WALLY ROBERTS, San Clemente
When our beach quiet zone again goes into effect at noon on April 26, don’t expect all train engineers to suddenly be 100% compliant. Compliance can be slower with some railroad operators than others.
OCTA has a webpage devoted to just this, including a procedure for reporting locomotives that violate the quiet zone regulations.
“Federal law requires train engineers to do a routine sounding of their train horns—two long bursts, a short burst and one long burst—every time a train approaches a railroad crossing, unless the crossing is within a quiet zone,” the OCTA states. “Within a quiet zone, routine soundings are prohibited.”
Those of us who live near one of the designated crossings need to do our part in reporting train violations of our hard-earned Quiet Zone.
Any violation is emailed to our city’s designated representative, which is found on a map on the webpage.
The report needs the exact time, the crossing, the direction the train is traveling, the name of the railroad and, if possible, the locomotive number.
The report will be effective, though, without the locomotive number.
