United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Railroad Administration
Abstract
DTFR5317X00026Researchers assessed the feasibility of altering the locomotive horn sounding pattern of repetition at each crossing in a series of closely-spaced grade crossings by exploring the specific geometries and warning requirements for motorists in advance of such crossings. Acoustic modeling on five example scenarios showed that the locomotive horn would meet the auditory detection criteria out to a minimum of 1200 ft downstream of the primary crossing in those scenarios. The results from this analysis confirm that further exploration is needed on this topic, including assessing the feasibility and effectiveness for both detectability and driver response, to only sounding the locomotive horn prior to arriving at the first in a series of closely-spaced grade crossings
