Advocacy & Safety - Screw if a car honks, what if it's a train...

Where I ride, it's parallel to a BNSF coal route right next to the road. I got the wise idea this morning to wave at the locomotive as it went by. Needless to say when he replied it nearly knocked me off my bike. I saw he got a laugh out of it, so it was all worth it.

It also works on 18 wheel trucks.
Enjoy your ride.

A non-muffled Nathan K5LA or Leslie S3L air horn is a force to be reckoned with. Takes a bit to get used to, though it isn't startling if you've been around railroads for a while.

-Kurt

P.S.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_horn

Definitely pull over and plug your ears if you can, train horns can cause permanent hearing damage.

Definitely pull over and plug your ears if you can, train horns can cause permanent hearing damage.

Wouldn't worry that much about it. Unless you are particularly direct in your path with the horn (provided, of course, that it does not have any silencers/baffles on it - in which case, it would be less piercing), you should be reasonably fine (and for California folk, beware of Amtrak California double-decker cab cars - they've got their K5LA's mounted right up front at the height of one's head).

Prolonged exposure is another thing, but you're not in the cab of these machines either.

-Kurt

After having spent way too much time working around chainsaws, I feel pretty safe assuming a train whistle or two isn't going to make this issue any worse. Make ya jump though.

Most of my commute runs along the CSX tracks, so hearing train horns is par for the course. The upside is, when a motorist honks at you trying to scare you, you're unfazed and merely look at the driver like they're an idiot. :D

Most of my commute runs along the CSX tracks, so hearing train horns is par for the course. The upside is, when a motorist honks at you trying to scare you, you're unfazed and merely look at the driver like they're an idiot. :D

:lol:

Railfanning while cycle commuting? That's the life. :D

-Kurt

Definitely pull over and plug your ears if you can, train horns can cause permanent hearing damage.

mom? is that you?

Where I ride, it's parallel to a BNSF coal route right next to the road. I got the wise idea this morning to wave at the locomotive as it went by. Needless to say when he replied it nearly knocked me off my bike. I saw he got a laugh out of it, so it was all worth it.

That BNSF coal route comes right through Burlington which has about 7 at grade crossings. 48 trains/day (24 each way). The sound intensity of train horns is no surprise to anyone around here. My bike route is parallel to the route for about 6 miles; short of being deaf, NOTHING can shut that horn noise out except great distance from it.

mom? is that you?

No, just the head representative of Safety Nannies Inc.

-Kurt

:lol:

Railfanning while cycle commuting? That's the life. :D

-Kurt

Check out my commute (http://picasaweb.google.com/eric.speas/RailroadCommute#).

A non-muffled Nathan K5LA or Leslie S3L air horn is a force to be reckoned with. Takes a bit to get used to, though it isn't startling if you've been around railroads for a while.

-Kurt

P.S.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_horn

Ship horns FTW. ;)

http://www.shiphorns.com/media/

(personal favorite clip: Cunningham Air Whistle 6B, seventh from the bottom on the left side with an animated gif preview)

Wave the train around, it is my right to take the track!

I don't react at all. I prefer to think they are just letting me know they are about to overtake me. I don't find the wailing of a train horn on a railway startling at all, if I were seated at a booth in a restaurant, and some joker touched off a train horn horn behind me, then the gloves are off! :)

Beware of jacked-up trucks with those horns connected up to the distance-sensor on their car alarm. Had that happen to me once (to top it off, it was an out-of-tune Leslie S3L).

I was tempted to surround that truck with shopping carts, had I some earmuffs on hand. Figured it would either use up all the air in his compressor, or get him kicked out of the parking lot.

-Kurt