Western Railroad Discussion > Horn discretion?

There are 3 crossings fairly close together out here in Lovelock, NV on the UPRR Overland. 

Not sure if there are specific requirements on how to sound the horn when crossings are so close. 

It's interesting to listen to how various crews make their way through town. You start to catch individual techniques over time.  

There's the one crew at 2am who sounds the bare minimum trying to be relatively quiet. Then there's the one crew at 2am making it well known that they are coming through!

Like most trackside dwellers we sleep through it all but know a train is passing. 

What discretion (if any) are crews given when crossings are so close that the standard long-long-short-long horn sounding just isn't practical?

Note: Some of you guys are downright talented on how you sound your horns through town. An absolute melody. 

Chuck



 

Last time I looked up the FRA horn rule, it was about 56 pages, so yes there are regulation for the horn and bell. I got pulled out of service one time because I quit the horn half way through a road crossing on double track, with another train going over the crossing the opposite direction on the other track, and gates down. It was BS, local chairman got me marked up the next day, horn didn't show up on the tape from the 2nd unit !

~ Mr. MRL

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RailDawg Wrote:
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> It's interesting to listen to how various crews make their way through town. You start to catch individual techniques over time.  

The rails closest to my home (audible at night) have at least three different groups of engineers due to trackage rights. The foreign crews seem to be the noisiest with Amtrak (traveling the fastest at 79 MPH through town) also making plenty of noise. The crossings are fairly well spaced so we don't have the issue of needing to blow for the next crossing before crossing the current one. There is a stretch of track in a nearby town with multiple crossings within a half mile. The city is working on getting that stretch to be part of a quiet zone.

Street running poses an interesting challenge ... in my experience usually answered by a series of toots when the engineer reaches cross streets or sees a driver/pedestrian that needs a reminder that a train is present.

Actually there is some discretion. Most engineers through MY hometown do NOT use it! Two longs a short and a long can be three seconds, three seconds, one second, three seconds, or ten seconds, ten seconds, five seconds, ten seconds. YOUR discretion. I often used my discretion in the middle of the night. Some have no sense of discretion.
JB

You can use discretion these days until the day you nail something or someone at a crossing. Then your discretion will get nickpicked to death in your "fair and impartial" investigation. Not worth it.

I was caught by a RFE and FRA man using discretion going over 4 crossings in a half mile at 10mph. All but one has gates. Did not have investigation. The previous poster said about the fair and impartial hearing in court you would get . After that I tried to wake the dead.

Sam

I blew the full cadence for every public crossing I approached no matter how closely together they were located, even going though downtown Eugene (Oregon) at 0300 where there are 10 crossing within 1-1/2 miles. If we hit a car I wanted that horn to show on the tape and I especially didn't want some lawyer to get a win against the company on a technicality over me not blowing the horn correctly.

In Fresno at Biola Junction the city built a overpass then closed the crossing gates and UP still blowing the whissle for no reason

stevenlsilva Wrote:
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> In Fresno at Biola Junction the city built a
> overpass then closed the crossing gates and UP
> still blowing the whissle for no reason

Just because a crosssing has been physically removed doesn't mean you can just stop blowing the horn for it. It has to be formally decommissioned by the FRA/DOT and removed from PTC. Then, and only then, you can stop blowing for it.

There was a place where a crossing was removed but the RR didn't remove the trackside "X's" for six months. 

Crews blew for the crossing until the "X's" were removed.  

Chuck

For years in my town I'm sure one of the UP engineers had family, as every time they passed over the long trestle that flies over the town he would blow the horn the whole way in random patterns, even at 2am. As an employee & fan, I enjoyed hearing it, but I'm sure I was in the minority. 

I was chatting with an engineer about this. He made the first blast a full one, to ensure that it appeared on the log. Subsequent soundings [ at night ] he would 'quill' the horn.
...Lorenzo

trainjunkie Wrote:
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> You can use discretion these days until the day
> you nail something or someone at a crossing. Then
> your discretion will get nickpicked to death in
> your "fair and impartial" investigation. Not worth
> it.

This!! Sorry if the train wakes you up.

Its pretty simple....you follow the rules. You use the horn properly unless there is a "no horn ordinance" in place......

Posted from Android

I have seen some guys that will do the one real blast, and succeeding blasts are shorter/quieter.  

Except more often then not the data log will not pickup those short blasts, and it will show as nothing....