Originally Posted by
B. Carfree
Based on what's happening locally, I think you may have misinterpreted what's going on with those crossing changes and who is paying for them. In my city, we have a series of ten crossings, seven of which go through my neighborhood with three in the next neighborhood over. Some people who live twenty to forty blocks away as well as some developers in the neighborhood with three crossings don't like the train horns. The horns are well over 100 decibels and each crossing gets two long, one short and another long blast of horn. With about thirty to fifty trains per day, the thousand-odd blasts are noticeable. (Oddly, the people in the neighborhood with seven of the crossings aren't bothered by the horns.)
In my city there are 7 crossings in less than a mile and the 40+ coal trains/day are never going faster than 10 mph in order to navigate two 90° change of directions on this side of the Mississippi River bridge. Prior to the city making the expensive road changes there was a constant 100+db din for almost the entire time as each and every engine cleared every crossing, 24/7. I live 2 miles from downtown and I find it hard to believe that anybody in the neighborhood of this noise, unless stone deaf, was not "bothered."