TRAIN WHISTLES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 272, 17 November 1941, Page 6

TRAIN WHISTLES

It is high time something was done about the excessive train whistling which some of us are compelled to put up with. We are unfortunate enough to live close to the Northern line, and the way in which the trains tear past, itself a very noisy thing, and tear the silence of early morning or late night, with long-drawn, screaming whistles la enough to break the nerve of the strongest. It is no wonder people develop an anti-railway complex. Motor cars turn dangerous corners a thousand times to the train level crossing: motors travel silently, as against the train noises, and yet it is not necessary for them to use horns which can be heard 20 away, nor to blow them at such length, or frequency, as to constitutute a serious nerve upset. It is not necessary either for the trains because there are much appreciated exceptions among enginedrivers, who try to go through the town limits as quietly as they can, and they do not have accidents. Protest to the authorities only results in temporary improvement. What may have been necessary for old-time horsedrawn traffic is not applicable to modern conditions. Anyway, the early-mottling and late-night screaming horrors, which can be heard 20 miles away, is neither necessary to the traffic, if any. right at hand, or beneficial to, health, or estate values around* place. CONSIDEE&TION.

[An official Of ffae Hallway Department said that there were two problems, the need of an engine whistle being sounded so that it could be heard by the driver of a closed motor car, and complaints made by resi-" dents near railway crossings. The regulation was that the whistle must be sounded at least 300 yards from a level crossing, but excessive whistling was not encouraged, and enginedrivers were instructed to use discretion. There were a lot of level crossings between Newmarket and Avondale.—EdJ