CHICAGO — It’s been a month since automated railroad horns replaced traditional train blasts at nine Lake County train crossings, and the high-tech devices are getting many fabulous – and some sour – reviews, according to the Chicago Daily Herald.
Whereas the blaring of train horns regularly disturbed the pre-dawn silence in Jeff Nichols’ Vernon Hills neighborhood, the automated devices are considerably quieter.
Over at Mundelein village hall, Village Clerk Pam Keeney now can talk on the phone without having to ask callers to repeat themselves.
“Especially when the windows were open, we would hear every single train horn all day long, and it got to the point where we couldn’t talk to customers without interruption – let alone hold a meeting,” Keeney said. “Now, whether the windows are open or closed, we can talk to people without interruption. It’s much, much nicer.”
Not everyone is as enamored with the automated signals. Some people even think the new system is even more disruptive than the old one.
“It’s the worst thing I’ve ever encountered,” said Anne Johnson, owner of Corner Health Foods, near the Park Street rail crossing in downtown Mundelein. “It’s 10 times worse than the train whistles that used to go by.”
The system resembles a set of stereo speakers on 21-foot-tall poles. They began sounding Marchæ17 in conjunction with traditional train horns and took over the job completely on April 12, although some engineers occasionally do still sound their horns out of habit.
Engineers also are instructed to use their manual horns in bad weather, if something is blocking the track, if someone is walking on the track or if monitors in the automated signals indicate they are not working properly.
The devices, which cost about $35,000 per intersection, emit a 30-second warning that was digitally recorded from actual train signals. However, instead of filling a large swath of space with noise as locomotive horns do, the systems concentrate their alarms at the street.
As a result, the stationary signals sound weaker the farther away you are from a crossing, unlike traditional horns that fill the air with noise as trains speed down a track. For example, an 80-decibel blast from an automated horn affects less than four acres of land. The same blast from a moving train affects nearly 125 acres.
Officials in Mundelein, Libertyville and Vernon Hills agreed to try out the automated horns to see if they could reduce railroad noise. Along with Northwestern University’s Center for Public Safety and other agencies, the villages are participating in a test program designed to measure how well the automated horns reduce noise while maintaining safe crossings. Similar studies have been done in Nebraska, Kansas and Iowa.
The horns were added last year at nine crossings on the Canadian National Railway formerly known as the Wisconsin Central line, but were not activated until recently. Freight and commuter trains use the line.
The devices are at Butterfield Road, Route 60, Allanson Road, Hawley Street, Park Street, Route 176, Dunbar Road, Winchester Road, and Peterson Road. The Butterfield crossing is in Vernon Hills, and the Winchester Road and Peterson Road sites are in the Libertyville area. The others are in Mundelein.
Vernon Hills resident Nichols said the new horn system has made life at his family’s home quite a bit more peaceful. He knew he’d be living near railroad tracks when he moved to the 300 block of Abbey Lane in 1988, but he never expected the horns would be so jarring. The noise made enjoying TV programs difficult and even would wake up his children at night.
Since the automated horns were activated, however, the clamor has virtually disappeared – and Nichols says his kids are sleeping more soundly.
“It’s a big difference,” he said.
Dean Leber, who manages the Park Street restaurant in downtown Mundelein, agrees. The old train blasts regularly disrupted his customers’ meals and conversations, but the automated signals aren’t nearly as bothersome, he said.
“Especially since we have outside seating in the summertime,” he said. “That really makes it nice.”
You don’t have to live or work next to the Canadian National tracks to notice the change. Mundelein Trustee Ray Semple, whose home in the Cambridge Country subdivision is about a mile away from the rail line, used to hear the horns all the time. He doesn’t anymore.
“This could be the one thing we ever do in the village that will please everybody,” Semple said proudly.
Well, maybe not everybody. Municipal officials have received complaints from several residents and merchants who don’t like the new horns. Some people have criticized the duration of the horns while others say the noise is worse than before.
“It’s just nasty,” said Johnson of Corner Health Foods, where she said customers also have complained to her about the horns. “I hate to come to work. I come in and the first thing I hear is that awful blast.”
Despite the criticisms, area officials hope the horns will be successful enough to persuade the Federal Railroad Administration to add the devices to its list of alternative safety devices for railroad crossings.
The rail agency mandates that all trains must sound their horns at street-level crossings unless acceptable safety precautions have been taken, such as the installation of four-quadrant gates or the use of median poles that prevent motorists from driving around crossing gates.
The agency is expected to rule on the suitability of automated horns later this year, a spokesman said.
If the railroad agency approves the new horns for general use, they could help reduce noise pollution in many of the Lake County towns that are connected by rail lines, including Lake Villa, Round Lake Beach and Grayslake.
Grayslake Mayor Tim Perry is eagerly awaiting the results of the Mundelein-area study, which should be done in September. Complaints about train horns are common in Grayslake, and he’d welcome a way to alleviate the problem.
“You can’t go anywhere in Grayslake and get out of earshot of a train horn,” Perry said. “As long as the tests are positive and the horns are approved (by the railroad administration), we are going to do whatever we can to bring those to Grayslake.”