Peace in the Valley (Road)

Here's some great news for residents who live in the vicinity of Roycefield and Valley Roads. The New Jersey State DOT has issued an amended quiet zone order, effectively changing the timetable on the establishment of a railroad quiet zone at the Norfolk Southern Valley Road grade crossing.

The previous agreement with Norfolk Southern to install a wayside horn at the crossing was being held up because Norfolk Southern was still conducting a nationwide test of that type of system. What the Dot amended order essentially does is make Hillsborough one of the test sites.

A wayside horn, which sounds when a train is approaching a grade crossing, is designed to direct its sound at automobiles in the road, and is much quieter overall than a continuously sounding train horn.

Installation of the wayside horn at Valley Road will allow the grade crossing at Roycefield Road, which has already been upgraded to quiet zone standards, to become an official quiet zone like the crossings at Auten Road and Beekman Lane. Previously, federal regulation had prohibited Roycefield from becoming a quiet zone because of its proximity to Valley Road.

Stop! Look!

Listen! Did you hear anything? It's been almost a week since Norfolk Southern engineers stopped blowing their horns at the Beekman Lane and Auten Road railroad crossings - and I must say, I don't miss the blasts a bit.

Hillsborough is now one of the first communities in New Jersey to successfully implement railroad quiet zones - grade crossing improvements that allow trains to pass without sounding their horns. Once again, Hillsborough is a role model for other towns, with Branchburg now investigating establishing a quiet zone at the Woodfern Road crossing - a project that would also benefit the ears of Hillsborough residents.

In this instant-mashed-potato-world, where everything is magic, results are demanded immediately, and not seeing is not believing, it is comforting to know that at least one New Jersey town has the patience to poo-poo the naysayers and see a project through to completion.

Congratulations Hillsborough Township - where all residents live on the "right" side of the tracks!

In the Zones

Hillsborough Township announced this week that the town would be getting a little quieter after November 18. That's when Norfolk Southern will direct their engineers to begin honoring Hillsborough's railroad quiet zones at the Beekman Lane and Auten Road crossings.

The township installed raised medians and other road improvements at the grade crossings and has been waiting for the railroad to complete electronic safety improvements at the crossings. These additional improvements will signal engineers to sound their horns if a power outage or some other circumstance prevents the gates from coming down.

I know what you're thinking - we're only half finished. The road improvements have been completed at the Roycefield Road crossing, and the township is seeking an agreement with Norfolk Southern to install a quieter "wayside horn" at Valley Road - which doesn't lend itself to the raised median improvement.

Once the wayside horn is installed at Valley Road, the railroad will begin honoring the quiet zone at Roycefield. Then it will be as quiet as it was in 1864, before the first train steamed into town, and all of Hillsborough was one big quiet zone!

Up and Over

Hillsborough Township residents will be pleased to learn that of the $240 million in Somerset County road and bridge projects authorized by the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority, $85 million is slated for the Route 206 bypass project. This spending covers the four year period between 2009 and 2012.

There are 20 Somerset County projects in the agency's Transportation Improvement Program - which encompasses 13 northern New Jersey counties and calls for $10 billion in total spending.

The Route 206 bypass is by far the most expensive project in the county - but I was most intrigued by the least expensive project.

$770,000 is allocated for "grade separation" of the Norfolk Southern rail crossing at 13th Avenue in Manville. This is Manville's only grade crossing on this rail line, and the only place other than Main Street for cars or pedestrians to legally cross between the northern and southern parts of the borough.

To separate the grade crossing, 13th Avenue will need to go over or under the tracks - not easy to accomplish in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Hillsborough has four grade crossings on this rail line - Beekman Lane, Auten Road, Valley Road, and Roycefield Road. It seems to me that any one of these would be easier to "separate" than 13th Avenue, and of course no grade crossing means no more train horn.

So, will Hillsborough ever get any bridges over the railroad tracks? Yes! $4 million has been allocated to replace the existing bridges at Hillsborough Road and Homestead Road over the CSX rail line.

Ho hum.

Peace and Quiet? Soon, Soon

All they want is a little peace and quiet - is that too much to ask? I am speaking of course about those residents who live in the vicinity of the Norfolk Southern Rail Line near the Beekman Lane, Auten Road, Valley Road, and Roycefield Road grade crossings. Blaring horns, which are sounded several times as the train crosses each of these proximate roads, have proven to be almost unbearable.

