Eastern Railroad Discussion > Class-action lawsuit against NS at Moorman Yard: noise pollution

Hasn't this retarder noise been happening for decades even before the yard was expanded a couple years ago? Obviously with more cars being humped now the noise will be more frequent but it shouldn't be louder unless the newly installed retarders are closer to residences. What kind of retarder noise abatement options exist - a berm or wall around the yard? I'm guessing lubricating the retarder "brakes" isn't an option! :-)

http://www.sanduskyregister.com/story/201703170035

Ironically, Bellevue has been a railroad town forever with the RR employing residents and paying real estate taxes. Oh well....

Geez, wish I had that problem....Music to my ears.....

It does say in the article that people were ok with the noise before the rebuild. It wasnt as bad. So maybe there a design change in the new retarders that is the problem? It does seam to be a balanced article. Also doesnt seam to be presented as a snowflake/nimby thing. But a legitimate issue. It doesnt say if there have been previous attempts at resolution to the issue. Unless I missed that part.

JPB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hasn't this retarder noise been happening for
> decades even before the yard was expanded a couple
> years ago? Obviously with more cars being humped
> now the noise will be more frequent but it
> shouldn't be louder unless the newly installed
> retarders are closer to residences. What kind of
> retarder noise abatement options exist - a berm or
> wall around the yard? I'm guessing lubricating the
> retarder "brakes" isn't an option! :-)
>
> http://www.sanduskyregister.com/story/201703170035
>
>
> Ironically, Bellevue has been a railroad town
> forever with the RR employing residents and paying
> real estate taxes. Oh well....


================================================================================================================================

Its more important to find out if they installed new retarders or rebuilt the type of retarder they use be it Hydraulic, Pneumatic or Skate Retarders.
They have installed Noise Barrier Walls in hump and sorting yards in Europe to counter the noise made by the railcars shunted in and out of the yards as well as the
noise from locomotives.

Apparently they did not consider or would not build a concrete barrier wall or decided it was too costly an option to deflect the noise back across the hump
yard and away from the homes nearby.


 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/17 11:44 by leonz.

Has made the local TV news on several different channels. It's a noise that no one should be forced to listen to.

Posted from iPhone

Many places have noise ordinances described in decibels for exactly that reason.  If the activity falls under the limit, fine. If it exceeds the limit, they have to cease or reduce it.

So, this one with the sensitive hearing won't complain when a band tunes up a mile away.  In many cases, construction / building permits are issued on the basis that noise will not exceed a given threshold for some period of time. In my former town, there was a lower limit which kicked in after 10 pm

Although I'm not sure I'm allowed to post an actual link, search the video site that shall not be named for "classification hump yard" if you want to hear the noise in question.  The characteristic squeal can easily fall into the "grating" category.

In some ways I do not understand this issue. It has been almost a decade since a friend drove me over the Route 4 overpass just East of the Bellevue hump. At that time the new yard had not begun, and there was nothing but farmland about as far as you could see in any direction. It was not until we took some road on the south side next to the yard, that we saw any real housing community at the west end of the yard. Knowing things can change a lot in a decade, I went to Google Earth 2016 images. The new hump yard was built south of the old one and it clearly show of Google. The whole area around It still shows as farmland (not much different from what I remember from 10 years ago) with the only small cluster of homes about 2/3 a mile south of all the humps and retarders. No new housing developments show near the hump portion of the yard. The nearest place with a lot of houses is the west end of Bullevue in the city, about 2 miles to the west; same as it was then. All five of the major transport forms have an imprint on the earth, and all are visible and can make noise except pipelines. and they have their own problems as we know. Situtional wareness is essential when choosing a place to live. if you are impanted there due to family history, and things change, you have to deal with it or move. I'd guess 98% of the country is not affected by noise or polution from any transport mode.

