CASTLE ROCK —Castle Rock Town Council is mulling options to quiet a few railroad crossings and bring some noise relief to nearby residents.
In 2006, the Federal Railroad Administration passed new rules allowing jurisdictions to implement railroad quiet zones as long as they provided an extra set of gates at railroad crossings to prevent trains from hitting cars. The town is looking at the option for the railroad crossings at Second and Third Street, but each gate can cost $300,000-$400,000. With the gates in place, train engineers would be instructed to not blare their horn when going through a crossing.
Bob Watts, transportation manager for the town, said residents in the Craig and Gould neighborhoods and businesses downtown have complained about the loud horn at the Second, Third and Fifth Street crossings, which must project 100 decibels 100 feet ahead of the crossing for safety reasons. A second set of gates, so a driver can’t try to drive around to the other side, would not be necessary at the Fifth Street crossing.
Installation of the gates would take about 12-18 months. Watts said the train engineer could still sound the horn if there was eminent danger ahead.
The town is looking into possibly installing a wayside horn at each crossing that would be much quieter, about 80-90 decibels. These would be installed at the crossing and a passing train would activate it. Each horn costs about $100,000, Watts said.
“The good thing about the wayside horn is you can focus the sound on the pavement and not just the nearby area so once you get away from the road you start to hear a dramatic drop in volume,” Watts said.
On July 25, the town held a demonstration of the horn for council and recorded it at 93 decibels, quieter than the 106 decibels they recorded for the current horn.
Watts said council has given staff no direction, but staff hopes to present the options later this month.
Clayton Woullard: 303-954-2953, cwoullard@denverpost.com or
