VOORHEESVILLE — For more than a decade, the village of Voorheesville has pursued a seemingly simple goal: silence. 

Specifically, silencing the routine blast of train horns that punctuate daily life as freight trains rumble through the village. But Voorheesville’s quest for a quiet zone — a project with finalized plans and funding secured at last — is now stalled indefinitely over a demand from rail giant CSX Transportation for tens of thousands of dollars in annual maintenance fees.

The village believed it had a deal, struck years ago as part of a larger railroad merger settlement, that shielded it from such costs. 

Village officials maintain the language of that settlement is clear and covers all additional expenses. CSX, however, contends the maintenance fees are standard practice for quiet zones.

This impasse, described by a village representative as “the only thing holding it up,” pits a local community’s quality-of-life aspirations against a corporation’s cost-recovery policies, highlighting the complex and often frustrating hurdles municipalities face when navigating federal regulations, state bureaucracy, and the financial realities of implementing infrastructure improvements on privately owned railroad lines.

Voorheesville’s struggle is not unique.

Across the eastern United States, where CSX operates its vast network, cities and towns seeking relief from train noise encounter similar obstacles: high upfront costs, protracted negotiations, unexpected fees, and the daunting transfer of legal liability from the railroad to the local taxpayer.

While federal rules permit quiet zones, the path to achieving one often becomes a protracted battle over who pays for safety upgrades and their perpetual upkeep, revealing a pattern of cost-shifting by railroads that can stymie local efforts.

History 

Voorheesville’s journey began over a decade ago, driven by residents’ complaints about the noise from dozens of trains passing daily through crossings at Voorheesville Avenue and South Main Street, both county-owned roads.

A citizens’ group, the Committee for a Quiet Zone in Voorheesville, chaired by Steven Schreiber, formed in 2012 to advocate for the project, citing impacts on local businesses attempting to develop Main Street; potential decreases in property values; and public-health concerns, particularly the noise at a nearby playground.

The solution sought was the installation of four-quadrant gate systems at both crossings. Unlike standard two-gate systems, four-quadrant gates block all lanes of traffic on both sides of the track, physically preventing vehicles from driving around lowered gates.

Under Federal Railroad Administration rules, such Supplemental Safety Measures allow trains to pass through without routinely sounding their horns, creating a quiet zone. Achieving this also requires minor roadway modifications.

In Voorheesville, this would mean cutting back pavement and installing a curb near Grove Street to accommodate the maximum gate length criteria, work which the village or county may undertake.

Achieving the quiet zone required Voorheesville to navigate a complex web of stakeholders.

Because the crossings involve county roads, Albany County became the project's official applicant. Funding was sought from New York state, and cooperation was needed from CSX, which owns the tracks, and Norfolk Southern, which also operates in the area and owns adjacent tracks. Village officials confirm CSX has cooperated in planning, sharing survey details, and working with engineers, resulting in finalized designs ready for implementation.

Funding

Securing funding proved to be a multi-year saga itself.

Initial estimates placed the project cost around $400,000. Albany County requested the full amount from the state through then-Senator George Amedore. An allocation of $340,000 was eventually secured, consisting of funds obtained by Amedore and $80,000 through Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy via a State and Municipal Facilities Program, known as a SAM grant administered by the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York.

However, releasing the DASNY funds became a major hurdle that lasted roughly six years. The SAM grant rules required the grant recipient (Albany County) to own the asset being funded — the four-quadrant gate system.

This clashed with standard railroad practice, where CSX typically owns, installs, and maintains crossing infrastructure on its right-of-way, charging municipalities for the work.

Several attempts were made to resolve the ownership issue. In September 2021, Voorheesville Mayor Rich Straut reported CSX “seemed agreeable” to the county owning the gates through a permanent easement while CSX maintained them, but nothing was formalized.

Later, the idea of a long-term lease between the county and CSX was explored but, according to village attorney Rich Reilly, DASNY counsel rejected this, insisting on actual ownership.

Facing a dead end, Reilly and the village pivoted, arguing in a December 2023 letter to then-state Senator Neil Breslin that the project qualified as an “environmental project” under SAM grant guidelines.

Reilly contended that train noise is a recognized environmental concern, the village has adopted noise standards exceeded by the trains, and the quiet zone would remedy these environmental and quality-of-life impacts. Crucially, environmental projects under SAM guidelines did not strictly require recipient ownership.

In August 2024, Mayor Straut announced a breakthrough. State officials, initially skeptical, ran the argument past the Department of Environmental Conservation.

“Yes, it’s an environmental project,” the DEC reportedly confirmed, “which basically broke the roadblock,” Straut recounted.

