfolk Southern owns the tracks that cross Twinsburg Road in Macedonia, where the number of trains has increased to 76 a day. Nearby residents in Hudson, Macedonia and Northfield Center Township don’t mind the trains, just the horns.
McNeil, who owns a Web site design company, has lived in Hudson’s Ashbrooke East subdivision just west of the tracks for four years. As vice president of his homeowners association, he volunteered in January of last year to find out how the crossing could become a quiet zone.
A 2005 federal rule sets standards for quiet zones, which can be designated by the Federal Railroad Administration if safety measures at railroad crossings are sufficiently upgraded.
Ohio’s first quiet zone is in Moraine, near Dayton, where barriers placed in the center of the road keep cars from going around the traditional crossing gates. Other zones will be established this spring at several rail crossings in Brook Park, which is using a combination of double gates and center road barriers.
At one train every 20 minutes on average, I can see where it would be a quality of life issue. The value of residential properties may rise, and it could be a deciding factor for business location.
I can think of worse uses for the money.
I would note that it appears that both Mr McNeil and the photographer were tresspassing when the picture was taken, however.
I highly doubt that the railroad crossing was put in after they decided to live there. They bought their property knowing that a railroad was close by.
No blow crossings present a danger to the crew, and to the public, no matter what safeguards are in place. Also, I’m sure he’s unaware that just because it’s a no-blow, doesn’t mean that crews are prohibitted from blowing the horn through it.
I blow through all crossings, no matter what. Safety first.
My family would also love to live next to the tracks, as long as it is not belonging to CSX. (The ONLY railroad that my family does not like, my wife HATES CSX, but that is another story.)
There is a certain point reached where NIMBYs go from looking out for the common good (i.e. making sure that a city’s waste treatment plant is downstream from the water plant.) to being a complete, outright s***head.
I am sure that the first time that somebody gets hurt because of this chucklehead’s actions and gets involved in an accident, they will try to sue the railroad, as the “trains are hunting to victims”.
I went digging through some old issues of TRAINS and found a similar NIMBY, about 20 years ago, that succeeded in limiting the operations of a steam tourist road to the point that they could not even operate speeders for track maintenance, despite the fact that, according to the railroad, even at peak operations, the r-tard was subjected to the sounds of the steam trains for roughly 16 minutes a day.
Sometimes I wish that we could put idiots like this in a “shooting range” where people could pay $5 to hurl rotten eggs and ruben sandwiches at them. In a short time there would be enough money made to fix our infastructure and get out of the recession.
There’s a point where you go from being a railfan, to being a foamer. Railroad joints being music? A locomotive idling being music? That’s a big stretch.
Crossings here with whistle restrictions have gates and medians. The cars are stopping for the gates, not the horn. I do not have any problem with whistle bans. Nor do I see it as any sort of real danger. There are plenty of places where people cross tracks at places other than designated crossings and don’t get hit.
And blowing the horn where it isn’t required or needed should not be happening. Not only are you violating the intent and letter of the rule, but it will only sour relations with lineside communities. If there is someone near the tracks, then blow. If not, you are only going to get yourself in trouble.
The few “no blow” crossings at my former employer only have single-sided gates, and lights. If someone wanted to, they could go around the gates. There is no median present.
A few of the crossings, have gates that are normally down. After insisting on the crossings being whistle restricted, the residents of the area decided they disliked the wait caused by pulling up to the gates and waiting for them to rise. Chains and other materials were used to “disable” the gates so that they could drive through them freely. It happened quite often, but because of political power and influence, the no-blow status was insisted upon being kept there.
It’s not possible to see all the crossings in the no-blow area as you approach them. With the tampering and other “stuff” that goes on at them, it’s necessary to blow the horn. It is a safety issue. Now that funding is drying up, and the tampering being regular, the crossings are being reverted back to traditional crossings with gates and lights, and trains will be required to blow through them again…
There were extenuating circumstances regarding the crossings.
Very early on in the ‘quiet crossing’ business, a community not only silenced the train horns, they also had the railroad turn off those annoying ‘dingers’ at the (gateless) crossings. A few weeks after the ‘silence’ date, a doctor responding to a night call to the emergency room plowed into a freight train stopped across the street he was using.
The train was stopped because it had hit a carload of teenagers shortly before, and the authorities hadn’t finished sorting out the pieces. The doctor had been called to treat the casualties.
Now the real kicker. This was at the height of the Vietnam combat airlift. The town in question was directly in line with the runway of a major airlift base, and an average of three aircraft per hour were passing overhead - C-141 transports, loaded, at takeoff power…
AND THAT is relevant how? I often see that rationale used as some argument against parties seeking noise abatement, but couldn’t one just as easily turn that around and claim that buffalo were in North America long before the railroads, therefore the railroads’ intolerence of their presence was equally inappropriate?
I don’t agree with the concept of “no blow” railroad crossings even if they have median barriers and four quadrant or double gates. Usually the bells will ring and the lights will flash as a train approaches the crossing before the gates are lowered. What’s to prevent a driver from crossing the tracks when a train is approaching before the gatesw are lowered?
I saw this happen in Mystic, CT last fall. A southbound Acela Express was approaching the grade crossing at the Mystic, CT station when the lights started to flash, and the bells started to ring. The gates hadn’t lowered when a driver of a pickup truck hauling a utility trailer crossed the tracks even though the train was approaching. The gates started to lower but when they hit the utility trailer they raised up. What would have prevented another vehicle following hard on the heels of the pickup truck from entering the grade crossing before the gates lowered again? Note; that grade crossing oly had the four quadrant gates and no center barrier.
To paraphrase former President Harry Truman, 'if you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen;" if you can’t stand the sounds of trains blowing for grade crossings move away (well away) from the railroad.
This is one of the stranger arguments that I have read in here.
Incredibly loud air horns, essential at unprotected crossings, serve no purpose at marked and gated crossings. Any moron who is not deterred by the clanging bell, blinking red lights, and that big red and white gate across the road is not going to be influenced by the train horn.
It is not hard to find examples of idiots who got hit by a train in spite of the crossing protection. It is also not hard to find examples of idiots who got hit by a train that was blowing the horn while crossing the protected crossings. The only way you will ever eliminate those accidents is to eliminate all the crossings. There is no such thing as “fool proof”. “Fool resistant” is the best that you can hope for.
Here in our local county, our light rail system has horns that are somehow focused forward, and are much quieter than the air horns that are standard on diesels. They are fairly loud in front of the train. They are nearly inaudable behind it. Beside it they can only be heard for a couple of hundred feet. The air horns on diesels can be heard for more than a mile. So far, I am not aware of a single light rail train hitting a vehicle, though they have hit one pedestrian. Amtrak and Norfolk Southern, on the other hand, have hit three vehicles in the last 6 weeks, all at protected crossings and while blowing the horn.
If someone is going to blow the flashing lights before the gates lower, what’s to stop them when the train is blowing its horn? Usually the gates are already activated by the time a train is supposed to start blowing its horn (as per FRA).
It’s like the boy who cried wolf. I feel (IMO) that we overuse the horn, and with each overuse, it becomes less effective.
I would submit that comparing train/auto collisions between light and heavy rail is rather like comparing apples and oranges. Primarily, I’m sure that the stopping distance for light rail is measured in feet, while the stopping distance for heavy rail is usually measured in hundreds of feet.
I’d be interested in hearing how many “close calls” light rail has had, especially as compared to heavy rail.
I’m sure he will assume liability regardless because he will get sued along with the railroad if someone gets injured or killed at that crossing. Sad to say, but that is how it works in our litigious society.