JPB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hasn't this retarder noise been happening for
> decades even before the yard was expanded a couple
> years ago? Obviously with more cars being humped
> now the noise will be more frequent but it
> shouldn't be louder unless the newly installed
> retarders are closer to residences. What kind of
> retarder noise abatement options exist - a berm or
> wall around the yard? I'm guessing lubricating the
> retarder "brakes" isn't an option! :-)
>
> http://www.sanduskyregister.com/story/201703170035
>
>
> Ironically, Bellevue has been a railroad town
> forever with the RR employing residents and paying
> real estate taxes. Oh well....

They tried that at Selkirk too and were rebuffed....this one will fail as well....if you do not like the noise....MOVE!!!!

I blame real estate agents who are hot for a sale who lie about the level of noise from nearby railroads to close a sale...when I looked at property near a rail line to lease new office space for us - the real estate agent told me the railroads were "dead" nowdays and seldom ran any trains...." nobody uses trains anymore"...direct quote and this was in eastern MA, west of Worcester,  along the CSX B&A main :)  So I informed him of just how wrong he was about this particular stretch of railroad and his only comment was "geez just dont tell anybody ok???"

Sue whoever sold you the house....or blame your own stupidity for thinking you can somehow stop interstate commerce.....just so you can sleep at night...

Bob

 

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Many places have noise ordinances described in
> decibels for exactly that reason.  If the
> activity falls under the limit, fine. If it
> exceeds the limit, they have to cease or reduce
> it.

Being interstate commerce, railroad noise is governed by 49 CFR 210.33 and 49 CFR 210 Appendix A. Active retarders are limited to 83 dB at the property receiving the sound.

The current regulations game going on in the federal government may initiate an interesting twist. Lacking federal regulation for a given issue, that issue could become the domain of local courts and may present interesting and perhaps suboptimal outcomes (speaking from the point of view of participating in the local speed limits for BN in a couple of dozen towns and cities in Washington).

TAW

TAW Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Lackawanna484 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Many places have noise ordinances described in
> > decibels for exactly that reason.  If the
> > activity falls under the limit, fine. If it
> > exceeds the limit, they have to cease or reduce
> > it.
>
> Being interstate commerce, railroad noise is
> governed by 49 CFR 210.33 and 49 CFR 210 Appendix
> A. Active retarders are limited to 83 dB at the
> property receiving the sound.
>
> The current regulations game going on in the
> federal government may initiate an interesting
> twist. Lacking federal regulation for a given
> issue, that issue could become the domain of local
> courts and may present interesting and perhaps
> suboptimal outcomes (speaking from the point of
> view of participating in the local speed limits
> for BN in a couple of dozen towns and cities in
> Washington).
>
> TAW

Agreed.  My interest was whether the railroad represented at the time of the building / construction permit that the sound level, measured at the prescribed distance, would (also) be compliant with the town's or state's code.  The EIS and construction work would be subject to the interweave of federal, state, and local rules, I believe.

I do wonder who these complaining people are, and where they live. That seems a curious situation.

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Agreed.  My interest was whether the railroad
> represented at the time of the building /
> construction permit that the sound level, measured
> at the prescribed distance, would (also) be
> compliant with the town's or state's code. 

There are some local jurisdictions here that pushed for wayside horns in order to eliminate the locomotive horn noise. Now, the sound affects a different group of people. They are complaining because of the change in condition rather than the existance of the railroad, as is the case with the changes in the yard in question.

> The
> EIS and construction work would be subject to the
> interweave of federal, state, and local rules, I
> believe.

...to a degree. I haver a lot of difficulty with agencies when I'm working on an EIS and must explain to them what they can and cannot control. They don't want to hear the cannot part. Once upon a time, an agency did not believe what I told them, so they hired a big time lawyer who, I'm sure, bills a lot more than me...to tell them that I was right and they had to live with it.

>
> I do wonder who these complaining people are, and
> where they live. That seems a curious situation.

It does, especially given the descriptions in other postings in the thread. I will be pretty simple to show up at the complaining properties and measure. If the level is 83 dB or less, those folks are stuck with it. Perhaps, these folks heard nothing before and hear something now and feel that the difference between nothing and something is unacceptable.

