Sleepless in St. Louis Park: With more night train traffic, city explores whistle quiet zone

In classic country songs, the lonesome bellow of a train whistle is romantic.

In St. Louis Park, some residents who live near the Dan Patch Line disagree — especially since the Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) railroad began running more overnight trains on this route. The tracks run north-south through residential areas.

“We actually ended up spending $24,000 on new windows,” said Joshua Erdmann, who moved into a house less than a block away from the train line in St. Louis Park last June. He said that while the new windows help, he and his wife are still losing sleep from the train whistles — and that’s before the forthcoming addition of a new baby.

After hearing concerns from residents, the St. Louis Park City Council this spring directed city staff to conduct a study to evaluate upgrading the city’s crossings to create a “quiet zone,” where trains would not be required to blow whistles. The a process involves upgrading intersections and getting the federal government’s blessing.

Nearby, Edina is in a similar situation with the overnight trains along the same line, but has decided not to take action for now after it didn’t get a federal grant to pay for a study.

St. Louis Park city officials expressed sympathy for residents who live near the tracks, but cautioned that the process, even if it results in a quiet zone, could take years.

“Things don’t happen overnight,” Mayor Nadia Mohamed said. “I feel really bad to say that to people who are experiencing this in the worst ways.”

The city began hearing residents’ complaints about nighttime train whistles late last summer, said Debra Heiser, the city’s engineering director.

Staff contacted CPKC and learned the railroad had begun running nighttime trains — once an occasional occurrence — through St. Louis Park on a more regular basis.

“They said they’ve shifted to an overnight schedule for business needs, and they don’t see that changing any time in the foreseeable future,” she said.

Stopping the whistles isn’t simple for the city.

In general, the Federal Railroad Administration requires train engineers to sound horns between 15 and 20 seconds before they reach a crossing at the same grade as cars. Engineers are required to sound the whistle in a pattern — two long blasts, followed by one short and one long — until the front of the train reaches the railroad crossing.

Engineers can skip the whistle in federally designated quiet zones. To get that designation, crossings must have improvements, like gates, for safety. Sometimes the best option is closing the crossing to cars.

“We really don’t have any jurisdiction over their operations or noise or anything along those lines,” Heiser said. “It’s run through the feds, and it’s about safety.”

More than 50 cities around Minnesota have 24-hour quiet zones, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

Jack Sullivan, deputy engineering director in St. Louis Park, said the safety study will take 18 to 24 months. It will determine how the city’s crossings could be made quiet-zone safe and the cost of those improvements, which he said would be shouldered by the city.

The Federal Railroad Administration, the railroad and the city would need to sign off on the plan, and the city would need to make the improvements before the whistles were quieted.

Terry Cunha, a spokesperson for CPKC, said in an email that the railroad coordinates with cities to work through the process.

In nearby Edina, residents have voiced similar concerns about overnight trains on the Dan Patch Line. The city unsuccessfully asked for $200,000 in federal funding to study the feasibility of a quiet zone. In a letter earlier this year, the city informed residents that without the funds, it did not have the money to do the study.

Edina resident Amanda Varley, who lives across the street from the line, said she’s a little frustrated.

“It’s just a classic issue where it feels like no entity has full authority over problem-solving, and so everyone’s response is, ‘Well, we tried a little thing and we can’t do anything about it, so hopefully someone else takes it,’” she said.

She said she knew what she was getting into buying a house near the train tracks — and thinks trains are important.

But she wishes they ran during the day so they didn’t wake her 4-year-old daughter or other children in the neighborhood who need their sleep.

“It’s specifically the night train through a densely populated urban area that is challenging,” she said.

While some residents of both cities are frustrated, not all are.

Geof Brown said he’s lived within a few blocks of trains most of his life and now lives less than two blocks from the Dan Patch Line in St. Louis Park. He said people speeding down the street with altered mufflers are more annoying than the trains.

Brown said it doesn’t hurt to look into quiet zone options, but he feels there are more worthwhile things the city could be spending money on.

“You live in a city, you bought your home next to a railroad track,” he said. “The railroad track is noisy.”

For others, it’s a slog. Erdmann said he knows the train is coming because his wife’s silver spoon collection on the wall starts rattling.

He said he’s found himself going to bed later in the hopes of missing the last train whistle, which he often hears around 11 p.m.

“I just kind of adapted back to a six-hour sleep schedule,” he said.