Why it could be years before South Elgin gets train quiet zone

South Elgin is looking at creating the village's first railroad quiet zone, but the process could take years.

Residents who live along the Union Pacific railroad between Center Drive and Robertson Road periodically have lodged noise complaints with the village, most recently at the June board meeting, said Deputy Village Administrator Megan Golden.

The village board last week approved an engineering agreement not to exceed $15,000 with Baxter & Woodman, Inc. of Crystal Lake to look into feasibility and cost of creating a quiet zone, which means trains would sound bells rather than horns when passing through the 1.7-mile or so stretch of railroad.

The quiet zone is sorely needed, said Beverly Fredericks, who lives in the River Crossing condo complex sandwiched between railroad crossings at Mill Street and State Street. When she first moved there seven years ago, a train came by about noon daily, but now a train also comes through around 3 or 4 a.m., she said.

"It seems like some of the engineers are nicer, but others start blasting the horn," she said. "Why, in the middle of the night, do they have to blast the horn so long and so loud?"

But Marsha Winters, who lives nearby, said she doesn't think there is much of a noise problem. "I don't really hear it," she said. "It's not horrendously loud."

The engineering study will take anywhere from six months to two years to be completed, depending on how quickly meetings can be held with representatives of the Federal Railroad Administrator and the Illinois Commerce Commission, Golden said.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation's crossing inventory, trains run through South Elgin twice a day, Golden said. However, the department also lists the village as having gateless crossings only, when in fact all its crossings have gates, she said. "Part of the (engineering study) work is to get the forms updated," she said.

Quiet zones require additional safety measures, such as installing medians or having four, instead of two, crossing gates. Crossings with higher volumes of traffic usually require four gates, which can cost as much as $200,000.

"At most of our crossings the traffic counts are low enough that we don't think we'll need to do additional work. The State Street crossing is the only exception," Golden said. "We'll look at what sort of improvement we'd need to do to enhance safety."

The engineering study is funded out of $50,000 in contingency funds from the village's boards and commission's budget, which overall amounts to about $233,000, Golden said.