Bell on locomotives

[Anonymous]

This may seem like a stupid question, what is the bell for on locomotives? I've been a railfan my whole life(39 years) and never really thought about it. I work right next to a "hot spot", an entrance to UP's Armourdale Yard in Kansas City, KS and hear the horns day and night as they cross a street, but couldn't help wondering what the bell does. If someone doesn't hear the horn, are they going to hear the bell?? Just curious. Terry

[BR60103]

Terry:
I'll jump in with my observations that the bell is used in lower speed situations where the train is closer to the people that need warning.
When I was commuting, the train would come into the platform with the bell ringing; the bell was audible for the whole length of the platform and a bit. The horn can be heard miles away and isn't quite as specific as the bell. In our area, there are a lot of horn restrictions so horns are only used when the engineer is desperate to warn somebody.
I also think that the bell is on a switch so that it can be turned on and the engineer gets back to running (or stopping) the train while the horn has to be pulled and takes up one hand and a bit of the brain.
David

[Anonymous]

I gotta' say that Dave "hit the nail on the head" with his reply. There are prescribed rules for the use of the bell, I'd have to quote employee timetables to get specific, but Dave's answer pretty much sums it up.

Todd C.

[dknelson]

it's also worth remembering that in the days of steam the whistle was used a lot to send messages to the rest of the train crew -- a pretty involved set of signals at that. The bell was intended to warn the public and railroaders on the ground -- back to the days when crossings had no bell themselves. Thus a switcher at slow speed might have no reason to blow a whistle -- random blasts might have sent a confusing message to the crew in the caboose -- but the bell could be wrung continually. Now that whistles (horns today) don't send many messages to a crew other than 2 shorts forward, 3 shorts reverse (because the entire crew is right there in or on the engine), maybe the bell serves less function -- but the state or federal laws requiring horn AND bell at crossings are still in effect and for liability reasons I doubt if anyone will change that any time soon.