ED TAYLOR

The sound of a distant train whistle during the late evening or very early morning hours can produce feelings of comfort, melancholia, memories of a simpler less complicated time and even sentimental feelings of a past or current romance.  The emphasis here is on the word “distant”.  I can imagine that any sentimental feeling sparked when “the midnight train is whining low” would diminish in proportion when the distance from the railroad tracks decreases and the frequency of the number of whistles increases.

Our peaceful little city by the sea could become a tad less peaceful by late next year, which is the target date for All Aboard Florida’s plan to commence their near hourly transit of passengers from Miami to Orlando (and conversely from Orlando to Miami) adding at least 32 additional trains churning through Vero Beach at speeds averaging 105 miles per hour blasting federally mandated warning horns at levels between 96 and 110 decibels.  To add insult to injury, not one of the speeding locomotives will provide any passenger service to residents of Indian River County.

To avoid the injury of the increased railroad warning noise required as a safety measure by the Federal Railroad Administration, the city can spend a few hundred thousand dollars at each of the seven rail crossings within the near two and a half miles affected and take advantage of the “quiet zone” exception permitted by the same federal agency to disallow the frequent and loud railroad blasts.  It is estimated that it will cost the city approximately $3 million to meet the federal requirements to create the seven quiet zones.  Which injury is greater, the noise or the cost to avoid it?  The thought of spending $3 million to avoid the noise created by a privately owned corporation that will be able to provide wireless internet service, gourmet meals and other amenities to their passengers is both insult and injury; especially when there is no visible benefit to the city.  All Aboard Florida is giving us a headache but keeping the aspirin.

Our city council has recently adopted a resolution seeking assistance from the state government in paying for the necessary alterations to avoid the unwanted blasts stating that the trains will create  “essentially a constant unrelenting blowing of their horns throughout the entire length of the City of Vero Beach”. The federal regulations require each train to approach each railroad crossing with “2 long, 1 short and 1 long blast” without defining the duration of either “long” or “short”. With four blasts per train of undetermined duration, and 32 additional trains per day, we can look forward to listening to 128 more train blasts daily for each crossing, unless we fork over the $3 million to create the seven quiet zones.  It’s kind of a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.

The All Aboard Florida enterprise will be required to make the infrastructure adjustments to accommodate their yet to be manufactured trains, but the costs associated with creating the quiet zones will have to be borne by the party seeking the improvements . . . in this case, the City of Vero Beach. It is difficult to be optimistic about the state paying any substantial portion of the costs that we will involuntary have to absorb for a little peace and quiet.

One issue that hasn’t been thoroughly discussed is the impact 32 additional daily trains will have on Vero Beach traffic.  As a lifelong (so far) resident of Vero Beach, I have often wondered, while waiting for a train to pass, how much of my life has been spent, sitting in a car, waiting for a train that often appeared to be endless.  The somewhat recent addition of graffiti to the freight cars has added a very slight degree of entertainment to the unwanted hypnotic gaze, to which there is no option.  Two of the worst crossings, as far as traffic congestion (and inconvenience to me) are at the turnoff toward 21^st Street at the west end of the Miracle Mile and the southwest diagonal crossing merging south US1 traffic across the tracks onto 14^th Avenue.  They cause traffic blockage now.  Imagine the impact of two additional trains each hour.

As a Vero Beach High School student in the 1960s, a train or bridge delay was not considered a valid excuse for being tardy.  Those who lived on the beach (now considered “the barrier island”) also had to deal with the old Barber Bridge, which was a drawbridge and would cause considerable delay if a vessel with the slightest mast was approaching.  Neither was an excuse for tardiness and some of us were tardy quite often due to forces that were totally beyond our control.

As a city, we are now in a situation that is totally beyond our control.  We can either have a “Festival of Horns” where we can all maliciously honk our car horns at all passenger trains while we are waiting for them to get the heck out of our way; which could make each passing train a memorable event, or we can pay the $3 million to force the railroad to silence their horns.

At least we will have the money since $3 million is our estimated profit from the sale of the electric system to Florida Power and Light, if and when that can be completed. The festival concept would be a whole lot cheaper and the entire community could participate . . . 32 times a day.