Freight train whistles: legally required, blown for fun, or both?
August 1, 2013 7:26 AM   Subscribe

I've always wondered when you hear a freight train horn blast in the middle of the night: is that an engineer doing something required by law, or is it some guy running a train that is doing it at intervals whenever he personally feels like it?

There are freight train tracks near my home, but I only hear horn blasts in the middle of the night a couple times a month. I'm on vacation in Montana right now, near some tracks, and the train horns are insane, with loud blasts at 1am, 2am, 3am, so naturally I'm wondering if they are required when unsignaled or unprotected tracks cross a roadway or maybe it's a rule about the length of a train and tunnels or am I wrong and is the person running the train just being a jerk and trying to wake the countryside by blasting the horn for fun?
posted by mathowie to Travel & Transportation (30 answers total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
I would bet that its some kind of regulation, kind of like the ferry boat horns that have been an issue in NY.
posted by RandlePatrickMcMurphy at 7:30 AM on August 1, 2013




It was law until 2005, when cities were allowed by the federal government to establish quiet zones. See, e.g. Soon, Alpine Won’t Hear that Train Whistle Anymore…
posted by caek at 7:32 AM on August 1, 2013 [2 favorites]


...though that doesn't necessarily preclude the possibility that the guy is just bored.
posted by jquinby at 7:33 AM on August 1, 2013


Best answer: Here's the relevant page on the FRA website.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 7:34 AM on August 1, 2013


Response by poster: Is it all crossings or just crossings of a certain type?
posted by mathowie at 7:34 AM on August 1, 2013


The federal Train Horn Rule. They seem to happen more at night because freight trains run more at night (esp.on tracks that also have passenger rail during the day) and because it's otherwise quieter.
posted by purpleclover at 7:34 AM on August 1, 2013


Best answer: Yep, the regulation says, among other things, that:

"individual locomotive or lead cab car shall be sounded when such locomotive or lead cab car is approaching a public highway-rail grade crossing. Sounding of the locomotive horn with two long blasts, one short blast and one long blast..."

On preview: certain types of crossings. They have to be a public highway-rail grade crossing.
posted by Specklet at 7:35 AM on August 1, 2013


What is the pattern of the horn sounds? If it is two long blasts, one short blast, followed by a long blast, it's the sound they must make when they approach a crossing (in Montana, it's legally required for ALL crossings, although the rule is different in other states).

If it's a quick succession of blasts, it usually means there are animals near the line that they're trying to scare away, which I hear quite often in my rural area.

Union Pacific has a list of the different kinds of sounds and what they mean here.
posted by Joey Joe Joe Junior Shabadoo at 7:35 AM on August 1, 2013 [11 favorites]


These definitions lead me to believed that "public highway-rail grade crossing" means "the place where train tracks meet a public road."
posted by purpleclover at 7:40 AM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


I am not familiar with freight trains, but I would add that here in the NYC area, Metro North commuter trains are required to blow their horns whenever they cross a road at grade. All grade road crossings here have both lights and gates, yet they blow away.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 7:43 AM on August 1, 2013


Three years ago, my part of the City of Houston reached an agreement with the Union Pacific railroad to stop blowing the horn at the grade crossings in this residential and commercial area. Part of the agreement involved upgrading the crossing signals, setting up barriers so that drivers could not go around the barriers, and better warning bells. Sings indicating that there is no train horn were installed. This was significant, and required negotiations with the railroad, because of the liability involved. Blowing that horn protects the railroad from being sued.

Because my house is right next to the tracks, this agreement increased my enjoyment of my back yard significantly, and made sleeping with windows open possible.
posted by Midnight Skulker at 7:44 AM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


Fun fact: the spots for sounding the horn are marked with whistle posts.
posted by jquinby at 7:45 AM on August 1, 2013 [8 favorites]


Response by poster: Huh, so if it's all highway crossings, what about the section of downtown where I live, the train runs across a bunch of downtown streets, like 13th, 8th, 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and 1st streets, the time between each street would be less than 20 seconds, are they supposed to continue blasting through the whole set?
posted by mathowie at 7:56 AM on August 1, 2013


I live by tracks. Ames passed a no blowing your horn ordinance. They are still allowed to do it in certain cases and I don't think there's really any punishment for when they violate the ordinance. They still blow the horn to clear the tracks (animals or people).

