Train whistle (horn) Question

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Amtrak engines all have a 2 stage horn- if you only push the button halfway down the horn won't blast at full volume- push all the way down and it will. I'm not sure if there is a rule saying they must blow quieter at night- I'd guess the engineer is just being nice.
 
Alexandria Nick said:
Back on the horn thing, I live near a series of grade crossings (like...five or six in the span of a half mile) and it sounds like they just lay on the horn as long as they want to without any real pattern.
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I'm curious where this is. The closest to ALX that I'm aware this exists is MSS.

Edit: Unless, on second thought, you mean the soon to be abandoned and now seldom used spur track to Robinson Terminal and the decommissioned power plant..
 
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I'm considering taking the Sunset Limited from New Orleans to Los Angeles.  I slept very poorly on a trip from New Orleans to Chicago because of the near constant sound of the horn.  So I have two questions about the Sunset Limited.  First, is there anywhere on the train far enough away from the horn that I wouldn't hear it?  And second, on the journey from New Orleans to Los Angeles, are there stretches of land at night when there is no horn?
 
Veleka said:
I'm considering taking the Sunset Limited from New Orleans to Los Angeles.  I slept very poorly on a trip from New Orleans to Chicago because of the near constant sound of the horn.  So I have two questions about the Sunset Limited.  First, is there anywhere on the train far enough away from the horn that I wouldn't hear it?  And second, on the journey from New Orleans to Los Angeles, are there stretches of land at night when there is no horn?
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Ear plugs would certainly help.  

Also, the Texas Eagle sleeper, which operates in the Sunset three days a week between San Antonio and LA is usually located at the rear of the Sunset Limited between San Antonio and LA.  That would be a quieter place to ride if you got a room in that car. I have ridden in this car a couple times and I found it to be nice and quiet.  Since it is at the end of the train, there aren't many people walking through the car either.  Of course that wouldn't help between New Orleans and LA. 

Most of the trip in west Texas, New Mexico and Arizona would have fewer road crossings and would also be quieter. 
 
The city of New Orleans is unique in that it operates with 1 locomotive and no baggage car. That means if you are in the transdorm there is nothing in between you and the lead engine. (Usually the transdorm is 1 locomotive and 1 baggage car away). That makes a big difference in the noise level. I wouldn’t worry about it too much on other trains. I remember being in the transdorm (as close as you can get to the engines) on the sunset and not noticing the horn much. 
 

crescent-zephyr said:
The city of New Orleans is unique in that it operates with 1 locomotive and no baggage car. That means if you are in the transdorm there is nothing in between you and the lead engine. (Usually the transdorm is 1 locomotive and 1 baggage car away). That makes a big difference in the noise level. I wouldn’t worry about it too much on other trains. I remember being in the transdorm (as close as you can get to the engines) on the sunset and not noticing the horn much. 
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The (CHI-SAS) Texas Eagle is the same story, with one loco and no baggage car, so the CONO isn't totally unique.

1@Veleka[/USER] Will you be traveling in coach or a sleeper?

 
Rasputin said:
Also, the Texas Eagle sleeper, which operates in the Sunset three days a week between San Antonio and LA is usually located at the rear of the Sunset Limited between San Antonio and LA.  That would be a quieter place to ride if you got a room in that car. I have ridden in this car a couple times and I found it to be nice and quiet.  Since it is at the end of the train, there aren't many people walking through the car either.  Of course that wouldn't help between New Orleans and LA. 
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You know that the Eagle through-cars operate every day the Sunset runs, right?

Also, the Eagle coach and sleeper are always at the back of the Sunset between SAS and LAX, not just "usually". I think the big question here, as I asked in the above post, is whether the OP is traveling in a coach or a sleeper. If she's traveling coach, she'll be at the back of the train and it's extremely unlikely that the horn would be anything close to loud enough to be an issue. If she's getting a sleeper, things get interesting because the Sunset's Trans-Dorm and sleeper are at the front of the train, and she'll probably hear the horn. Now I still really doubt that the horn would be so loud that it's an issue, but if she just doesn't want to hear it at all, it might make sense to go coach to San Antonio, and then switch to the Eagle #422 sleeper, since it's at the back of the train.
 
My parents' town is a "No Train Horn" town (my mom commented on how it's weird to see "horn" on the signs because she thinks of it as a whistle). I guess people complained. I don't know. In my town, I live about 3/4 of a mile from freight tracks. I hear trains. They are on a regular schedule. I don't mind them at all - in fact, some early mornings if I hear one of the horns, I know it's almost time to get up. The whistles are not loud enough to bother me.

But you can BET if one of my jackwagon neighbors got a train horn on their car and blew it in my neighborhood, I'd be filing a noise complaint. That's too darn loud too close....and it would scare the daylights out of me if someone did that when I was out on the road. It's kind of like the super-bright headlights: the owner of the car might feel safer but it makes everyone less safe because it sensorily overwhelms the other drivers.
 
One thing I've leaned is to relate the horn sequence to which car I'm in on the train, and how far that car is from the locomotive.   What I mean is that sometimes I've heard the full sequence and THEN the car I'm riding in passes the crossing.    :D
 
While earplugs do help, they're still fairly useless when the sleeper is only 2-3 cars back from the locomotive. I got absolutely zero sleep on the CONO and TE, despite using earplugs combined with headphones playing white noise. Thank goodness those were both one-night trips.
 
