Envision Opelika

Although I didn’t grow up in Opelika, I did seem to find myself near the railroad and that whistle of the train throughout my early life. Just two blocks off the main drag in Madison, Ga, the train would cross a tressel just beyond the Ice House during my elementary school days. It was about that time, our class rode the famed Nancy Hanks all the way from Atlanta to Hapeville (well at that age it seemed a pretty long trip).   In Thomson, Georgia when I was in Junior High, we’d get a cherry Coke at the Rexell Drug Store (made from scratch those days) and sit by the REA Express Office and watch the freight trains pass thru town and count the cars in the mid 1960’s. In the 70’s, Savannah painted a special engine to shuffle freight loads up and down River Street just feet from the door of The Exchange, a favorite watering hole. And now in Opelika I hear the night call of the trains heading all directions from my south side home.

Some nights, the whistle, which is really a horn, sounds like a song as it nearly, wakes me from deep sleep. After a few years living downtown, I can generally tell where the train is in relation to the horn blow.  It approaches Pepperell with the first warning, then at Thomason by the self storage place, on to west of the old Opelika Mill, then the clatter as it crosses the frog (officially called an interlock) before it’s assault on downtowns 9t, 8th & 7th Street. 

In cities, large and small, since 1990’s, residents have been working to silence the train horn in residential and business areas.  As Opelika’s downtown continues to add second floor condos, city leaders might consider actions to silence the horn and eliminate some of the noise pollution. It’s an easy, if not costly project to create Qafuiet Zones. By definition, a quiet zone is a railroad grade crossing at which trains are prohibited from sounding their horns in order to decrease the noise level for nearby residential communities. The train horns can be silenced only when other safety measures compensate for the absence of the horns. By adding crossing gates that block all lanes on both sides of the track, you make it impossible for a car to drive around and find it on the tracks. With these economic times, this project probably isn’t going to get much traction right now, but it should be considered in plans for the next five to eight years. 

Some train horn facts: A blast from a 110-decibel train horn is similar to the roar of a jet flyover at 1,000 feet or the amplified music of a rock band.

Currently trains are required to sound the horn for 15 second before a crossing with two long, one short and one long blast.  As anyone downtown can probably confirm, each conductor has his own way of sounding that horn.

Jerry Downtown Opelika, OA News Articles