Train related noise: Annoying or not?

Gadfly wrote:Few things compare to being aboard the head end and feel so helpless as some goofball's car DISAPPEARS under the nose of your engine

This is, honestly, one of those things (for all y'all that are railfans/readers) that you just really can't understand unless you have been in a cab and experienced it.

It's the most helpless feeling in the world you can ever get.

- litz

Yes sir, Litz. The fans and dreamers probably can't comprehend the horror of seeing a small car in your headlight and see clearly a CAR SEAT in the back, kids in the FRONT, and this car is RACING us to beat us to the crossing. OH NO! NO!NO!!!!!!!!!!! You scream it in your mind, I don't care how many times I saw it aboard the Southern Crescent, my knuckles tightened on the seat or bulkhead with the whistle going TANT-TANT-TANT-TANT-TANT-TAAAAAAAAAAANT!!!!!!! Does that sound familiar?

An engineer friend of mine hit a car, and I was working the Porter/Truck Driver's job one night. They called me to come get the crew because all of them were pretty shaken and to take a new crew to the scene. Two small kids, one a baby, were killed, their Mom just barely alive, and the crew was just so upset. I arrived to find my friend standing beside the ladder (E8) facing the engine, arms across his face. When he turned, he was crying, big tears in his eyes. Big burly railroad man, but he was overcome with emotion. All of us were trying to console him. He had hit a number of cars over the years (not his fault, of course), but this one got to him. He told me later it was because of his own small children that this one just finally really got him.
I think we all shed a tear or two that night in the shadow of that mangled car, under the headlight.

It is really a horrifying experience that only railroad people know. Some can take it and never be bothered by it, others are deeply shaken by the experience, to still more it builds up and up----until it spills over into visible emotion with a "trigger" such as hitting precious children. Railroad sounds? It is the sound of that staccato horn signal that makes ME snap my head up still. "Collision Imminent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Gadfly

I'm not sure I would ever be able to recover from such a tragic incident, personally. And what galls me about the media reports on these tragedies is that train crews that LIVE through these barely ever are mentioned.

I think that's sad as well.

Charlie

charlie6017 wrote:I'm not sure I would ever be able to recover from such a tragic incident, personally. And what galls me about the media reports on these tragedies is that train crews that LIVE through these barely ever are mentioned.

I think that's sad as well.

There have been a few good stories about crews over the years ... but focusing on the dead and their families is typical of most types of accidents.

Getting back to the topic of this thread with a wish ...
May we all hear good sounds from the trains we are on or come near.

justalurker06 wrote.

There have been a few good stories about crews over the years ... but focusing on the dead and their families is typical of most types of accidents.

The media bring a subtle prejudice of their own into this issue; A disproportinate share of the "direct victims" are women, children, teenagers and in general, people who just don't pay attention, no matter how often they're warned, to the fact that the train simply can't stop. The view of the railroad as a large, rich, impersonal corporation and, until fairly recently, the train crews as older, often lesser-educated males (one of the least-favored segments of society in the eyes of the Very Politically Correct) doesn't contribute to much more of an understanding.

The thing that BURNS me UP is the spin from the media that makes it sound like the trains jump off the tracks and chase the cars down so they could run over them!

In another vein, I used to fly small planes. Every time there's a crash, the stupid talking heads talk about how the airplane "fell out of the sky"!!!! Friends, it is aerodynamically IMPOSSIBLE for a perfectly good airplane to simply fall out of the sky. If it DOES, there's a logical reason for it; the PILOT overstressed the airframe causing structural failure, he overflew his abilities and went into weather he was not capable of handling, OR he did the same things automobiles do when DRIVEN into something. They crash into objects (mountains, rivers, other airplanes etc), hit the ground because they were COMMANDED to so by the pilot/driver!!!!!! But these idiots, with a false sense of authority, sit there looking into a camera telling everybody else what is happening as if they are experts! I have NO love for the media!
Especially when they disparage the railroads and the hard-working employees that run 'em!

GF

I'm a railfan, so I have a bias when it comes to noise in the cab. I don't mind it...infact, I like alot of the noise that goes on.

The annoying sounds are things like the alarm bells, and alerter beeps and things of that nature, which do have a purpose. However, sometimes that alarm bell going off in the cab takes a while to be silienced, say if there is a problem with one of the engines, etc. I'm not an engine man so I can't explain why, but those sd80s have an alarm bell that rings in the cab sometimes after start up for at least a few minutes. I have no idea why they do that, but it's hella-annoying.

Radio chatter while you're trying to sleep is a pain, too.

SurlyKnuckle wrote:Radio chatter while you're trying to sleep is a pain, too.

must be Conductor ?? or potential one

noise in the cab? if you close your eyes while sitting in a -8 GE at idle,you will hear a multitude of "three stooges" sound effects.

Though some media bias has long existed, things have really grown out of control since the term "news" became synonymous with "entertainment". Each "news" network has to stray further and further from the truth, relying more and more on either ever-greater hyperbole (fascist; socialist) or outright lies (Kenyan-born) in order to outfox the other (no pun intended) for a point in ratings.

My in-laws live a stone's thrown from the Boonton Line in Wharton and the noise is really quite negligible, even when outside, when compared to the constant rumble of Interstate 80.

Perhaps that is the reason people notice railroad so much, it's never a constant. A freight train can move the freight hauled by 400 trucks, but moves past with only 4 or 5 locomotive's engine sounds whereas the same freight moved on a highway would be a parade of trucks that would eventually fade beyond conscious recognition.

SemperFidelis wrote:

Each "news" network has to stray further and further from the truth

How true ..... that NIMBY thinking is perfectly encapsulated on The "Weather"? Channel, where the entire process is geared to convince its coddled, sheltered suburban clientele of "trailing spouses" that absolute peace, tranquility and security can be obtained with one more shopping bag full of disposable goods and one more service contract.

How are we supposed to redevelop our infrastructure when that sort of "thinking" demands a veto on every plan?

Yeah, I'm a corn-ductor. It's a minor annoyance that the radio has lots of transmissions unrelated to our movement, but we have to have the radio loud enough for when they do call us, we hear it. And in this particular instance, waiting between 6 and 8 hours is not uncommon...you bet we're going to be sleeping our asses off..considering this is 2am-10am.