Friday, April 10, 2015

Federal Railway Admin. confirms FEC train horns OK

No big surprise here. Now on to the issue of quiet zones which will takes years to work out. Kimberly Miller has the article on the train horn volume today; here's an excerpt:
     The Federal Railroad Administration confirmed Thursday that horns on new locomotives being used by Florida East Coast Railway are sounding well within required guidelines at 103.6 decibels.
     Engineers from the Federal Railroad Administration performed tests on the horns this week following dozens of complaints from residents living along the FEC corridor that train horn noise has increased with the addition of 24 new GE locomotives to the line in December.
     FEC announced the 103.6 decibel level on its website, but did not respond to questions about the level of noise produced by the company’s older locomotives. Palm Beach Post public records requests to FRA for its decibel level report and noise complaint information have not been filled.