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Quiet railroad crossings cheered

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By Jenna Staul, Staff Writer Updated 7:16 PM Friday, July 24, 2009

SPRINGFIELD — City and business officials came together Friday, July 24, to officially mark Springfield’s newly instated railroad “quiet zone.”

Trains stopped sounding their horns in the city earlier this week, making the Springfield the first in Ohio to substitute safety upgrades at rail crossings for the blaring of a train’s horn.

“What a great day it is in the city of Springfield,” Mayor Warren Copeland said at the dedication ceremony, held along the North Limestone Street rail crossing. “May we enjoy the trains without the noise or the risk.”

Copeland cut a blue ribbon stretched across the tracks in honor of the city’s milestone.

In place of a train’s horn as a safety device, some crossings have been fitted with four-quadrant lights and gate installations that keep vehicles from crossing the tracks as a train nears. Other crossings have been equipped with upgraded signal technology and wayside horns that focus alert noise directly at drivers on the road. Five crossings in the city have been closed. In all, 23 grade-level railroad crossings in the have been upgraded.

“It’s state of the art,” Thomas B. McOwen, vice president of the Ohio Rail Development Commission, said of the railroad crossing technology installed throughout the city. “In the old days, the gate would just come down, and it might be two seconds or two minutes before the train comes.

“As a matter of safety, it gives drivers the confidence that a train is coming within seconds,” he said.

City businesses also have expressed relief now that the bellow of a train’s horn is a thing of the past downtown, said Maureen Fagans, executive director of the Center City Association.

“Well, one of the things I’ve heard is that (downtown employees) can conduct a phone conversation without having to apologize for the noise,” she said. “I heard from people who noticed the difference as early as Monday afternoon — the day the quiet zone went into affect.”

The costs of the $5.7 million project, which has been in the making for nearly 10 years, was shared by Norfolk Southern railway, the Ohio Rail Development Commission and the Transportation Coordinating Committee.

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