This is the question that has no answer. Which of the following does a quiet zone result in?
Makes a crossing more dangerous than if there were no quiet zone.
Makes a crossing less dangerous than if there were no quiet zone.
Leaves the danger the same as without a quiet zone.
The Union Pacific RR says this:
“Union Pacific believes quiet zones compromise the safety of railroad employees, customers, and the general public. While the railroad does not endorse quiet zones, it does comply with provisions outlined in the federal law.”
Mike, you’re the expert … can you find anything in the FRA e-library or Research Reports regarding ‘quiet zone’ safety that’s newer than 2003? Surely there’s something objective that has come out of the last decade-plus of experience with QZs…
Of course, the railroads don’t like them, because they know attorneys will be itching to fine them when the engineer ‘should’ have blown the horn, but municipalities will be itching to fine them when he or she ‘shouldn’t’.
And municipalities want to prove the crossings are ‘as safe’ without the horns being blown … whether or not it can be shown how much of the expensive gate, camera, enforcement, and other stuff has to be put in for that to be objectively true … for comprehensible reasons of their own.
Why there is this ongoing discussion over something that was essentially a straw-man sort of argument in the first place, I’m not sure. Seems to me the situation goes something like this:
Ed
I have not attempted to prove a claim, so I had no intention to “cite a source.” I am just showing the range of opinion on the topic of whether quiet crossings are made more dangerous by the elimination of routine horn blowing.
wanswheel,
Thanks for posting that link, but that does appear to be a study on the so-called “horn bans” which I believe are different than quiet zones. What I would like to see is some definitive position by the FRA on the question I that have posed about quiet zone safety.
I would also like to know why the U.P. believes what they say about quiet zones. It is interesting that they don’t cite a source either, but only base their position on their “belief.”
I was amused reading about the discussions between the city of Calsbad, CA and the AT&SF, later NCTD about setting up quiet zones. The talks broke down because the city wanted the railroad to assume lliability for the quiet zone and the railroad wanted the city to assume liability. Seems to me if the city thought the quiet zones would be safe, then they would have no problem in assuming liability.
N.B. These discussions were taking place a couple of years after two women were killed by a northbound AT&SF freight in Del Mar when they were rushing to get to the other side assuming it was the NB Amtrak train they were trying to catch.
If the cameras demonstrated a pattern of people tresspassing, could the railroad in quesion use that against the city or other appropriate government agency?
Of the three possible answers that I listed in the OP, I have seen a lot of reference to #3 being the answer, but how this is determined is usually not entirely clear. The point that is always emphasized is that creating a quiet crossing costs a lot of money. The premise seems to be that you get less horn noise for a price in terms of money. I don’t believe that I have ever seen any of these references say that there is also a price in terms of reduced safety. Union Pacific is the only one I have heard says that.
So it is an interesting question. I tend to believe that U.P. is correct. But then that means that most quiet zone proposals are sweeping the increased danger under the carpet. That seems hard to believe.
Right now there are two active threads dealing with quiet zones (this one and “Silenced automobile crossings”), and I’m not sure why.
With respect to the question in several of the posts about where to find the “FRA report” that requires communities wanting quiet zones to improve crossings with supplementary safety measures, the “report” is actually the FRA rule, 49 CFR Part 222, which makes this requirement explicit. The only thing I would add is that “supplementary safety measures” aren’t required if the crossing risk post quiet zone is less than the risk level of of an index called the “National Significant Risk Threshold” (NSRT).
If anyone wants to read the gory details of what it takes to establish an FRA quiet zone, see 49 CFR 222, Appendix C (“Guide To Establishing Quiet Zones”) at the following web address:
In addition, the preambles to the FRA “interim” and “final” versions of the train horn rule (2003 and 2005, respectively), have extensive discussion of “whistle ban” safety and how FRA planned to prevent federal quiet zones from reducing safety. You ma
Thanks for that information. I looked at Federal Railroad Administration
49 CFR Parts 222 and 229
Without assimilating the whole document, I see that on page 92, there is discussion on controlling the risk of quiet zones. I gather that it is considered to be possible for the risk to not be increased when converting a grade crossing to a quiet zone.
I quote this from the link on page 92:
“The rule’s intent is to make the quiet zone as safe as if the train horns were sounding. If this is accomplished, the public authority may
Just because the FRA (or other entity) believes that a study on a particular grade crossing says that there is no increase in risk does not mean that Union Pacific (or any other entity) must believe the same thing. We (and that includes corporations) are entitled to believe what we want about any studies that are made. Some will think there was a bias in some study and some will think the study was flawed in some maner, thus each will draw their own conclusions from the data and may or may not agree with any conclusions made by anyone else.
If U.P. says they believe that “quiet zones compromise the safety of railroad employees, customers and the general public”, that is their right, as is your right to agree or disagree with them. I am sure that they have access to the exact same data as anyone else and are just interpreting in according to their biases.
Because people do stupid things around trains, like put beds on trestles and shoot movies without the railroad permission, or drive blindly through and around gates, ignoring all the devices, including stops signs, yield signs , advance flashing yellow or red signs, warnings painted on the roadway in ten foot letters hundreds of yards before the crossing, or walking in the middle of the tracks with their Ipad cranked up and ear buds in……because UP understands that no matter how many devices, what type of devices and barricades, someone will manage to get around it somehow, and because UP, unlike some of the posters here, understands completely that trains can’t stop, and if it hits you, the odds are great you will die.
To quote Linda Morgan, “the only safe grade crossing is the one that isn’t there”….
By the way, the FRA report is 14 years out of date and the numbers are no longer valid.
Get current numbers and use them.
Wanswheel, you are absolutely correct, that’s why they made and continue to mak
That is correct. Neither Union Pacific nor anyone else has to agree with FRA’s conclusions, and I wasn’t suggesting otherwise - there’s plenty of room in this arena for differing opinions. I was simply responding to those who were saying they couldn’t understand what FRA did or why it did it, or couldn’t find the materials explaining the agency’s position. However, keep in mind that, in formulating railroad regulations, it is ultimately FRA’s opinion that counts, for better or worse.
Thanks for that information. I looked at Federal Railroad Administration
49 CFR Parts 222 and 229
Without assimilating the whole document, I see that on page 92, there is discussion on controlling the risk of quiet zones. I gather that it is considered to be possible for the risk to not be increased when converting a grade crossing to a quiet zone.
I quote this from the link on page 92:
“The rule’s intent is to make the quiet zone as safe as if the train horns were sounding. If this is accomplished, the public authority may
In response to Wanswheel, we’re saying the same thing. Prior to the FRA rule, government imposed “no whistle” restrictions were commonly called “whistle bans”. These were imposed by state or local governments, not FRA. I’m not aware of any of these pre-FRA restrictions being called “quiet zones”. The “quiet zone” tag is introduced in the FRA train horn rule.
I’ll take that a step further. I don’t think you’ll find anyone in railroad management questioning an engineer’s decision to whistle based on any sort of perceived safety issue (or, at least, not anyone in RR management who wants to stay employed), and that’s because of “safety first” more than potential liability. But there are limits to everything. An engineer who decides to celebrate the Christmas season by trumpeting the rhythm to “Jingle Bells” on his horn in every town he passes through in the middle of the night (a real incident) might well be called on the carpet.