Tuesday night, Aug. 16, Brian Martin, Asst. City Engineer, explained that after the passage of the Streets and Bridges bond measure in 2009 the City Council approved safety improvements to 10 UP crossings that would allow the City to institute a quiet zone where trains would not be required to blow their horns at every...

The following is the September update concerning progress on the Railroad Crossing Safety Project, PN 709521.  During the month of August, substantial progress was made on the project. -  WH Pacific was selected and a purchase order release issued to them for survey, design services, traffic signal modification services, and railroad crossing application support. - ...

Excitement abounds in my house tonight!  Tonight the City Council passed by a vote of 8-1 to proceed with development of a Quiet Zone.  Although most of the discussion was that the city was creating safer crossings, once the crossings are made safer, these crossings will qualify as a QZ and the trains will no...

Below is the recommendation that is going to City Council on Monday night.  Your attendance at the meeting would be helpful, although I’m feeling pretty good about the reception our recommendation will receive.  Brief, polite emails to the Council would be good but remember the blowing of horns is a federal law and the only...

Today was a very successful Wayside Train Horn demonstration at the North High parking lot next to the Union Pacific crossing at D Street.  I have placed a few pictures here. In the above picture, you will see a grey box that the man in orange in the bucket on the truck is holding.  That is...

According to Tony C. Martin, P.E. the Assistant City Traffic Engineer: Quiet Zone Technologies will be in the area next week and will demonstrate the Wayside Horn.  This will give us opportunity to evaluate it as an option to quiet the train horns and make a “quieter zone” in the City. We will be conducting...

Why do we say “Make our rail crossings safer, stop the train horns?” Because train horns when blown constantly become “ambient” noise. We get used to them or ignore them just as we ignore car alarms that go off all the time. Restricting train horns to emergency use only will cause us to pay more...

Federal Railroad Administration FRA Horn Rule Flowchart for creating a quiet zone List of current U.S. quiet zones Portland Westside Rail quiet zones

In November, the city passed a bond measure that included funds to develop what they called a “railroad safety zone,” or a Quiet Zone. From about 1984 to 1994, Salem had a “quiet zone.” Trains that ran on the main north south line through Salem were not required to sound their horn prior to every...

Public Works presentation of “Railroad Crossing Safety Improvement Projects.” (Large pdf file)

City Council votes to begin development of Union Pacific rail line Quiet Zone in 2010

Voters approve a bond measure which includes $1.1 million for “Railroad Safety Improvements”