By Greg Halbleib

BLOOMINGTON – Bloomington may follow the lead of Normal to establish times and places to keep train horns quiet.

The city’s public works department said three Union Pacific Railroad crossings at Washington Street, Miller Street and Six Points Road are targeted to be quiet zones with no train horns sounded in most instances.

Public Works Director Jim Karch said safety is still the top priority for those crossings.

“Of course, the engineer always has the ability to sound (the horn) if they see anything that is questionable,” Karch told WJBC’s Scott Laughlin. “Unless there’s people that they know are maintenance workers or there’s some malfunction of equipment or things like that, then they are restricted as to how much they can sound it.”

Karch said Amtrak also uses that track, so federal funding has already paid for high-speed rail safety improvements at those crossings that lend themselves to be quiet zones.

“They did quad-gates, they did pedestrian gates, they did a whole bunch of improvements which typically cost $400,000 to $500,000 a crossing,” Karch said. “When Bloomington and Normal had that done as part of the high-speed rail project, that was a great time to look at a quiet zone along the Union Pacific.”

Normal is also establishing quiet zones at that track’s crossings in the town.

The city is seeking feedback from government agencies in August and plans to implement the quiet zones in December.

Greg Halbleib can be reached at [email protected].