I just got home from a trip a couple hundred miles from home. We stayed in a rural area near a busy main of a Class 1 railroad. A train came through about every 45 minutes all night and all day! What I noticed at night was that the trains would blow their horns as only two long blasts, instead of the familiar long-long-short-long. The 5 or 6 crossings that I could hear them blowing the horn for are very rural. At night, there is no traffic. The landscape is flat, has no trees and you can see for miles. Is the long-long-short-long horn pattern a required sequence for the engineer, or is it up to the engineer to just do what's safe?
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Murphy Siding I just got home from a trip a couple hundred miles from home. We stayed in a rural area near a busy main of a Class 1 railroad. A train came through about every 45 minutes all night and all day! What I noticed at night was that the trains would blow their horns as only two long blasts, instead of the familiar long-long-short-long. The 5 or 6 crossings that I could hear them blowing the horn for are very rural. At night, there is no traffic. The landscape is flat, has no trees and you can see for miles. Is the long-long-short-long horn pattern a required sequence for the engineer, or is it up to the engineer to just do what's safe?
The 5 or 6 crossings that I could hear them blowing the horn for are very rural. At night, there is no traffic. The landscape is flat, has no trees and you can see for miles. Is the long-long-short-long horn pattern a required sequence for the engineer, or is it up to the engineer to just do what's safe?
Rules are the rules. If a Road Foreman of Engines or other company official would review the data recorded from the trip and saw the engineer only sounding 2 longs - the engineer is is trouble - be it a verbal repermand that won't show up on the record, a formal repermand that does remain on the employees record or even more serious discipline.
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Partial quiet zone?
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Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
BaltACD Murphy Siding I just got home from a trip a couple hundred miles from home. We stayed in a rural area near a busy main of a Class 1 railroad. A train came through about every 45 minutes all night and all day! What I noticed at night was that the trains would blow their horns as only two long blasts, instead of the familiar long-long-short-long. The 5 or 6 crossings that I could hear them blowing the horn for are very rural. At night, there is no traffic. The landscape is flat, has no trees and you can see for miles. Is the long-long-short-long horn pattern a required sequence for the engineer, or is it up to the engineer to just do what's safe? Rules are the rules. If a Road Foreman of Engines or other company official would review the data recorded from the trip and saw the engineer only sounding 2 longs - the engineer is is trouble - be it a verbal repermand that won't show up on the record, a formal repermand that does remain on the employees record or even more serious discipline.
MookiePartial quiet zone?
Mook, I think that the described horn use maps to the same thing as being 'partially pregnant'.
The minimum intensity of any locomotive horn, under any circumstances, is currently 96dB, and I believe the OP said he was hearing two long blasts per crossing. Meanwhile, the 'legal' definition of a Partial Quiet Zone involves time of day, not time the horn is to be held on while blowing for the crossing (I believe the current interval is 10pm to 7am, during which no horn at all is sounded, with regular use outside that window).
Something I have occasionally observed is 'shorter bursts' used late at night, with the same pattern as the usual long-long-short-long but comparatively short 'beeps' and shorter shorts, the last being timed right as the engine is entering the crossing. This could be 'plausible denial' for any potential legal claim that the mandatory signal was not sounded, while reducing the sound pollution for surrounding neighbors. Two longs is NOT going to produce either effect particularly well...
And we can dispense with the usual comedians reflecting on 'short shorts', too: here ya go.
I've heard engineers who basically run one long horn blast with an ever-so-short break between the segments. If the engineer is just letting off the horn lever (or switch), then right back on it, it could well sound like just two blasts.
With horns now being installed back on the carbody, there's a bit of a reservoir in the form of the air line between the horn valve and the horn. Too brief a break can cause the blasts to run into each other.
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If every one was doing the same thing, I would suspect a local requirement of some kind in effect. To know for sure, you would need to talk to someone who works that area.
Jeff
tree68 I've heard engineers who basically run one long horn blast with an ever-so-short break between the segments. If the engineer is just letting off the horn lever (or switch), then right back on it, it could well sound like just two blasts. With horns now being installed back on the carbody, there's a bit of a reservoir in the form of the air line between the horn valve and the horn. Too brief a break can cause the blasts to run into each other.
Johnny
Mookie Partial quiet zone?
Or intermittent quiet zone? Long-quiet-quiet-long.
[/quote] works for me!
How close together are the crossings? Maybe there just is not time to complete the regular --.- between crossings, so the engineers are just sounding a series of longs with short breaks between.
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
Murphy's orig post - sounds like daylight - they use regular xing whistle. This only happens at night. Maybe businesses during day have traffic - necessitating a full whistle, while at nite all is closed, but just in case of some walking/mobile traffic, you need some kind of whistle. Hence, a partial quiet zone for anyone living in the area. Murphy, care to clarify? (Our city declared a lot of quiet zone, not the railroad. Too bad it doesn't apply to noisy cars)
Semper Vaporo How close together are the crossings? Maybe there just is not time to complete the regular --.- between crossings, so the engineers are just sounding a series of longs with short breaks between.