Help is on the way! Work began today to turn these grade crossings into Federal Railway Administration approved "Quiet Zones". Funds from an off-site developer contribution and Hillsborough's capital budget will be used to upgrade the roads on each side of these four grade crossings - with raised medians and other improvements - that will make it nearly impossible for a car to cross the tracks when the gates are down.

Making it harder for cars to cross the tracks means the trains don't have to blow their horns! Sounds good so far.

As I have written here before, I have mixed feelings about the Quiet Zones. They will certainly solve the problem with the horns - and I know all about that because I am one of those residents that lives near the tracks - but they may push us further away from the more idealistic goal that I favor, which is to eliminate the crossings altogether by creating road overpasses at three of the intersections, and eliminating one. Building the Quiet Zones means we are now decades away from reconsidering any other options.

I felt the same way, and still do, about E-Z Pass. Sure, people love E-Z Pass because it speeds them through the tolls faster. But the institution of E-Z Pass has pushed us farther and farther away from the more idealistic goal of eliminating Parkway Tolls. I don't see how that will ever be accomplished now that we have invested so much in E-Z Pass.

Here's hoping that all the new found peace and quiet in this corner of the township will lead to some serious, creative, long term solutions to our future problems.

Hillsborough - Track 2

It looks like Hillsborough will be coming in second - again. Recently Money magazine named Hillsborough the second best place to live in New Jersey. Now, if everything goes as planned, Hillsborough should be the second New Jersey town to have 24-hour "quiet zones" at its railroad crossings.

Westfield, in Union County, has been working since 2006 to silence train horns, and, according to a recent news article, is well on its way to being the first New Jersey town to secure 24-hour quiet zones. Montclair, in Essex County, has partial night-time quiet zones at its rail crossings.

I have mixed feelings about quiet zones. As I have stated in a previous blog entry, I feel that this initiative is only a partial solution. and that the ultimate answer would be to eliminate grade crossings completely, where possible.

In fact, that is the approach being considered by Montgomery Township for the CSX grade crossing at Route 601 in Skillman. Officials are reviewing plans to either rebuild Route 601 as an overpass - which is cheaper but not as aesthetically pleasing - or to make the road an underpass at the crossing - which looks better, but is a lot more expensive.

In any case, if the proposition is for central New Jersey to become a quieter, more peaceful place to live and work, well, I'll second that!

...A More Ambitious Plan

Yesterday I wrote about the plan for railroad quiet zones at the four Norfolk Southern grade crossings in Hillsborough. Establishing quiet zones, although a good first step, alleviates only one of the problems inherent in grade crossings.

To solve all of the problems, the grade crossings need to be eliminated. And we can do it.

Hillsborough has a long history of working to eliminate dangerous grade crossings - but we haven't done much lately. Hagstrom's 1945 map of Hillsborough shows numerous grade crossings on each of the three railroads, many of which have since been done away with - either by "grade separation", literally making the road go over or under the railroad so that they are on separates grades, or by closing the road altogether. And in the case of that third railroad, the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the complete abandonment of the entire line.

For instance, the grade crossing near Flagtown where the woman was killed in 1922 has since been eliminated by the overpass on South Branch Road. Route 206 used to cross the Lehigh Valley line at grade, near the present day Docherty Park, - and people were killed at that intersection also, until 206 was rebuilt to pass under the tracks. Mill Lane and Hodge Road were each dis-connected at their grade crossings, and are no longer through roads.

None of these projects was completed overnight. The railroads have been around for 150 years, and will still be here in another 150 years. And Hillsborough, unlike other towns where the railroad passes right through their downtown, has a unique opportunity to completely eliminate ALL of its grade crossings.

Not this decade, or the next, but certainly within 40 years or so - or about the same time as the Town Center is completed!

Plenty of Horn

The Courier News reported last week that The Hillsborough Township Committee was moving forward with plans to establish railroad quiet zones at four grade crossings on the Norfolk Southern rail line. The grade crossings affected are at Beekman Lane, Auten Road, Valley Road, and Roycefield Road. I commented previously on this plan here.

This sounds like a good plan - residents have complained about the sound of the horns, "quiet zones" are an established program of the Federal Railroad Administration, and developer contributions to this project will defray some of the cost.

The troublesome part of this plan is that it addresses only one of the issues with grade crossings - noise. There are at least four other problems that won't be solved by quiet zones.