By November 2024, the Albany County Legislature approved the final funding agreements with DASNY, seemingly clearing the last financial hurdle for the $289,000 project, which was the latest cost estimate.

Complications from merger 

Parallel to the funding struggles, a major corporate transaction added another layer of complexity. In November 2020, CSX announced its intent to acquire Pan Am Railways.

Norfolk Southern, holding a 50-percent stake in a key Pan Am subsidiary, initially objected to the deal before the federal Surface Transportation Board, citing competitive concerns.

This merger had direct implications for Voorheesville. As part of a settlement between CSX and Norfolk Southern, Norfolk Southern gained trackage rights to operate trains — potentially 9,000-foot-long, double-stacked trains — through Voorheesville, requiring upgrades and a new connection between Norfolk Southern and CSX tracks near Main Street.

Concerned about increased train traffic and potential disruption to the quiet-zone project, Voorheesville filed its own objection with the Surface Transportation Board in July 2021. This prompted immediate discussions with both railroads.

In a Dec. 16, 2021 letter agreement, filed with the board on Dec. 23, 2021, the village agreed to withdraw its opposition in exchange for specific commitments regarding the quiet zone.

Key terms of that settlement included commitments from both railroads to cooperate on and advance the quiet zone design and survey work. Crucially, the agreement stated: “CSXT represents and warrants that it will perform the necessary improvements within CSX right-of-way to allow for completion of the Quiet Zone project at the CSXT Crossings ... at a cost equal to the order of magnitude cost estimate transmitted to the Village via letter dated August 10, 2016.”

Norfolk Southern also agreed to “absorb up to $125,000 of its project costs for work not described above but specifically related to implementation of the Quiet Zone project at the NSR crossing or for other railroad-related work at other NSR at-grade crossings within the Village.”

The village’s understanding, based on this specific language and repeatedly emphasized by officials, was that these commitments covered all necessary railroad costs for installation, precluding separate, ongoing maintenance fees.

 

Maintenance costs

With funding finally secured in late 2024 and designs apparently ready, the project seemed poised to proceed. However, a new obstacle emerged, one that directly challenged the village’s understanding of the December 2021 settlement: maintenance costs.

In late 2022, CSX informed the village and county that ongoing annual maintenance for the two four-quadrant gate systems would cost approximately $50,000, and that the municipality/county would be responsible for paying it.

“That came out of left field because there was no mention of maintenance” in the settlement agreement, Mayor Straut stated in a November 2022 board meeting. “I would have thought that would have been kind of laid out at that time.”

The village pushed back.

As detailed in a subsequent meeting transcript (likely from late 2024 or early 2025 based on context), the village rejected CSX’s initial maintenance proposal two years prior, circa late 2022.

CSX recently returned with a revised proposal, lowering the annual fee to a “$20,000 base plus ... a smaller ‘plus’,” according to Reilly. The initial $50,000 proposal also included an apparent “open checkbook” provision and a 3-percent annual escalation clause, which the village found unacceptable.

However, the core dispute remained.

CSX argued, Reilly reported, that “a maintenance agreement associated with a quiet zone is just standard practice on their end.”

The village countered that the language of the December 2021 settlement was clear: CSX committed to perform the necessary improvements “at a cost equal to the order of magnitude cost estimate transmitted to the Village via letter dated August 10, 2016.”

Village officials interpret this commitment to the 2016 cost estimate as covering the full scope of CSX’s work for the quiet zone installation, leaving no room for additional, ongoing maintenance charges. The village maintained that CSX, as the owner and operator of the railroad, is generally responsible for maintaining safety at its crossings.

The project is now stalled solely over this maintenance agreement.

“This is the only thing holding it up,” Reilly confirmed in the transcript.

The village, coordinating with Albany County, which would be the formal signatory to the agreement with CSX, has sent a redlined version back to CSX, seeking to “strip out the provisions that push responsibilities CSX currently has, or liabilities associated with the tracks, onto the municipalities.”

While adamant about the original agreement, village officials expressed a willingness to compromise reasonably on a financial contribution — if it allows the project to proceed and, critically, does not saddle the village or county with undue liability.

“If it’s a reasonable amount, I think we’d be receptive,” Reilly stated, adding the crucial caveat: “as long as we’re not also taking on other responsibilities and other liabilities.”

The mayor echoed this, supporting a “reasonable compromise” but rejecting an “unreasonable” one.

Common conflict

Voorheesville’s maintenance cost dispute is not an isolated incident but rather a direct consequence of CSX’s established corporate policies for quiet zones, which often clash with municipal expectations and financial realities nationwide.