Mookie Murphy's orig post - sounds like daylight - they use regular xing whistle. This only happens at night. Maybe businesses during day have traffic - necessitating a full whistle, while at nite all is closed, but just in case of some walking/mobile traffic, you need some kind of whistle. Hence, a partial quiet zone for anyone living in the area. Murphy, care to clarify? (Our city declared a lot of quiet zone, not the railroad. Too bad it doesn't apply to noisy cars)
Murphy Siding Semper Vaporo How close together are the crossings? Maybe there just is not time to complete the regular --.- between crossings, so the engineers are just sounding a series of longs with short breaks between. This is a very rural area. There is a generally a gravel mile road every 5280 feet. This area is near a lake so the distance is probably one crossing every 2 miles or so. I know what you mean about crossings close together. We stayed overnight in a small town in Northern Minnesota once where the coal trains came through at track speed. The tracks ran diagonal to the streets. There were 6-8 crossing very tightly spaced. The trains pretty much blew their horns from one of town to the other.
This is a very rural area. There is a generally a gravel mile road every 5280 feet. This area is near a lake so the distance is probably one crossing every 2 miles or so. I know what you mean about crossings close together. We stayed overnight in a small town in Northern Minnesota once where the coal trains came through at track speed. The tracks ran diagonal to the streets. There were 6-8 crossing very tightly spaced. The trains pretty much blew their horns from one of town to the other.
Where I used to work in New Orleans, there were tracks that cut diagonally through a residential area. Where two crossings were very close, I noticed that they would just prolong the final long till the second street was crossed.
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Murphy Siding I know what you mean about crossings close together.
I've seen areas where the "whistle board" also included the letters "MX", for multiple crossings.
OTOH, the village of Hancock, NY, used to include about 4 crossings in short order, but due to a very sharp curve and the old truss bridge, train speeds are very low. Combine squealing wheels, the bridge, and all those crossings, and it gets pretty noisy at dawn on a Sunday morning. But I digress. One of the crossings was closed, and most engineers were "gentle" on the horn early in the morning.
Where I live, there are two roads that meet at a "T", and the CP tracks cross both roads just before the roads meet, and track speed is 79/60. There is about five car lengths between the roads, and most Engineers use a sequence of "Long--Long--Short--Long--Short--Long (the standard 15L warning with an abreviated 15L tacked on the end).
On the rare occasions when the train speed is slower, the Engineers do a series of 15L's, one right after the other (long-long-short-long-long-long-short-long).
An aside note, in Pleasant Prairie WI (where the aforementioned crossing is), for years now all of the grade crossings have a sign warning motorists that "No train horn sounded), yet the trains on both the UP and CP continue to honk away at all hours.
zardozOn the rare occasions when the train speed is slower, the Engineers do a series of 15L's, one right after the other (long-long-short-long-long-long-short-long).
As I recall, the rule reads that the 15L signal will be sounded for crossings, and if you get through --.- before you reach the crossing, you repeat it until you do.
Most engineers have the timing down well enough that they can get the signal in in the requisite 15-20 seconds and finish at the crossing, for a single road crossing. Multiples are another story, as already noted.
Zardoz, your Consolidated Code upbringing is showing. Whistle and horn signals were under Rule 14 in just about every other rule book, pre-NORAC and GCOR era. (GCOR, before they renumbered the rules, used Rule 15.) Even the Consolidated Code before the 1967 edition had them under Rule 14.
I had some free time one afternoon so I railfanned the VRE on Norfolk Southern. When the trains approach the station they sound two long blasts and that was it. In that particular area, all of the crossings with earshot are grade-separated.
It sounds like a local operating policy for stations or depots, maybe?
aegrotatioIt sounds like a local operating policy for stations or depots, maybe?
I spend a lot of time at the Utica, NY station this time of year. You hear the gamut - a couple of shorts, a couple of longs, one long, one short, 15L, what-have-you, even Jingle Bells one night a few years ago...
CSX Horn Rules
BaltACD CSX Horn Rules
Deggesty BaltACD CSX Horn Rules That (g) is a new one to me. Is this blown when the engineer has had no signal to proceed given him?
That (g) is a new one to me. Is this blown when the engineer has had no signal to proceed given him?
Two longs have traditionally been used when initiating movement forward. (except as noted during switching moves) It's to warn anyone near the train you are about to start moving. In the old days, it was also to warn those in the caboose. (It was also the answer to a train order signal displaying a calling-on indication under the old Uniform Code.)
NORAC 19(e) has three shorts for back up, two for forward.
The crossing signal is NORAC 19(b).
Three shorts (which GCOR also has for backing up) also at one time was a signal while moving to stop at the next passenger station. One video I have from the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic's early days shows a double header approaching Cumbres. The lead engine sounds one extended long (approaching station) and then three shorts. The second answers with three shorts.
jeffhergert Zardoz, your Consolidated Code upbringing is showing. Whistle and horn signals were under Rule 14 in just about every other rule book, pre-NORAC and GCOR era. (GCOR, before they renumbered the rules, used Rule 15.) Even the Consolidated Code before the 1967 edition had them under Rule 14. Jeff
My apologies to all for misleading information.
And since my years behind the throttle are now officially established as based in antiquity, I can now ask questions that are directed towards current Rails, such as: When did the policy requiring Engineers to wear those silly orange or yellow 'safety' vests begin? And does the crew have to wear them even when sitting in the cab?
I don't remember hearing it lately, but sometime ago I noticed on the Rochelle web cam that when workers were present some UP trains would give repeated quick double toots instead of ringing the bell. I guess the situation would be covered by (f) in Balt's CSX chart which doesn't specify what the sounds would be. Is this a UP convention or rule? I don't remember hearing BNSF do this.
tree68 NORAC 19(e) has three shorts for back up, two for forward. The crossing signal is NORAC 19(b).
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