The first of these is the simple fact that grade crossings are not safe. USA Today reported last week that there were 368 deaths at railroad grade crossings last year. And let's be perfectly honest - eliminating the train horns makes crossings more dangerous. That's why it is necessary to install median barriers and other improvements on the approaching roads. If we really wanted safety, we would construct the improvements AND allow the trains to sound their horns. The construction of the improvements allow us to eliminate the horns and maintain the status quo on safety, not improve it.

The second problem is increasing automobile traffic. Auten Road and Beekman Lane are already backed up at rush hour if a train is passing, and this can only get worse - especially as Auten Road continues to become the "people's bypass", in place of the un-built Route 206.

The third issue is railroad traffic. The railroads generally look for ways to increase capacity and improve efficiency. Two of the ways they accomplish this are by constructing passing sidings and second tracks, and by improving signalling - allowing trains to run faster. But extra caution is always needed at grade crossings - thus slowing the trains back down.

The fourth problem may be the most serious - stalled or stopped trains. The four grade crossings on the Norfolk Southern line are all within 2 miles of each other. A stalled train of sufficient length can easily block two or even three crossings. This not only brings cars to a stop, but also forces emergency vehicles to find alternate routes - detours that could cost lives.

So - while I am in favor of proceeding with the "quiet zones", we should acknowledge that there is more to grade crossings than just noise. And that maybe the quiet zones should only be the first step in a more ambitious plan...

Quiet Train?

The following news item appeared in the Hopewell Herald, 29 March 1922.

Aged Woman Killed By Train

Mrs. Charlotte Stern, who resided on the road between Woods Tavern and Flagtown, mother of William Stern of this place [Hopewell], was instantly killed by the cars on last Friday afternoon.

The deceased, who was 72 years of age, was driving home from the store, where she had been doing some shopping, and was crossing the Lehigh Valley tracks when her horse and wagon was hit by the Black Diamond Express. The horse was literally cut to pieces and the wagon completely demolished. Mrs. Stern was not much cut or bruised [lucky for her she was only killed].

The road crossing at which she was killed is said to be a dangerous one, there being four tracks, with no gates nor signals. It is said she was watching a freight train as she was driving over, and did not see nor hear the express as it bore down upon her.

The funeral was held yesterday afternoon from her late residence. Interment was at Millstone under direction of F. K. Forsythe.

The Black Diamond Express was the Lehigh Valley Railroad's premiere passenger train, running from New York to Buffalo, with through coach service to Philadelphia. Apparently Flagtown was not a scheduled stop.

 

Shhh!

“I heard that lonesome whistle blow.” If you’re a Hillsborough resident you know that there are at least two things wrong with that refrain from the old Hank Williams tune. The first is the use of the word “lonesome”. There’s nothing lonesome about freight trains in Hillsborough. In fact it seems like there’s another one passing through every few minutes.

It wasn’t always like this of course. When I came to Hillsborough in 1993, railroad traffic was infrequent at best. I live near the Norfolk Southern Railroad grade crossing at Beekman Lane. The Norfolk Southern is one of two railroads that pass through Hillsborough. They operate on the old Lehigh Valley Line that cuts across the northern portion of the township from Neshanic Station to Manville. The other company is CSX, which runs east of Rt. 206, from the Montgomery Twp. border to Manville.

Maybe 1993 was a down year for railroad traffic, or maybe the novelty of living so close to the grade crossing hadn’t yet worn off, but the train sounds didn’t bother me a bit. There were one or two trains during the day, and maybe one or two at night, (which we quickly got used to), but that was it. In fact, many of the grade crossings in the Township were ungated!

As the years went by, rail traffic increased, and gates were installed at the crossings. Instead of one or two trains a night, you could sometimes hear one or two an hour! For safety purposes, trains need to signal their presence as they approach each grade crossing. Because the crossings at Beekman Lane, Auten Rd., Valley Rd., and Roycefield Rd. are in such close proximity, there is almost no let-up in the sound.

The Hillsborough Township Committee, responding to residents’ complaints, has been moving forward with proposed “quiet zones”. The Federal Railroad Administration allows specific improvements to be made at grade crossings that would allow passing trains to not signal at each crossing. The improvements will be funded through an off-site contribution by a developer, and through the Township’s capital budget.

This is a great idea, but I have an idea of my own. I’ll share that idea with you another time.

Oh, and if you’re wondering – trains haven’t used whistles in 50 years. Maybe the new lyric should be “I heard that all too frequent horn sound!”