Belle Plaine officially recognizes Quiet Zones with ribbon cutting… 50-plus train horns have now been silenced
A ribbon cutting was held Monday, April 10, in recognition of the completion of the railroad Quiet Zone. From left are Police Chief Bill Berry, Mike McKay (civil engineer/steering committee consultant); Doug Morley (Valley State Bank/Chamber of Commerce); Tina Friend (Chamber of Commerce); Robin Macy (steering committee/steward Bartlett Arboretum); Jon Holmes (Valley State Bank/Chamber); Gordon Fell (steering committee); and Mayor Greg Harlan.
Submitted to Sumner Newscow — Residents in the city of Belle Plaine are celebrating the silencing of the 50-plus train horns which traverse this small south-central Kansas community each day.
It was nearly a decade-long effort to create the federally regulated Quiet Zone, but as of April 5, the trains are a muted sound from the distant crossings outside the city. The 98-decibel horns are silenced as they travel through the three crossings impacting the community’s west side and Belle Plaine Township.
The effort to create the quiet zone began with a joint effort of the Bartlett Arboretum and the City of Belle Plaine. The committee was fortunate to have the assistance of Mike McKay, a retired civil engineer whose entire career centered on noise and zoning on both the local and federal levels. McKay is a rural community resident and a frequent visitor at the Bartlett Arboretum. The group worked on options and began educating the community on the process.
Additional partners in the project were Sumner County and Belle Plaine Township.
The work in the quiet zone was split into small projects. The first step was closing a crossing with difficult sight lines. Burlington Northern Santa Fe paid the city $40,000 for the closing, which covered the cost of landscaping, street work at that crossing, and the delineators for the next phases.
A Kansas Department of Transportation Cost Share grant and donations to the Arboretum provided funding for the highway work and design of the Kansas Highway 55 crossing in 2021. That crossing features a raised median and delineators to keep vehicles from going through lowered crossing arms.
The Quiet Zones are set up with supplemental safety measures to compensate for the train horns. Those provide an enhanced physical barrier to enhance safety.
The project’s final phase was a separate Quiet Zone at the 8th and 100th Avenue crossings. For that effort, the city hired Kit and David Huntley, owners of Quiet Zone Solutions and Railway Safety, LLC.
“We were more than pleased with the knowledge and effort Quiet Zone Solutions brought to the table,” said Mayor Greg Harlan. “They were able to lead the process through the Federal Railroad Administration levels when BNSF protested a portion of the final quiet zone.”
On April 4, the Quiet Zone took effect, and the noise levels were significantly lower. “We are now a ‘Quiet Little Town,’” Harlan said.