Ames also installed these intersection horns, that while still annoying, aren't as loud. So the horns are at the intersections now, not only on the train.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:12 AM on August 1, 2013


Where multiple crossings in close proximity are involved, I believe the signal is required to be repeated or extended until the engine is on the final crossing.
posted by Joey Joe Joe Junior Shabadoo at 8:13 AM on August 1, 2013


It's not all highway crossing--the relevant term to search for is "whistle ban," which is when a locality upgrades the safety measures around a highway crossing enough to be as effective as blowing a whistle in terms of preventing cars from being on the tracks when a train is coming. I believe the gates that come down with flashing lights before a train crosses are an example of what types of safety measures would allow for a whistle ban.

There's some really fascinating (and terribly depressing) information you can learn about safety regulations around trains from the fantastic Death on the Rails series that ran in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. That's where I learned about whistle bans, and the fact that railroads have more of an affirmative duty to avoid hitting cattle that wander onto the rails than they do to avoid human toddlers that do the same.
posted by iminurmefi at 8:15 AM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


mathowie: "Huh, so if it's all highway crossings, what about the section of downtown where I live, the train runs across a bunch of downtown streets, like 13th, 8th, 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and 1st streets, the time between each street would be less than 20 seconds, are they supposed to continue blasting through the whole set?"

Per wikipedia:

Locomotive engineers retain the authority to vary this pattern as necessary for crossings in close proximity, and are allowed to sound the horn in emergency situations no matter where the location.

posted by jquinby at 8:21 AM on August 1, 2013


As a freight conductor, I rode many miles on locomotives, and I never once saw an engineer sound the horn 'for fun.' If 12-year-olds were running the trains, it might be different. But do you sound your car horn for fun?
posted by LonnieK at 8:30 AM on August 1, 2013 [5 favorites]


are they supposed to continue blasting through the whole set?

Pretty much, although it is subject to local regulations. Witness the BNSF speedway from Chicago to Aurora, IL. It's triple-track, and runs through almost continuous populated areas for 38 miles, with about 90 at-grade crossings.It's used by a few hundred trains a day, so without the latitude allowed, all those trains would be blowing the horns for almost the entire 38 miles. Imagine living within earshot of that.

What I used to do, on the one section I regularly ran that has several grade crossings in short succession, was to simply sound 2 longs, a short, two longs, a short until i reached the final crossing, where I would extend whatever long I was currently sounding.
posted by pjern at 8:33 AM on August 1, 2013


They also seem to sound whistles on trains when approaching areas where maintenance is taking place (i.e. workers could be on the track). As a lot of rail maintenance takes place at night but is likely to be irregular, this might explain the irregularity that you hear this happening.
posted by wackybrit at 8:42 AM on August 1, 2013


But do you sound your car horn for fun?

Only in tunnels.
posted by gyusan at 9:42 AM on August 1, 2013 [3 favorites]


This is a thing that your city council can actually resolve by working with the railroad. Improved train crossings are a big safety benefit, quieter towns make people happy with more sleep. There might be federal funds for this sort of thing.
posted by theora55 at 10:30 AM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


There are freight train tracks near my home, but I only hear horn blasts in the middle of the night a couple times a month.

We're exactly a mile from the train station, and the trains blow their horns all day and night. We really only notice them when there's low cloud cover, which reflects more sound our way.
posted by oneirodynia at 12:21 PM on August 1, 2013 [3 favorites]


am I wrong and is the person running the train just being a jerk and trying to wake the countryside by blasting the horn for fun?

Wince. No, it is not "for fun". Train engineers (such as my brother) have -- thanks to physics -- amazingly little ability to avert accidents at grade crossings. Hitting a vehicle, especially when causing injury or death, is a serious PTSD event for many. There are engineers who never work again after hitting a car.

This is a cab view of an (apparently fairly benign) accident. Ignoring the Clubbed to Death background music ... skip to 0:45 to see the beginning of sounding the horn, which is well before there is even a vehicle at the crossing. Then an SUV pulls up to the tracks, and stops front end over them, probably listening to music or otherwise not paying attention until too late. The conductor (note: not the engineer) taking the video from the front of the train jumps inside the cab for his own safety. The train is immediately braking, but has too much sheer mass to stop until the cab is about 1/2 mile or more from the crossing.

By the way, this is Mexico, so equipment is roughly equivalent to US/Canadian.

If, after that, you're steeled for a fatal crash, there's this Amtrak footage (at 0:12). I gather from news reports this was a car with 3-4 teenagers in it. It's chilling, and I wouldn't want to have to be the guy to get out of the train (2:20) to look for car ... or body ... parts.

I know there have been a couple of operator-at-fault types of incidents lately, but from everything I know, professional railroaders blow the horn for your safety, even more so than theirs.

