City Mangagers want or need a railroad Air Horn-Air Chime quiet zone.

[Falcon48]

jeffhergert

I did a little looking (FRA site) and Durand's QZ was grandfathered in.  It existed before the current rules were adopted.

I also learned that a crossing only needs lights and regular gates if it meets or beats certain safety statistics.  (Chances of an accident relative to other crossings.)  Only if it doesn't does it then need something more, like lane dividers or 4-quad gates.

There is a calculator to figure out whether a crossing needs the upgrades, but it wanted a username and password to access.  It makes me wonder though on how they come to their figures.  Story Street is the main N/S route through the business section of town.  I would have thought if any crossing wouldn't have needed upgrades, it would be one of the lesser used side streets.

Jeff  

 

 First of all, everyone active on this thread should be aware that there are two other recent threads on the train horn rule - "Quiet Zone Questions" and "Silenced Automobile Crossings."

With respect to the question of how "they" (presumably FRA) come to their figures, I just posted a note on the "Quiet Zone Questions" thread, which has links to pertinent FRA documents that have most of these gory details. 

[Falcon48]

jeffhergert

Zug's the winner.

When the QZ was established, all the other crossings in town (all to the west) were modified with median lane dividers.  The only thing they did at Story Street was to add the "No Train Horn" sign.  (Which I didn't include in the view.)  The pedestrian gates were already there.  Sidewalks at other crossings in town had a sort of zig-zag fence added.  I guess to get people's attention, since there isn't any barrier when the signals are activated.  

I asked a company officer why Story was included in the QZ without modifications.  He said it was allowed because it was close to the other crossings in the zone.  It doesn't make much sense to me to do that.  I could maybe see if it was close to crossings where the horn was regularly sounded, so maybe there are other reasons at play. 

Jeff    

 

 What's probably happening in your "Story Street" example is that "Story Street" is one of several crossings in the quiet zone.  Under FRA's "quiet zone" methodology, you look at the safety of the quiet zone as a whole.  This means that it's not always necessary to make improvements at all of the crossings in a quiet zone.  For example, if you have a quiet zone with 5 crossings, and you can get the quiet zone risk level low enough to satisfy FRA requirements by making improvements at only 3 of the crossings, then that's all you have to do.