Brightline trains to blow horns a few more months

Broward County residents and businesses along the Florida East Coast railroad tracks will probably be hearing Brightline and freight train horns through the end of the year now that the implementation of Quiet Zones has been delayed.

Safety improvements at railroad crossings were promised by the summer so that train engineers would no longer have to sound their horns at least four times at every crossing.

Now, Adrian Share, the executive vice president for Rail Infrastructure, has told the Broward Metropolitan Planning Organization that due to “unforeseen engineering circumstances” larger gate houses need to be custom built, delivered, and installed at crossings with four-quadrant

crossing gates and that is scheduled to be completed by November.

Gate houses are the large silver-gray metal boxes housing the necessary electronics to operate the gates at railroad crossings.

Crossings that have gates on both sides of the tracks in both directions of the intersecting roadways are called four-quadrant gates and they require larger gate houses for the proper operation of the gates, officials said.

Residents who live near the tracks have long complained about the frequent train horns.

“I’m being woken up by the train eight to 10 times per night now,” said Lars Heldre, who lives near the tracks in Delray Beach.

Brightline is increasing its weekday schedule on Monday from 11 to 16 round trips. That means any one railroad crossing will have 32 Brightline trains passing through it Monday through Friday between 5:30 a.m. and 11:10 p.m. Add to that about a dozen freight trains that travel those same tracks mostly overnight.

Quiet zones have been implemented at almost all railroad crossings between Boca Raton and West Palm Beach including additional safety upgrades that have been completed in Boynton Beach, Brightline officials said.

Those upgrades were enhanced after the deaths of a woman on foot and a man on a bicycle crossing the tracks by going around the closed gates in Boynton Beach.

Adding safety features that make it difficult for vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians to go under or around the closed railroad crossing gates will end the need for train engineers to sound their horns as a warning at every crossing.

Cities and federal authorities have to approve the safety improvements before the crossing is designated a quiet zone.

Engineers can still sound their horns if someone or something is on the tracks.

Train horns can blast up to 110 decibels for 20 seconds as they roll through about 200 railroad crossings between Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.

Federal law requires train engineers to sound their horns — two long blasts followed by a short blast then a long blast — about 1,000 feet before reaching each crossing, day and night. The acceptable range is between 96 and 110 decibels, which is roughly equivalent to standing about 3 feet from a lawn mower.

Some newer train engines have horns with a higher pitch and frequency that may sound louder, but railroad officials said they still fall within the 96 to 110 decibel range.