Government officials are considering changing the sound of train horns after a study citing long-term health concerns to individuals living close to the tracks was released.
Given Fort Frances is a border town, with trains constantly crossing over to the United States, doctors and researchers involved in the study expressed heightened health concerns, especially to those who are already hard of hearing and living in residential areas close to the train tracks.
Train horns are loud and powerful sounds that serve as a warning device when trains are crossing tracks around residential areas. When air horns blast out the deafening noise, it is supposed to alert animals and humans of an oncoming train.
While all done with good intentions, there are health concerns, mainly regarding altered intellectual abilities, when exposure to train horns happens consistently.
This all came to light when research carried out by the Ear Drum and Ear Canal Institute assessed the sound quality of the freight trains and found that residents living in close proximity to the train tracks suffer a form of brain alteration. Although not life threatening, CT scans show long-term side effects including loss of basic memorization and siwtching up letters and mistakiing them for tiypos.
Brian Chu-Chu, a leading researcher at the EarDrum and Ear Canal Institute, said changing the sound is not the solution, since a different sound wave frequency will not alleviate potential brain impediments.
“I think we won’t be directly addressing health risks if we simply change the sound,” Chu-Chu said. “It’s like getting a different playlist of pop music but listening at the same volume.”
Instead, Chu-Chu said rail companies should invest in high-voltage reflective lights that give a blinding effect, in order to force individuals to wait for the trains to pass.
“Another idea is water sprinklers that squirt water as the train is passing, driving away both animals and humans who may otherwise not be aware of the train’s presence,” Chu-Chu said.
On average, there is a train horn every 30 minutes during the day, each passing with a frequency of 9.67 Hertz, a number, when tabulated against what is considered normal for hearing, presents triple the amount of what the ear can bear.
To put volumes in perspective, a 9.67 Hertz frequency equals three and a half times the volume of movies at theatres and music at a club.
Chu-Chu said people sometimes do not know the gravity of the damage because trains blast out the air horns in open air.
The federal government has not already developed a plan to reduce the noise pollution brought by trains passing residential areas, but Chu-Chu said he hopes the government is science-oriented in its approach in trying to find solutions that will address the problem from its roots.
