The city is seeking details on the most restrictive plan for a quiet zone for trains traveling through the west side of downtown Columbus, after considering five different options.
The Columbus Redevelopment Commission unanimously voted Monday to pay Louisville and Indianapolis Railroad (L&I) a maximum of $40,000 to design and engineer a quiet zone along their own railroad tracks south of 11th Street and west of Lindsey Street.
The railroad quiet zone would involve installing multiple safeguards at the railroad crossings within the city limits that run along Mill Race Park, eliminating the need for loud locomotive horns to be routinely sounded.
The safeguards include enhanced gates, as well as medians that prevent vehicles from driving around a gate.
Train engineers who are coming through Columbus are sounding their horns four times, as state law requires, at each of the four crossings within the city limits. That’s 16 times per train as they pass four intersections: State Roads 46 and 11, and at Fifth, Eighth and 11th Streets.
About 13 trains travel along this railroad line daily, sounding their horn for each public crossing as required by law. A study commissioned by the city indicates it could have as many as 22 trains a day in the future as L&I, which has leased the tracks to CSX, increases traffic on the line this year.
For more on this story, see Wednesday’s Republic.
