Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.HICKMAN, Neb. — Two years ago, Daniel Stejskal moved here from Lincoln to enjoy the peace and quiet of idyllic, small-town Nebraska.
Stejskal found a nice, cream-colored, 1½-story house in a relatively new development in the northern part of town, where the homes and lawns are well-manicured and the bustle of Lincoln is a comfortable 10 miles to the north.
But forget about peace and quiet.
As many as 43 trains a day roar through Hickman, blasting their horns four times at each of the four crossings that border the town's western edge.
"There are times when a train will pass every 20 to 25 minutes," said Stejskal, a 30-year-old loan officer who lives about two blocks from one of the crossings.
"It's a piercing, piercing sound, 24 hours a day."
Residents here want to silence the horns, but that won't come cheap.
Modifying the crossings so that railroad engineers don't have to honk each time they rumble by could cost the city or county — depending on which funds the work — up to almost $1 million.
To taxpayers in this town of about 1,700, though, it's a worthy cause.
The parade of daily trains and the cadence of horns have made for a lot of shaking windows, sleepless nights and fed-up residents.
Federal law requires railroad engineers to sound a train's horn four times per crossing as a safety warning to drivers.
Each call must measure between 96 and 110 decibels, which is comparable to the sound of a siren, a lawn mower or an unmuffled diesel truck at close range.
Last year, Stejskal gathered more than 50 signatures to petition the City Council to implement horn-free quiet zones throughout town. Officials hired consulting firm Felsburg Holt & Ullevig to study how that could be done and at what cost.
City officials and the Lincoln-Lancaster County Railroad Transportation Safety District will discuss preliminary findings of the $26,600 study at a public meeting Tuesday night.
For cities to establish quiet zones, they have to implement alternative safety features to compensate for the lack of horns.
Federally sanctioned alternatives include pole-mounted horns that direct sound toward drivers specifically, unlike train horns, whose noise can reach residential areas miles from the tracks; medians that prevent drivers from crossing traffic to avoid track barriers; overpasses; or special gates on both sides of the tracks so that drivers aren't tempted to circumvent lowered arms at the crossing entrance.
The study won't be done until February, but engineers estimate that such modifications will cost between $440,000 and $940,000, said Rick Haden, an associate of the consulting firm.
Hickman City Administrator Silas Clarke said the city expects the county's railroad transportation safety district to cover the costs because it has done so for Lincoln and Waverly, to the tune of more than $2.3 million.
BNSF Railway Co., the operator of the line through Hickman, doesn't pay for quiet zones because the horns are federally mandated.
Haden's firm has worked with at least 15 towns across the country where train noise was a nuisance, including Grand Island, Broken Bow and Scottsbluff, Neb.
The City of Broken Bow, which is cut in half by railroad tracks, has spent $185,470 to modify two crossings, which included adding medians. It is installing directional horns at two other crossings where medians aren't feasible, City Administrator Tony Tolstedt said.
Tolstedt said that despite the expense, the quiet zones have been "absolutely worth it."
However, some residents aren't satisfied. They won't be, he said, until all the crossings are quiet.
That's what Stejskal wants for Hickman, too, a town whose website boasts of its commitment to quality of life.
"The city wants to continue growing, but that's difficult to do when 43 trains are coming through a day, shaking the windows," he said.
"We were told a few years ago when we moved in that we'd get used to it," Stejskal said. "We are still waiting to get used to it."
Even if the city decides to move forward with the modifications, it could be up to two years before Stejskal enjoys the peace and quiet he expected in Hickman.
Such projects take time, Haden said, because they require cooperation between the city, the transportation safety district, the railroad and the Federal Railroad Administration, which must ultimately approve the proposed changes.
"Typically," Haden said, "projects initiated by a community are not the highest priority for a railroad."
Contact the writer: teresa.lostroh@owh.com
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