Elburn officials work to reduce train horn noise in village after complaints

Elburn officials are looking for solutions to mitigate loud horn noise from trains traveling through the village.

Public Works Director Phil Van Bogaert said the village's train crossings wayside horn system has been malfunctioning since October. The signal that tells the train engineer that a horn will blow at the crossing is broken. So even if the crossing horn is blowing, the engineer doesn't realize it and still thinks he also needs to blow his horn.

It's a lot of noise, Village President Jeff Walter said.

"We've been hearing a lot from our constituents about this," he said. "The company that was doing this is going out of business, and we've had a heck of a time trying to get this fixed since October. We've had absolutely no luck."

Van Bogaert found a company, Rio Grande Pacific Technology (RIOTECH), created by several former employees from Railroad Controls Limited.

Elburn has received a proposal from RIOTECH to install two wayside horns at South Main Street and South First Street crossings for $125,905, plus additional expenses, bringing the total to $144,905, which is not in the budget.

"We have to come up with the money somewhere to pay for this," Walter said.

After much discussion about funding sources from local politicians, Walter asked board members if they supported replacing the systems.

After receiving positive responses from board members for moving forward with the purchase, Walter said he would start reaching out.

"I would like to look very carefully at the finances and the budget," Trustee Ken Anderson said.

Walter said they can revisit the issue when the final estimate from RIOTECH is available.