By Richard Tedesco
The LIRR's acting president, Ray Kenny, revealed plans last week to retrofit the louder horns on the railroad's new M-7 cars with a "choke" device that restricts the amount of compressed air producing the sound. "Baffing isn't the entire answer," Kenny said.
His comments came in the wake of a horn test at a Cedarhurst railroad crossing that produced an average of 106 decibels on the left side of a baffled train car. That's the side on which horn noise dispersion is most pronounced on the four M-7s refitted with baffles. The same test produced average levels of 103 decibels 100 feet in front of the train, and to its right.
The railroad's objective is to keep the horn noise between 96 and 100 decibels. Federal regulations require train horns to have a minimum volume of 96 decibels.
U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy has been working with the grass-roots Train Noise Abatement Association to push for a change in Federal Railroad Administration regulations that would limit train horns to 98 decibels where there are houses within 250 feet of a railroad crossing.
Mark Sullivan, the LIRR's chief mechanical officer, said that in addition to controlling noise levels by restricting air flow to the horns, the railroad will experiment with redirecting or repositioning the horns. Sullivan suggested that that might eliminate the need for the metal baffles altogether.
Kenny said that if the railroad goes ahead with retrofitting more than 800 M-7 cars with metal baffles and air horn chokes, it would take a year to finish the work. Based on tests of the metal baffles since November, Kenny said the LIRR was "confident" about going forward with the project.
Jerome Goodman, a sound engineer working with a civic group lobbying for train noise abatement, suggested that the compressed air horns might be dropped in favor of an electronically produced horn sound. Goodman also contended that the metal baffle solution is a bust. "It cuts the energy level by 50 percent, but it's still too loud," he said. At a meeting with railroad officials after the test, Goodman suggested that the three-sided metal baffles would be more effective with a denser material, or with two sheets of metal sheathing and a layer of rubber.
The horn blast from a modified M-7 car produced a 124-decibel peak during the Cedarhurst test, according to Goodman, who said that continuous exposure to even a 75-decibel noise can cause permanently hearing damage. The peak is the highest decibel reading from a sampling of each train horn blast.
"Whatever happened today is fine," said Jack Mevorach, founder of the Train Noise Abatement Association. "It's a step toward providing some relief."
Along with the high decibel levels, Five Towns residents are concerned about the duration of the horn blasts. Kenny said that LIRR engineers are required to keep sounding their horns as they cross an intersection, typically two long blasts followed by one short and one long one.
Goodman contends that sounding the baffled horns over macadam surfaces produces a "reflection" of the horn noise, with the baffling serving as a resonating chamber, effectively amplifying the sound waves as they bounce off the pavement.
Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) echoed Mevorach's sentiment in a statement he issued after last week's test. "Today's test was an important step that will help improve the quality of life in communities along the Far Rockaway branch," said Skelos, who is the Senate representative on the MTA's four-person Capital Program Review Board.
The next step will be a more controlled test with a modified train horn, most likely to be conducted at the LIRR's facility in Hillside, Queens, according to Sullivan, who declined to say when that test might be conducted.
Five Towns residents who live along the railroad line will have to wait until next year for relief from the train horn noise, whatever the solution proves to be.
Comments about this story? RTedesco@liherald or call (516) 569-4000, ext. 204.