FYI, I'm about three football-field lengths from two separate grade crossings. I probably hear the same thing 2-3 times on an average night.
posted by dhartung at 5:57 PM on August 1, 2013 [4 favorites]


Best answer: Hey, something I know about! (I design and test Railroad Signaling Systems for a living, and deal with crossings on occasion.)

Homeboy Trouble has the relevant link. Trains are required to sound the horn when approaching any public crossing, and continue sounding it until they are occupying the crossing. There are other reasons a train might be required to sound the horn, but they’re few and far between in comparison to crossings.

If you live near a crossing, that can get annoying, but it’s a safety issue. Sounding the horn significantly reduces the accident rate. In 1984, Florida happened to create the perfect trial when they allowed individual cities/counties to enact nighttime Whistle Bans, but only for the Florida East Coast railroad (which operated entirely in the state of Florida). A study done in 1990 found that from 1984-1989, while the nighttime accident rate increased by 23% at crossings where trains sounded the horn, it nearly tripled at crossings that were subject to a Whistle Ban. Of note—in the majority of the accidents, the driver had driven into the opposing lane to get around the gates.

Based on that study, in 1991 the federal government stepped in and required the FEC to ignore any local bans. As whistle bans were rescinded elsewhere, a follow-up study showed that sounding the horn reduces the accident rate by at least 30 - 60%.

After several years of negotiation, public comment, etc., the final train horn rule linked above was issued in 2004. It formalized the concept of a Quiet Zone, a stretch of track 1/2 mile or more in which trains are prohibited from sounding the horn on a regular basis .

So how do you get a quiet zone in your neighborhood? The process for establishing a quiet zone is complex, but to establish a quiet zone, you basically have three options:
  1. Have only grandfathered crossings that were already part of a Whistle Ban on October 9, 1996 and December 18, 2003.
  2. Design every crossing in the quiet zone to have gates, and to prevent cars from driving around the gates (one way streets, center median, or 4-quadrant gates). This can get expensive, $100k+ per crossing, and the railroad isn’t going to spend money just to make the neighbors happier, so the cost will ultimately come out of your taxes (local/state/federal).
  3. Use a complicated formula (based on car/truck/bus counts, train counts, speeds, crossing design, additional safety features, etc.) to prove that the risk index for your Quiet Zone won’t be higher than the national average risk index at all non-quiet-zone crossings. This is where you’ll see things like wayside horns (horns mounted at the crossing), increased police enforcement, improving sight distance, etc, which are cheaper than a complete redesign, but still reduce your risk index. This is subject to annual FRA review, and both your risk factor and the national average may change with time, so a quiet zone that qualifies today may require additional improvements in the future.

posted by yuwtze at 9:22 PM on August 1, 2013 [5 favorites]


I like that option 3 (be no worse than the national average, with annual review) contains a ratchet that will eventually make it effectively equivalent to option 2.
posted by russm at 1:25 AM on August 2, 2013 [1 favorite]


Bound to be regulations. I drive UK passenger trains and we have to sound the horn in the following circumstances:

1. On passing a Whistle Board (usually found before foot crossings) - one short low blast.

2. On sighting railway workers on or near the line - two-tone high-low warning blast.

3. On sighting trespassers or anyone else on or near the line - repeated high warning blasts.

4. Special horn codes for certain shunts and non-standard moves, e.g. passing a signal at danger with authority, travelling on a line in the wrong direction, prior to entering a maintenance shed or depot etc.

5. As a "train in distress" warning - repeated high blasts.

We are not allowed to sound the horn between the hours of 23:00 and 0:700 except in an emergency. Clearly this rule does not apply for US freight trains. They will most likely be "blowing up" for crossings.
posted by Decani at 2:49 AM on August 2, 2013 [1 favorite]


One more fun note: the particular pattern of horn blows is left up to the individual train operators, who often use it as a form of signature mark. That is, Gary does the Hooooonk-honk, Bob does a honkhonkhonk, Gil used to honkhonk honkhonk, but lately has gone for more of a Hooonkhonk Hooonkhonk...
posted by IAmBroom at 1:46 PM on August 8, 2013


I understand IAmBroom's point, if he means minor nuances. But the horn sequence is not left up to train operators.
For example, the only acceptable sequence at a road crossing, universal in North America, is Long-Long-Short-Long. Individuals can tweak a little -- e.g. make a Long a little longer -- but failing to sound that precise pattern clearly at a road crossing is a rule violation. No engineer in North America who insists on sounding anything else at road crossings will be working for long.
posted by LonnieK at 6:52 PM on August 9, 2013


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