TAW

The NS no comment statement tells it all for sure. We had the issue of locomotives left idleing at low idle for days in the southern sidings in the City of Ithaca by a the Nates Estates trailer Park where many people livethe year round. When the weather was completely still in the valley floor the fumes would just hang there and they would drift over the trailer park for days at a time.

The city had recieved may complains and it also ended up being discussed in the Ithaca Journal newspaper and NS has either left the locomotives parked on the local sidings equipped with the Hot Start Engine Systems to keep them warm in the yard with much less diesel exhaust fumes when they leave them there for short periods

Now they dont leave locomotives there unless the crews goes out on time as its many days before 40 car salt loads and 40 empties are moved in and out of the sidings and the 100 plus car unit train coal loads for the Reisling LLC power plant are few and far between.  They have to bring the 40 car salt loads to the Myers,New York siding and open the switch there to pull the loads into the Myers siding, set the brakes on the salt loads and uncouple the locomotives and the FRED then travel to the north switch and open it to re enter the  Ithaca secondary line then close the switch again and then travel south to the south switch, travel past it and then open it again to back into the siding to recouple to salt loads, hook up the FRED do a brake test and then pull the 40 car loads out of the siding. After the last car clears the switch it is closed and then they head south through all the railroad crossings without lights or gates until they reach Ithaca where thet pass through the Willow Avenue crossing that has gates and then through the four sidings that have lights but no gates and then exit the city limits and travel to the point where there is a lit crossing on the Town of Newfield and Town of Spencer and If my memory is correct it has lit crossing gates- I have not traveled that way in two plus years). From there they travel to Horseheads, New York  and then on to Corning, New York and then to Sayre, PA and beyond.

The coal loads coming to the Reisling LLC power plant travel the same route but the empties are parked in the two 50 car sidings on the north side of the power plant property and the locomotives simply make two switching moves to retrieve them after they push the 100 plus coal loads into the recieving tracks south of the rotary car dumper building by backing out of the two loaded car sidings and traveling north past the rotary car dumper building to then switch out the 100 empties on the two tracks on the north end of the property. When I was temporary there they were still running with cabooses and they would quite often switch and couple the caboose to the locomotives first after they pushed in the two loaded strings of coal loads and then switch out the empties with the caboose coupled to the locomotives in two moves. 

  .  
 
   

I once lived about 1 mile away from Conrail's Newark DE flat switching yard and in the wee hours of the morning while I was studying the banging from the switching ops was pretty loud. Later I moved to a place a few hundred feet from the same yard and there was no noise all night long.

Posted from iPhone

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> TAW Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Lackawanna484 Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > Many places have noise ordinances described
> in
> > > decibels for exactly that reason.  If the
> > > activity falls under the limit, fine. If it
> > > exceeds the limit, they have to cease or
> reduce
> > > it.
> >
> > Being interstate commerce, railroad noise is
> > governed by 49 CFR 210.33 and 49 CFR 210
> Appendix
> > A. Active retarders are limited to 83 dB at the
> > property receiving the sound.
> >
> > The current regulations game going on in the
> > federal government may initiate an interesting
> > twist. Lacking federal regulation for a given
> > issue, that issue could become the domain of
> local
> > courts and may present interesting and perhaps
> > suboptimal outcomes (speaking from the point of
> > view of participating in the local speed limits
> > for BN in a couple of dozen towns and cities in
> > Washington).
> >
> > TAW
>
> Agreed.  My interest was whether the railroad
> represented at the time of the building /
> construction permit that the sound level, measured
> at the prescribed distance, would (also) be
> compliant with the town's or state's code.  The
> EIS and construction work would be subject to the
> interweave of federal, state, and local rules, I
> believe.
>
> I do wonder who these complaining people are, and
> where they live. That seems a curious situation.

To answer your question as to where they live, another article in the Sandusky Register months ago indicated that they live on State Route 113, which is just South of the yard.  Basically, the first road South of the yard.  Most of the houses on that road predate the original yard, but several are new.

While driving past since the new hump yard was built, I occasionally hear the retarders, even with my car moving and windows closed.  I am pretty sure I never did before the second hump was built.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/17 13:39 by mdogg.