(The following story by Paul Kirby appeared on the Kingston Daily Freeman website on February 21.)
KINGSTON, N.Y. — The installation of “wayside horns” at city railroad crossings as an alternative to train whistles will be delayed at least a couple of years.
Fire Chief Richard Salzmann, who met with the Common Council’s Finance/Economic Development Committee Wednesday, said the city should monitor the progress of a plan to install the horns in a New Jersey community before committing any more money to the effort.
“It would be my advice to let some other community (do it first) and see how that goes,” Salzmann said. Committee members agreed.
Common Council Majority Leader Bill Reynolds, D-Ward 7, the committee chairman, said it is unlikely the city will make any financial commitment to the wayside horns until more is learned about their effects on a specific community.
Reynolds has been a supporter of the wayside horn proposal and has repeatedly said the city needs to do something about quieting train whistles. But he said the whistles, which often blow from one end of the city to the other, are likely to continue for at least another couple of years.
“It stinks,” Reynolds said.
Salzmann said 40 to 50 freight trains pass through Kingston on a daily basis, passing six grade crossings. He said it is likely going to be a couple of years before the New Jersey effort can be assessed.
Alderman Robert Senor, R-Ward 8, expressed concern the city could be held “at greater” legal risk with the wayside horns because they would be municipal property and lawsuits against the city could follow accidents at rail crossings.
Salzmann, who led the effort to install the wayside horns, said the Common Council authorized $15,000 in October 2006 for an engineering study, but representatives of CSX Corp., the railroad company, said the price tag would be much higher. The study would have required the involvement of a number of agencies, including CSX.
At the time it authorized funding for the study, the council urged Mayor James Sottile to seek grants to pay for the horns, which were estimated to cost more than $360,000.