Political Quotes

“I rise tonight to highlight a serious problem that all of America will soon experience. As early as next January, thousands of cities, towns, villages, and hamlets will be deafened by the wail of a train whistle. That is right, if the Federal Railroad Administration's proposed rule on the sounding of locomotive horns at every highway crossing goes into effect as planned, the earsplitting sounds of train whistles will wake people at night and generally disrupt people's lives. Unfortunately, few Members of Congress know about the problem that confronts us. As mandated by the Swift Rail Act of 1994, the FRA came up with rules on train horns, and in January the FRA came out with a proposed rule. While I understand that the rule is intended to save people's lives, the way in which the rule was written will severely impact millions of people in a negative way. For instance, although the FRA states that over 74,000 people in Illinois currently living near a crossing that does not allow whistle-blowing will be severely impacted by this rule, in reality, according to the Chicago Area Transportation Study, 2.5 million residents in Illinois live within one quarter mile of a crossing, and would be severely impacted. This is a tremendous number of people that will be impacted by train whistles that range from 92 decibels to 144 decibels, an unhealthy level that rises above the threshold of pain.”