Claremore Officials Working To Combat Loud Trains By Becoming Designated Quiet Zone

People in Claremore are hopeful trains will no longer have to blare their horns when rolling through town.

The city is working right now towards a Quiet Zone designation, which means conductors won’t have to make as much noise.

Conductors are required to blow the horn four times when approaching a crossing like this.

With 16 of these spots, people living and working here say it can get really noisy through the day and night.

There’s a steady flow of customers coming to James Cisneros’ food truck in Claremore.

His mobile restaurant is parked right along the train tracks.

"They’re loud. It’s loud. They’re always loud, either it’s coming this way or this way, it just starts honking," Cisneros said.

Cisneros says the location doesn’t come without headaches for him and his customers.

"You’ll be talking to them and you’ve got to wait. We laugh about it but we’ve gotta wait, they’ve got to stick around when they go by because you can’t hear," Cisneros said.

Leaders want to fix this problem.

City Manager John Feary says the focus this week is working with its consulting group and railroad representatives to get the process of turning Claremore into a Quiet Zone.

Trains run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When they come through our community, whether it’s 2 o’clock in the afternoon or 2 o’clock in the morning, they’re blowing those horns," Feary said.

Feary says a Quiet Zone designation means conductors wouldn’t have to blow the horn each time a train rolls through town.

It’s a process that’s been years in the making, which includes making train crossings safer.

The city hopes to have the application finished at the end of the year. The next step would be an 18-month review at the federal level. For the city, they won’t just be waiting around.

"That’s also a time for us to continue to make needed improvements to ensure that the safety factors still exist in the absence of a train horn," Feary said.

Feary says an average of 40 trains move through Claremore every day.

He says getting the Quiet Zone implemented would bring peace to many people around.