Steve Mensing, Editor
♦ In Tuesday’s Salisbury city council meeting the city established a dangerous “quiet zone” policy antagonistic to human safety. By “quiet zones” the city is saying that trains will not sound their horns when approaching a crossing. On March 30th three “quiet zones” will take effect at the railroad crossings on E. Monroe St., Kerr St., and East Council St. These changes establish a “quiet zone” between Klumac and Kerr Street.
I see little sign the City of Salisbury government has effected any useful safety measures to replace the very basic and much required horn soundings at railroad crossings.
The fact remains that sometimes crossing gates fail or people attempt to “run” them in their hurry to get somewhere. In Salisbury persons on foot, motorists, and recently a bicyclist was tragically killed at a railroad crossing. Those railroad horns provide a proven measure of safety.
It’s said that Amtrak trains need to sound their horns when approaching and leaving a train depot and that train engineers may still sound their horns when they view it necessary. I trust that until the “quiet zone” policy is suspended after the next human tragedy all train engineers, freight or passenger, will continue to recognize the necessity of sounding their horns at all crossings.
