Bus drivers making noise about quiet zone plan
By Jo Ann Hustis
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jhustis@morrisdailyherald.com
COAL CITY — Not everyone is on track for having fewer train whistles echoing through the village.
“The only things we’ve got going for us as bus drivers is hearing that horn,” a school bus driver – one of a group – told the Coal City Village Council last week. “We can’t see the trains approaching at some of the railroad crossings.”
She and several others voiced their concerns over the council’s move to permanently close at least three grade crossings, and to establish quiet zones at other crossings throughout the village, beginning at the Burlington-Northern-Santa Fe crossing at Carbon Hill Road.
The council’s action is prompted by the number of freight trains whistling their warnings as they approach and go over each crossing.
Until the last year or so, an average of 85 to 90 freight trains roared through the village daily. The number is down to 72 trains per day this year – a 14 percent decrease that Coal City Mayor Neal Nelson attributed Monday to the nation’s economic recession.
The drivers reminded the council of the recent incident in which the warning gates came down on the hood of a local school bus at a railroad crossing in the village.
No one was injured, but the group was concerned about other possible incidents if the quiet zones are establishing.
A 2005 federal ruling allows communities nationwide the chance to establish quiet zones, providing the communities equip the grade crossings with adequate safety measures to make up for silencing the train whistles.
The ruling prohibits trains from sounding warning whistles in quiet zones, thus decreasing the noise level in affected residential communities like Coal City. Alternate safety measures must be taken to compensate for railroad quiet zones, however.
The community must construct the safety measures to federal specifications at its own expense. Also, the ruling for the first time restricts the noise volume of train whistles.
Nelson said the safety measures in some grade crossings in quiet zones include traffic barriers in the center of the street to prevent vehicles from going onto the tracks as a train approaches.
Another driver told the council the village would be gambling with an automatic mechanism to bring down the warning gate at a crossing.
“One of our safety features is hearing that whistle,” said a driver.
Another said he has lived adjacent to a set of railroad tracks for 20 years.
“It doesn’t bother me,” he said of the whistles. “You should be used to them by now.”
Nelson said the community will work with the BNSF to make sure the safety measures are put in place. To which a driver said her main concern is the children on her bus.
“I want to get them back to their parents the same way they were when they were put on my bus,” she said.
Village Administrator Matt Fritz contacted BNSF headquarters in Minneapolis by letter last Tuesday, saying the village and railroad have participated in the planned closing of the Oak Street crossing. The closing is to be settled at a hearing next month.
The council also wants to close two other grade crossings, including that on Lincoln Street at Division Street (Illinois 113), and at either Kankakee or Mazon streets.
Fritz is asking the railroad to financially compensate the village for the closures. The compensation, he said, would supply the funds needed to construct the quiet zones. He indicated the compensation could amount to more than $100,000.
Additionally, the village is asking the BNSF to pay for a drainage study for much-needed drainage improvements throughout the community.
The railroad tracks divide drainage areas in Coal City, and lead to further infrastructure expense to accommodate the BNSF’s presence in the village.
The cost of the study is estimated at $14,650.
Last spring, village voters approved a $6 million referendum to develop infrastructure to help reduce flooding in the community.
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