WINDSOR — After more than a year of work, the trains will finally be quiet when traveling through Windsor.
Town officials started the process to form a quiet zone in September 2015 and after completing the final steps in the certification process, the quiet zone goes into effect at 12:01 a.m. Dec. 27. That means trains rolling through town won’t blow their horns, except in an emergency.
With a Federal Railroad Administration requirement for trains to sound their horns for 15-20 seconds before reaching crossings as a warning and 14 crossings in town, the trains created a lot of noise, said Desa Blair, the quiet zone project engineer.
About six years ago, town staff and officials started receiving complaints about the noise. The issue grew as officials got more complaints with increasing frequency and intensity. “The town was getting calls on a pretty regular basis, so we started looking for solutions,” Windsor Mayor Kristie Melendez said.
To achieve a quiet zone designation, the town worked through an extensive certification process that included safety upgrades at 13 crossings — the 14th crossing already met the necessary standards and received a $3.3 million federal grant to complete the project.
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