SarahZ said:
While earplugs do help, they're still fairly useless when the sleeper is only 2-3 cars back from the locomotive. I got absolutely zero sleep on the CONO and TE, despite using earplugs combined with headphones playing white noise. Thank goodness those were both one-night trips.
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Wow. We didn't have any issue at all during the two nights we were on the TE last year (in the revenue sleeper, right behind the Trans-Dorm and baggage car). Would you say it was particularly loud or was it just the nature of the sound that made it impossible to sleep?
 
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I’ve been able to sleep in the transdorm on the city but I also do agree the horn is quite a bit louder there. 
 
cpotisch said:
Wow. We didn't have any issue at all during the two nights we were on the TE last year (in the revenue sleeper, right behind the Trans-Dorm and baggage car). Would you say it was particularly loud or was it just the nature of the sound that made it impossible to sleep?
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I have insanely good hearing, and I'm a light sleeper. Even in a fairly quiet hotel, I tend to wake up every hour or so.

At home, I sleep with a box fan running, which helps cover up some of the neighbor activity and building noises. I find it incredibly hard to sleep without a fan. When I'm in a hotel that doesn't have a loud enough fan setting on the HVAC, I put in my soft earbuds and play this YouTube video. I often listen to this when I need to relax, too.

 
SarahZ said:
I have insanely good hearing, and I'm a light sleeper.
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As do I.......weird enough, I was placed in the transdorm on the TE from FTW-CHI back in the fall of 2015 and didn't have a problem at all with sleep.....w/o plugs  It could be because I was so extremely exhausted from that trip.  I went from Holland to LA on the SWC, to SD and back to LA, then back home on the Eagle when we were stranded in San Marcos, TX as our train was terminated due to massive flooding, then we were bussed to FTW after 30 hours at San Marcos.  I made a vow at that point, never to take a LD trip without a hotel break of some sort again.  I don't suggest that sedative but it sure did work being so close to the front of the train. I only suggested the ear plugs because they do work for some people, including myself.  I had to use them when traveling with my late mother because she had sleep apnea.
 
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LookingGlassTie said:
One thing I've leaned is to relate the horn sequence to which car I'm in on the train, and how far that car is from the locomotive.   What I mean is that sometimes I've heard the full sequence and THEN the car I'm riding in passes the crossing.    :D
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I’m theory, this is supposed to happen every time. The locomotive should be on the final long horn blast by the time it occupies the crossing, meaning they should be done sounding the horn before any passenger cars get through the crossing (obvious exception being a cab car on a train in push mode). 
 
Rasputin said:
In discussing railroads, I think it is dangerous to use the words "always" or "never."
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True, but the word "usually" implies a bit less certainty than there is here. I can not find a single example anywhere of the Eagle through-cars not being at the back of the Sunset.
 
I think I have something that can help you get to sleep SarahZ.

After they removed 10 hours of Cantina Band, I found this helps:

 
tim49424 said:
I only suggested the ear plugs because they do work for some people, including myself.  I had to use them when traveling with my late mother because she had sleep apnea.
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Oh, they definitely help! I'm not arguing that. I've simply never been able to find earplugs that shut out the horn completely.

Like you, I sleep better the second/third night on a train. I also take melatonin since I'm a night owl and never manage to acclimate to "train hours". If I didn't, I'd be up super late, and I don't like missing breakfast or scenery. Train travel is about the only time you'll see me (voluntarily) awake at 6:00 a.m.  :lol:
 
From my experience, the "sleepers" are always in front on the CL. And of course other trains as well, I don't have a list.

Question, why would Amtrak EVER position the "sleeping car" in the front of the train, rather than the back where it is quieter? And should I not ask the question because hey, coach PAX have to sleep too? 

Seems that if you offer a product called a "sleeping car" with a bed etc. and charge a premium price, it would make sense to place it in the quietest possible location (rear of train).
 
SarahZ said:
Oh, they definitely help! I'm not arguing that. I've simply never been able to find earplugs that shut out the horn completely.
Like you, I sleep better the second/third night on a train. I also take melatonin since I'm a night owl and never manage to acclimate to "train hours". If I didn't, I'd be up super late, and I don't like missing breakfast or scenery. Train travel is about the only time you'll see me (voluntarily) awake at 6:00 a.m. 
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As much as I love train travel, sleep is very much at a premium. After the aforementioned LA trip, I’ve built in at least two nights at a hotel. As like you, scenery is very important (as is breakfast) to me. I don’t do much sightseeing at many of my destinations, as whatever I see out the train window is my sightseeing. Where we differ, is the train horn is at times soothing to me and sometimes the white noise you referred to earlier. It literally doesn’t play into my sleep deprivation. It’s more the rough track in places that tends to wake me up numerous times during the night....and I rarely nap on the train because I don’t want to miss anything.
 
The back of the train is going to be a little rougher than the center of the train. If there are 2 locomotives, a baggage car, and a transdorm that should be plenty  to dampen the train horn noise. 

Having one theoretically non-reve car in between the engine and the 1st revenue car seems to make sense. 
 

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