Railroads like CSX and Union Pacific operate under a fundamental policy that the public authority initiating a quiet-zone project must cover 100 percent of all associated costs.

This comprehensive cost recovery model stems from the railroad’s perspective as the owner of the infrastructure and right-of-way. The railroads view quiet zones as local amenities initiated by municipalities primarily for noise reduction.

Therefore, requiring the municipality to bear all costs — including preliminary engineering; installation; support services like flagging; and crucially, the perpetual upkeep of modified railroad assets — is considered a necessary business practice to protect their assets, ensure operational reliability and safety systems, and avoid subsidizing local projects.

Railroads see it as compensation for the use and modification of their private property and infrastructure, and a way to ensure that the additional burden placed on their maintenance resources by the quiet-zone infrastructure is fully covered.

This policy positions quiet zones less as collaborative safety initiatives and more as services purchased by municipalities under the railroad’s terms.

A significant and often contentious hurdle is securing a maintenance agreement.

Unlike initial construction, which might be partially offset by grants, the long-term financial responsibility for maintaining railroad-owned assets (signals, gates, track circuits, power sources, communication systems) modified for a quiet zone typically falls squarely on the public authority through a required construction-and-maintenance agreement.

This represents a perpetual, escalating financial commitment. Annual maintenance costs are not fixed; they vary based on the complexity of the safety measures (four-quadrant gates typically cost $10,000 to $20,000 per crossing annually to maintain, versus $1,000 to $5,000 for simpler medians), the number of crossings, railroad labor rates, and inspection frequency.

CSX’s demand for $50,000 annually in Voorheesville (at about $25,000/crossing) appears significantly higher than estimates from peers like UP and NS ($4,000 to $10,000/crossing).

Cartersville, Georgia’s agreement with CSX sets an initial $26,768 per year for five crossings (at about $5,350 per crossing), while a BNSF agreement in Oregon started at over $18,000 for a single crossing.

Critically, these agreements include escalation clauses, commonly tied to the Consumer Price Index and periodic railroad cost reviews, ensuring the financial burden grows over time and potentially impacting other municipal services or requiring tax increases.

This transfer of long-term financial responsibility is a major point of friction. Municipalities often argue railroads should maintain their own infrastructure as a cost of doing business. Railroads counter that the additional maintenance burden results from the municipality’s request.

This fundamental difference fuels disputes, as seen in Voorheesville and in Eugene, Oregon, where a project stalled explicitly due to being “deadlocked over maintenance costs” with Union Pacific.

In Glendale, Ohio, the village paid for repairs to municipally-maintained detection loops damaged during CSX track work, which highlights how these agreements can create unexpected costs.

Liability

Establishing a quiet zone also fundamentally alters the liability landscape.

By silencing the train horn, the public authority assumes a greater share of the risk if an accident occurs. While Federal Railroad Administration rules may pre-empt lawsuits based solely on the failure to sound the horn in a compliant zone, they don’t eliminate liability.

The focus shifts to the adequacy and maintenance of the alternative safety measures. Municipalities can be sued if these measures are deemed insufficient, improperly designed, or malfunctioning, creating a new duty of care.

The potential financial exposure can be immense, with figures like $200 million per accident per crossing cited as a benchmark in Plymouth, Michigan.

Securing adequate insurance is difficult and costly, as standard municipal policies often exclude quiet zones. Specialized coverage from limited markets comes with high premiums (Plymouth faced estimates of $100,000 to $200,000 annually), potentially doubling a city’s total liability costs and possibly still not covering the full perceived exposure.

Furthermore, Federal Railroad Administration rules lack explicit language granting municipalities the same immunity potentially afforded railroads, increasing perceived risk and driving up insurance costs, making liability a critical, often insurmountable, barrier.

Voorheesville’s effort to strip liability-shifting provisions from CSX’s agreement underscores this concern.

Securing insurance for this heightened exposure is notoriously difficult and expensive. Standard municipal policies often exclude quiet zones.

Plymouth, Michigan found that specialized coverage for a potential $200 million per-accident liability could cost $100,000 to $200,000 annually — comparable to their entire existing municipal liability premium — and even then might not cover the full potential exposure.

This “liability hurdle” was a primary reason Plymouth abandoned its project and serves as a major deterrent for many communities. Voorheesville officials, in seeking to strip liability-shifting provisions from CSX’s proposed maintenance agreement, are acutely aware of this risk.

 

Regulation

The establishment of railroad quiet zones operates within a tightly defined regulatory framework governed by the Federal Railroad Administration, alongside specific operational policies and procedures dictated by the involved railroad company, such as CSX.

