Can’t PTC quieten the trains?

Tue, 10/28/2008 - 3:47pm
By: Letters to the ...

There are communities in the United States and Canada that have laws to decrease unnecessary noise.

The CSX train that travels along Ga. Highway 74 honks unnecessarily during the night, causing disruption in several peoples’ sleep.

This type of noise is noise pollution – “any sound that is unwanted and preventable.” It is preventable if there was a law that states, “No honking from 10 p.m. — 6 a.m.”

I personally gathered information as well as a petition from our neighborhood years ago to stop the train honking just south of this intersection. And it worked. However, since the holding rails were added in the spring of 2008, the trains began to honk once again — loudly and some drivers hold it way too long.

A train that honks several times per night every night during the week leads to stress – and we all know that there is already too much stress in everybody’s daily lives.

Do we have local ordinances to stop noise between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.? Is there zoning that determines and clarifies what noise pollution is?

The train traveling north of Hwy. 54 through the rest of Peachtree City is residential, not industrial.

I urge the city council to stop this noise; it disrupts children sleeping as well as adults who desperately need a full night’s rest.

Here’s my daughter’s rendition of a childhood clapping game:

I don’t wanna listen to the trains no more, more, more!

It is honking every night at my door, door, door.

Please make it drive by fast

and make it quickly pass.

I don’t wanna listen to the trains no more, more, more!

Thank you for keeping our community peaceful and free from noise pollution.

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Submitted by ddodge on Thu, 10/30/2008 - 6:33pm.

I think I remember correctly, the last time an ordinance was passed, it was determined that if the city passed this ordinance, they would be held liable if an accident or death were to take place due to their actions so they recinded the ordinance. Seems like the tracks were there long before you were so why did not you do some research on the train tracks. I myself find the train whistles a comforting sound in this stressful world. Don't make the city liable for this as its really out of their control I believe.
Dennis

Submitted by ladypatriots on Thu, 10/30/2008 - 2:11pm.

We live in Tyrone..the train is directly behind our house in our back yard. We LOVE the train ..day or night. Whenever CSX has gone on strike, we cannot sleep as well. You get used to it....just learn to deal with it.

Robert W. Morgan's picture
Submitted by Robert W. Morgan on Wed, 10/29/2008 - 6:53am.

About 15 years ago our very own city council passed a resolution that the train whistle (or more correctly its horn) couldn't be sounded louder than a certain number of decibels.

Naturally they did this without any legal research or prior negotiations with CSX. When CSX was informed that they would have to change their procedures to placated the pampered few in PTC, they told us to pound sand and trotted out some state law that trumped the new PTC ordinance. It has to do with the roads that cross the RR tracks.

Not long after the horns were sounded longer and possibly louder as payback.

So let us learn from history.


Submitted by Bigtime on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 4:18pm.

Perhaps you should have moved to a location where there are no trains. The tracks have been there longer than PTC or your home or apartment.

Cyclist's picture
Submitted by Cyclist on Wed, 10/29/2008 - 3:15pm.

actually looking at an area before you decide to live in it. What a novel concept!
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