(The following story by Val Van Meter appeared on The Winchester Star website on June 3.)
BOYCE, Va. — It won’t get quieter in town anytime soon.
In a three-page letter, Norfolk Southern Corp. told the Boyce Town Council there will be no changes in the use of the whistles on trains passing through the Clarke County town.
“It was a long letter to say ‘no’” Town Planning Commission Chairman J. Reid Everly told the council at its meeting Tuesday night.
Mark D. Manion, Norfolk Southern’s senior vice president of Transportation Operations, wrote the town that locomotive whistles are a “critical safety device,” and the “occasional inconvenience” to town residents was more than offset by safety considerations.
Everly told council that he believes whistles sounding 20 times a day is more than an occasional inconvenience. “We know it’s a safety issue,” he added.
Manion found fault with the town’s report of sound levels recorded at several points in Boyce, away from the railroad tracks.
Manion wrote that the town had used a “C” scale, while locomotive whistle noise must be recorded on an “A” scale. This skews the results to the high side, he wrote.
Manion also felt the high volume range the town recorded — from 121 to 128 decibels — was probably not accurate. That range may “exceed the whistle’s capability,” he wrote.
Federal regulations on train whistles set a minimum 96-decibel limit for sound 100 feet ahead of the train, at a height of 14 feet.
The federal government has proposed a maximum of 110 decibels, which has not yet been adopted.
“We were taking these readings away from the tracks,” said Town Recorder Arthur Clarke, a member of Town Council. He said that if the decibel range was that high a block or two away from the tracks, it would be much higher in front of the train itself.
In his letter, Manion suggested the high sound readings away from the tracks were the result of “reflective noise sources (such as buildings).”
Clarke told the council he felt Manion’s argument was “faulty logic.”
Manion did suggest one way the town could cut down on whistle noise.
Boyce has two grade crossings within its limits. The trains must sound their whistles — two longs, one short, and one long — before each crossing.
Because trains running at 50 mph can travel between the two crossings in less than 15 seconds, the whistles for the two can become a continuous noise, Manion said.
He suggested the town close one of its two crossings, either on Old Chapel or East Main streets, to limit whistle use.
Clarke labeled Manion’s letter “completely unresponsive.”
Town Planning Administrator Chuck Johnston was directed to contact a professional on noise pollution to investigate the cost of a more formal study, although Johnston said Norfolk Southern would “probably still debate the veracity of that study.”