The foundation for quiet zones is laid out in the Code of Federal Regulations. A core principle of this regulation is that the authority to initiate, establish, and maintain quiet zones rests solely with public authorities (municipalities, counties) responsible for traffic control, not with the railroads themselves.

To qualify for quiet-zone designation, a public authority must demonstrate that silencing the train horn does not pose a significant safety risk, or that any added risk has been adequately compensated for through FRA-approved Supplemental Safety Measures or Alternative Safety Measures.

This requires a rigorous risk assessment. Public authorities must calculate the Quiet Zone Risk Index for the proposed zone, representing the average collision risk without routine horn sounding.

This index must then meet established safety thresholds, typically by being at or below the FRA-established Nationwide Significant Risk Threshold or reduced to a level at or below the Risk Index With Horns for that specific corridor. Installing FRA-approved Supplemental Safety Measures at every public crossing within the zone can simplify qualification, as their effectiveness is predetermined.

Among the most robust, yet costly, measures are four-quadrant gate systems. Unlike conventional two-gate systems that block only entrance lanes, four-quadrant systems employ gates on both entrance and exit lanes for each direction of traffic, physically preventing vehicles from driving around lowered gates.

To prevent vehicles from being trapped, these systems often incorporate Vehicle Presence Detection, known as VPD, typically using inductive loops in the roadway.

If a vehicle is detected when gates are commanded to lower, VPD can delay the exit gates, allowing the vehicle to clear. However, VPD design and maintenance require complex agreements.

The Federal Railroad Administration assigns effectiveness ratings to Supplemental Safety Measures; four-quadrant gates without VPD have a rating of 0.82, while those with VPD have a 0.77 rating (lower due to concerns about potential learned risky driver behavior). Combining quad gates with medians yields the highest rating (0.92).

Implementing four-quadrant gates is capital-intensive, with estimates ranging from $270,000 to over $600,000 per crossing, influenced by factors like track number, road width, signal upgrades (including required Constant Warning Time devices and Power-Out Indicators), utility relocation, and integration complexity.

The high cost often makes them a solution only when site constraints preclude cheaper options like medians.

While CSX policy requires municipalities to fund these upgrades and their maintenance, confirmed examples of established quiet zones using four-quadrant gates on CSX lines appear limited based on available public data.

Notable instances include the village of Glendale, Ohio, which established a quiet zone with quad gates at two crossings in 2017 (funded through a mix of private donations and federal, state, and CSX contributions), and the SunRail commuter corridor in central Florida, operating on a line acquired from CSX, where four-quadrant gates were implemented extensively as part of the project.

Finding documented cases on high-volume CSX freight mainlines seems more challenging, potentially indicating greater hurdles related to cost, operational complexity, or railroad concurrence in those contexts.

Case studies in CSX negotiations

Documented interactions between CSX and other municipalities reveal patterns similar to Voorheesville’s experience:

—  Cartersville, Georgia: In July 2024, the city approved formal maintenance agreements with CSX for five quiet-zone crossings. The agreements explicitly require the city to pay CSX $26,768 initially per year (averaging $5,350 per crossing), with costs subject to annual increases based on the Consumer Price Index and periodic adjustments determined by CSX upon review. This confirms CSX’s policy of contractualizing maintenance reimbursement with built-in escalation;

— Glendale, Ohio: A quiet zone established via contract assigned gate maintenance to CSX but detection-loop maintenance to the village. When CSX’s track work necessitated costly repairs to the loops (estimated up to $30,000 per crossing), the village was contractually obligated to pay, highlighting the potential for unexpected costs and disputes even with an agreement;

— Plymouth, Michigan: This city abandoned its quiet-zone plans in 2015 after CSX provided a preliminary installation estimate exceeding $4.4 million for seven crossings. Crucially, this estimate excluded utility relocation, city road engineering, annual maintenance fees, and potential insurance costs. The explicit exclusion of maintenance underscores that CSX views it as a separate, additional municipal obligation;

— Plant City, Florida: The city faced repeated delays and cost increases after CSX imposed additional requirements mid-project. “CSX came back with more requirements so we needed added funds,” the city manager explained. “CSX has these regulations and we have to comply ... There’s no working around it.” The city had to pay CSX nearly $450,000 upfront before construction began; and

— Tampa, Florida: A quiet zone project estimated at $3.2 million ballooned to over $7 million after CSX revised its requirements, leading the city to terminate the effort.

These examples illustrate a consistent approach where CSX dictates technical requirements, enforces full cost recovery (including potentially high and escalating maintenance fees), and shifts financial risk to municipalities.

Delays often stem from funding-acquisition challenges, protracted negotiations over these cost terms, or CSX’s own internal processes and scheduling, as reported in Winter Haven, Florida.