Crossing signal or not?

Many communities have quite zones around crossings.

I live on Long Island near the LIRR main line through Mineola. Most engineers comply with the 2-1-1 sequence but some to get a bit carried away. The LIRR is eliminating all of the crossings through this area so the noise will end one day.

Liked mentioned,some towns/municipalities/villages , adopt "no blow" or "quiet zones".

But not all crossings are designated to blow because of being considered a private crossing and the law allows for the crews to not blow for that crossing, and they are not marked with a whistle board.

And yes the standard procedure is two long a short and a long for a horn signal at a marked road crossing.

There's a whole Federal timed sequence to blowing for crossing according to approach speed also. And the automatic feature that's programmed into the PTC of locomotives equipped with PTC , will start to sound the horn if the Engineer fails to manually blow the horn on designated crossing such as public crossings that are marked with whistle boards.  

Regarding older videos, Many times the video was recorded without sound.  Sound was then dubbed to the video for production.  Often the sounds were taken from a library of recordings and matched to the video as best as possible.  Sometimes little regard was given to matching the sounds to the video.  I have watched videos where trains blasted through multiple small town crossings without so much as a peep from the horn.  On the other hand I have watched videos where a train passing through a cow pasture is sounding the grade crossing sequence, repeatedly.

Tom

I notice those crossing whistle/horn-blowing issues also, but the ones that really bug me, are the old western-themed movies that have the steam whistle blowing in the middle of nowhere (like deserts with no roads, or no cattle or wildlife) & many times at night in the middle of nowhere.  I guess the director just likes to hear it... A lot! 
D.

A few of the local crossings seem to nighttime limited now.. but not the closest to me ("mine"). I used to get a "soft warning because I could hear two crossings away from mine. Now I just get the " loud one"; and it's startling.

The old "pattern" -2 soft commin', mine, 2 soft goin'; around midnight, had put me "fully" to sleep for decades. Now I get rudely woken up by it  

I'd rather have limited neighborhood weed whipper / lawnmower hours/days ... 

Then maybe they wouldn't  be stressed bad enough to even notice those age-old train horns 

Several years ago, Western Pennsylvania saw a railroad construction project to the Westland Shale Gas collection site.  There was/is a crossing gate pair, for one of the Montour Trail parking lots.   There is also a fence that separates the railroad from the bike trail.  

@Mike CT posted:

Several years ago, Western Pennsylvania saw a railroad construction project to the Westland Shale Gas collection site.  There was/is a crossing gate pair, for one of the Montour Trail parking lots.   There is also a fence that separates the railroad from the bike trail.  

This is interesting.  I grew up in Western PA, but I haven’t been to the Montour trail in probably 20 years.  Where is this located and what railroad operates this section of track?  Thanks

@Adriatic posted:

A few of the local crossings seem to nighttime limited now.. but not the closest to me ("mine"). I used to get a "soft warning because I could hear two crossings away from mine. Now I just get the " loud one"; and it's startling.

The old "pattern" -2 soft commin', mine, 2 soft goin'; around midnight, had put me "fully" to sleep for decades. Now I get rudely woken up by it  

I'd rather have limited neighborhood weed whipper / lawnmower hours/days ... 

Then maybe they wouldn't  be stressed bad enough to even notice those age-old train horns 

The city of Manassas, VA limits horn usage through town after 10PM (until 6 or 7 AM if I can recall the signs correctly).  I am glad that they haven’t eliminated it all together - it lets me know when the trains are coming when I don’t use a radio. 

It seems like in Houston, people drive WORSE at rebuilt Q Zone crossings.  

What gets me angry is I begin to slow down so I can look down both directions of the track before the stop bar, somebody is on my bumper.....

@Carl Peduzzi posted:

This is interesting.  I grew up in Western PA, but I haven’t been to the Montour trail in probably 20 years.  Where is this located and what railroad operates this section of track?  Thanks

 

Near the intersection of Rt50, and RT980, Venice, Pa.  Recent money from the Westland Spur right of way agreement, to the trail group, was spent on a bridge across the intersection, not far from the intersection pictured above.   

The new bridge.  It was a miserable, bicycle walk, across the two roads, before the trail bridge.  Railroad ?? Wheeling and Lake Erie??