Never Forget This

Here is something for all of us to remember: NEVER BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ IN THE NEWSPAPER! Logically, the same holds true for radio and television as well. Why am I offering this reminder? I'll tell ya.
There have only been about a dozen times in my life when I've been personally knowledgeable about an event which was reported in the news. Every time, EVERY TIME! - SOMETHING IN THE REPORT WAS WRONG. The errors don't have to be significant but any error casts a shadow of doubt on the entire article!
Last Tuesday, one of our local reporters interviewed me for a story about my effort to silence train horns in our neighborhood. Based on my previous experience with erroneous reports, I gave the reporter several pages of factual information that he could refer to when writing the story. During the interview, the reporter noticed the airplane logo on my cap. When I explained that wifey and I had been controllers, he immediately forgot about train horns and started talking about airplanes! (He is a pilot and we all know how pilots love to talk about airplanes.) Well, when the story came out in yesterday's paper - not surprisingly - there were several errors. Here is the article with my comments/edits in parentheses:
“When I heard the train go by the first time I loved it,” said (wifey), who moved into a new Harborside Avenue house with her husband (me) last year.
”When they cross Bell Road and Hughes it’s like one long blast, and in the middle of the night it’s almost impossible to sleep.” (It's bad enough that wifey didn't make these comments in the first place, but these two paragraphs totally contradict each other!)
Relief may be at hand. The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) issued a rule on the use of locomotive horns at highway-rail grade crossing that allows communities to establish half-mile long quiet zones through residential neighborhoods as long as certain safety conditions are met.

The rule was issued in June, 2005, and specifies that trains traveling at 45 m.p.h. or below are required to sound their horns for 15 seconds before the lead locomotive enters the crossing. Trains traveling faster than 45 m.p.h. have always been required to blow their horns. (Huh? The first sentence implies that trains traveling less than 45 weren't previously required to blow their horns at all! All trains are required to blow their horns! The new rule says engineers should start blowing at least 15 seconds BUT NOT MORE THAN 20 SECONDS before entering the crossing.) According to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) website, “the operator should continue blowing the whistle [horn] until the lead locomotive passes through the crossing.”

However, by equipping the crossing with flashing lights and gates, power out indicators and constant warning time in the track circuitry, operators would be allowed to move through a crossing without sounding their horns at all. (Not entirely correct. The safety equipment listed is the minimum rrequired and adequate ONLY at lightly used crossings. MOST crossings require additional safety measures before horns can be suspended) The rule absolves the engineer of liability should a train-vehicle collision occur in an established quiet zone with all safety measures intact and working.

The FRA rates crossings by factors such as the amount of vehicle and train traffic, accident history, types of vehicles, speed that the trains travel and so on. If an intersection rates too high then additional measures must be taken, such as four quadrant gates, median dividers to prevent people from driving around the gates and wayside horns that sound like trains but are focused toward on-coming traffic, reducing their noise in the surrounding area by 98 percent.
Representatives of BNSF, the FRA, the State Department of Transportation and the city met Monday (Tuesday, actually) afternoon to talk about establishing three crossings as quiet zones, or at least putting in quieter (wayside) horns. “The primary consideration is safety,” said Chris Adams, grade crossing and trespass prevention manager for the FRA. When she first looked at the Marine Drive crossing she said “This is perfect for a wayside horn.”
At $75,000 apiece the devices aren’t cheap. “It would run into six figures to equip all the intersections here,” said John Shurson, BNSF’s assistant director of public projects, “and the engineer, of course, has the prerogative to blow his horn as long as he likes if he sees danger ahead.”
Both (wifey and I) worked for the Federal Aviation Industry (Huh? The F.R.I?!!) as air traffic controllers and know a bit about working through the system. (Me) has been working with city officials to establish the quiet zones for the Bell Road and Hughes Avenue crossings and helped bring about Tuesday’s meeting. “We knew there was a train here when we bought the house, (I) said, “[but the horns] are an unnecessary intrusion and unreasonably disruptive to our neighborhood’s peace and quiet. The [new] ruling may provide a solution.” (Not completely accurate. I said, "We knew the trains were here when we built the house so I was reluctant to complain at first. I didn't want to sound like the guy who builds a house next to an airport then complains about jet noise. Then it occurred to me, if a stop sign is adequate warning to keep me from pulling out in front of a 150,000 pound truck going 65 miles per hour down the highway, why must everybody within a 2-mile radius of a railroad crossing - that is equipped with signs, lights, gates, and bells - be subjected to 20-seconds of ear-splitting train horn noise from a freight going 10 miles per hour through an empty crossing? That's when it became clear that the horns are an unnecessary intrusion and unreasonably disruptive.")

BNSF will be implementing the horn rule on December 15. (What does that mean? The train horn rule was implemented in June of 2005! Is the reporter suggesting that BNSF is going to stop sounding their horns TODAY?!! NOT TRUE!)

That's the end of the article. I'm embarrassed to have my name attached to it. Oh well. People have short memories... I hope.