To the Editor:

Thank you, Altamont Enterprise and Sean Mulkerin, for your excellent review of the Voorheesville Quiet Zone project [“Voorheesville quiet zone stalls over CSX fees, typical of nationwide conflicts,” May 2, 2025].

While your review includes the problem of maintenance charges by CSX for the quiet zone, it appears that there might be some compromise with CSX on this issue that could bring those charges into a reasonable range.

A more concerning barrier to initiating the quiet zone is the position of CSX that Albany County accept liability for the railroad crossings in the quiet zone. It should be noted that adding two gates to each crossing for the Voorheesville Quiet Zone creates a safer situation than the one that exists today where train horns are sounded.

Any increased risk of accidents that occurs with silencing the horns is more than compensated for by the additional safety measures of the quiet zone that prevent vehicles from pulling out of line at a lowered gate in order to cross the track before the train arrives. 

How do we know this? The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has developed a risk-scoring system for public grade crossings (https://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/quiet/login.aspx?Exit=Yes) that considers factors such as the number of tracks at the crossing, the number of trains crossing each day, the speed of the trains, the amount of vehicular traffic crossing the tracks, and accident history, if any.

There are tens of thousands of public-grade crossings that have been analyzed and have received a risk score from the FRA. A proposed quiet zone must, through its safety measures, bring the risk score for the crossing below the national risk score. Two years ago, the nationwide average risk score was 15,488. Voorheesville’s risk index with horns was 21,752. With the quiet zone, and its accompanying safety measures, that figure dropped to 6,530.

The state of New York has appropriated $400,000 for the quiet zone which, as stated above, will reduce the possibility of accidents compared with what we now have with trains sounding their horns. It should also be remembered that train horns can always be used in case of an emergency.

Only CSX has the knowledge and expertise to build, operate, and maintain the additional gates needed for the quiet zone. In view of the fact that the operation of the quiet zone would be completely under the control of CSX, how can CSX argue that some other party should be liable for what might occur at that crossing?

The Congress of the United States enacted a law in 2005 to enable communities to establish quiet zones pursuant to a reasonable set of requirements. The railroads have no right to set down conditions that effectively prevent municipalities from establishing quiet zones.

If CSX disagrees with the Federal Railroad Administration about the risk-reduction features described above, let them present evidence to the contrary. Let them explain their rationale for offloading liability for the quiet zone crossings to Albany County.

Let them also present a detailed explanation for the maintenance costs they attribute to the quiet zone and let them make clear that those costs are separate from the cost of maintaining the crossings as a whole.

This needs to be done before a court. 

Steven Schreiber

Voorheesville