Establishing Quiet Zones along the FEC

[thelakelander]

Federal Railroad Administration Recission of Emergency Order 15

District: Two
Meeting Type: Meeting
Date: Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Time: 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm
Location Name: FDOT District Two Urban Office
Street Address: 2198 Edison Avenue
City: Jacksonville

Purpose:

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) will be holding a series of public meetings in early November to discuss the rescission of Emergency Order 15 (EO-15), which will allow communities along the Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) to establish quiet zones.

EO-15 barred public authorities in Florida from enacting bans on train horns at highway-rail grade crossings along the FEC right-of-way.  After the issuance of FRA’s Final Rule on the Use of Locomotive Horns at Highway-Rail Grade Crossings, EO-15 remained in effect while FRA determined how best to address the establishment of quiet zones along the FEC while taking into account the extremely high risk of collisions associated with not sounding the horn on this corridor.  On September 9, 2009, FRA published in the Federal Register the revised Final Rule outlining the excess risk estimate for the corridor.  This new risk estimate can be used by Florida communities along the FEC to establish quiet zones as other communities Nationwide are able to do.

Primary Contact: Ron Ries
Primary Phone: (202) 493-6285
Primary E-Mail: ronald.ries@dot.gov
Additional Contact: Gina Busscher
Additional Phone: 800-749-2967
Additional E-mail: gina.busscher@dot.state.fl.us

http://www2.dot.state.fl.us/publicsyndication/publicmeetings.aspx/publicmeetings_district2

[Ocklawaha]

DON'T DO IT JACKSONVILLE! HAVE YOU SEEN THE SPEEDS PROPOSED BY AMTRAK ON THE FEC? EVEN IN TOWN? THEY'LL BE FLYING, heading for 90+!

You better believe if I'm out there with my family in the car on some foggy night, I want flashers, bells, horns, headlights, ditch lights, strobe, and while were at it let's demand MARS LIGHTS again too! Nothing in history has said "TRAIN COMING" at midnight, like a mars light looking for all the world like a horizontal floodlight from a WWII London Air Raid.

OCKLAWAHA

[Charles Hunter]

As I understand it, to have a Quiet Zone, the city has to upgrade the crossings to include things such as gates that shut off all lanes - even for cars going the wrong way, medians to prevent cars from crossing to the wrong side of the road, and other things to make it really really hard to put your car on the tracks.  In San Marco, because the crossings are so close, several in a row would have to be upgraded to gain a Quiet Zone. These things are expensive - does the city have the money for this?

Question - even in a quiet zone, if the engineer sees a car on the tracks, can he blow the horn?

Oh, Ock, what the heck is a Mars Light?  I assume it has little to do with a low calorie candy bar? 

[CS Foltz]

I am undecided about this one! With the speeds proposed for any rail service coming through Jacksonville, Orlando would be under this umbrella also I would think, HSR in any form would require signaling upgrades to protect the traveling public...............makes me wonder if the cost of that was included in the Orlando proposed rail system? Trains traveling at 100 mph do not stop immediately!