SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — The sound of a train whistle is soothing to Mary Emily Buckley, while Billie Lawson barely notices when the engine sounds, according to the Springfield News-Leader.
Both Springfield residents will continue to hear the trains come through the city, but federal regulations that go into effect at the end of this year will allow cities and towns with improved railroad crossings to create quiet zones and silence the iconic sound.
Acting on a law passed by Congress in 1994, the Federal Railroad Administration is close to issuing new rules governing the blowing of train whistles at more than 154,000 crossings nationwide where railroad tracks intersect with public roads. It has not yet been determined how the rule would affect some 98,000 private crossings.
“I love the railroad. (The whistle) is nice,” said Buckley, who lives in the 700 block of South Fairway Avenue where Burlington Northern and Santa Fe trains rumble by day and night. “I can’t imagine anybody not liking a railroad whistle.”
Most Springfieldians do, apparently. The city reported just four whistle complaints in six years, officials said. Lawson, who lives in the 700 block of South Delaware Avenue, where the tracks cross nearby Cherry Street, said the whistle has become something she’s adjusted to over the 11 years she’s lived there.
“Sometimes, I hardly notice,” she said. “My guests react to it. They ask, ‘How can you stand this?’ In the summertime, I’m outside a lot or I have the windows open. It’s not pleasant.”
Still, Lawson said she knew what she was getting when she bought the residence.
“I saw the track. I knew the railroad was there. I didn’t know how loud it was,” she said.
Currently, state law requires trains to sound their whistles *ç-mile before reaching an intersection.
Communities could create “quiet zones” that would permit the train to not blow its whistle while approaching and traveling through an intersection. But the requirements have been toughened under the new law. To qualify for a quiet zone, crossing improvements would require gates that would stop traffic in four lanes (two in each direction) or the intersection would need a concrete divider to prevent cutting across the median to drive around the gate.
The crossing would be monitored to make sure the safeguards work before the railroad administration would allow the crossing to be designated a quiet zone.
The FRA rules would remove whistle bans now in effect unless those communities make similar improvements, although communities with long-standing bans might get more time or flexibility to comply.
Steve Forsberg, spokesman for Burlington-Northern Santa Fe, said he was not aware of any quiet zones or bans in southwest Missouri. Those communities, counties or states that want to establish such zones would have to work with the railroad and pay for the improvements.
“Normally, the city, county or state pays for the warning device, gates or lights and we supply the labor but maintain the crossing once it’s complete,” Forsberg said.
Safety advocates warn that banning whistles could cost lives. A 1995 study for the federal government found that the accident rate at crossings along Florida’s eastern coastline jumped 185 percent after the state allowed cities to ban train horns at night. A national study issued the same year showed an average of 62 percent more accidents at gated crossings where train whistles were banned than at similar crossings without bans.
Thanks in part to a concerted effort to close crossings, collisions have dropped by more than 40 percent since 1990. But crossing accidents continue to represent a significant portion of all railway-related fatalities: 419 out of 966 in 2001.
In 1999, the most recent year statistics were available, there were eight train-vehicle accidents reported in Missouri, resulting in seven injuries and two deaths.
But Forsberg said that’s why the requirements for being designated a quiet zone are being toughened.
Railroads also are negotiating with towns to close lesser used, ungated and lighted crossings in exchange for improving heavily traveled crossings.
“Only the Federal Railroad Administration can issue exemptions and tell railroads to stop blowing,” he said.
No quiet zone upgrades are planned in the area, officials said.
That’s OK with Buckley and Lawson.
“It really isn’t that big of a problem,” Lawson said. “(The whistle) wouldn’t play a part in any decision to move from here.”