Railroad Nose Reform

By Corinne Winthrop

At the most recent city council meeting Tuesday, March 20, a council member briefly touched on a subject matter that is near and dear to most people’s ears. Audience members heard him loud and clear when the member said the council is looking into ways train noise pollution can be reduced in different areas of Fort Collins.

“It’s annoying and it drives businesses crazy,” Gerry Horak, council member, plainly stated about the train horn in an interview after the meeting. As if the gates and flashing lights at railroad intersections are not enough, Horak believed train horns blaring is not necessary at such a high decibel level.

However, in 2005, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) established a regulation “requiring [trains] to ‘blast’ their horns in a two long, one short, and one long sequence when approaching a crossing,” Karen Cumbo, executive director of Fort Collins Planning, Development and Transportation, said after the meeting. With many railroad intersections near the CSU campus and Old Town that are close together, this rule causes numerous horn wails, one right after another.

To heal the community’s ear drums, the Fort Collins Downtown Development Authority is investigating the possibly of creating Quiet Zones along a main railroad that runs through downtown, Horak explained after the meeting. According to the USA Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration Train Horn Rule Fact Sheet, these zones mean trains silence their horns at delegated crossings. However, to ensure safety, the crossing “must be equipped at minimum with the standard or conventional flashing light and gate automatic warning system,” according to the fact sheet. Quiet Zones are a part of the 2005 FRA regulation, but have not been implemented yet around the city.

It is a “lengthy federal process to build expensive gates,” Cumbo said, defending the reasons why Quiet Zones are not in place. Horak also added it could cost “five to 10 millions of dollars” if the city were to position the zones along tracks from campus all the way to Cherry Street.

High-priced Quiet Zones would not be needed if the city asked FRA officials to ease up on the regulations concerning the high decibel volumes coming from the train horn. Although, Cumbo said in this solution, train horns would still be heard, as opposed to the alternative Quiet Zone solution.
This issue often causes Fort Collins residents to toss and turn late at night, not only because they are concerned but also because train horns wake them up.