I've been privy many a focus group on transportation.... on how to do things like we see today with things like real time traffic and transit information, carpool lanes, to congestion pricing..... And, once upon a time, when doing this work, I heard a story a few years back that there had been some focus group work on train horns.

If I recall correctly, one of the problems was that train whistles (steamies...?) were supposedly more likely to be "perceived" as train horns, than the air horns.... Now this was a few years back, so I do suspect that maybe there were more older participants back then who actually had heard steam whistles while growing up.... In places like Sou Cal though, SP had been using air horns on steam, and diesels been around since the 40's, and along the old PE in Beverly Hills, SP still had to use an air "Whistle" like the PE trains, so folks had different experiences.

While I was involved with building the "Blue Line" later named the Gold Line in Pasadena, we had some Mimby fools who claimed that the "evil" train horn would ruin their lives, in some cases 3 or 4 miles away from nearest the crossing. So the City agreed to pay for horn tests. Well they held the first one and no one reported hearing anything. The Nimby's raised holy hell, since they were not give the exact time, only that it would occur during the day.

So a second test was held, and very few folks reported they heard it, mostly nearby business and they didn't have much of a problem. Of course this infuriated the Nimby's even further, since people over five miles away hadn't been sent at least two notices by the City.

So they arranged for a third test, sent out thousands of post cards (at taxpayer expense, of course..), giving the exact date, times, and all..... Well,, it seems that the equipment and personel to do the train horn tests (recording crews, decibel recorders, etc.) were unavailable, and the test had to be cancelled. As there was no time to "notify" again the 5,000 or so people now being sent postcards, no one knew the test did not occur.... So guess what happened, almost all of the hard core Nimby's who had been notified heard strange non existent "train horns"....... I guessed some people just seem to hear a lot of strange things in their heads.....?

I know this ever present "train horn" issue has come up at least a dozen times in my various careers, no one seems to have an "answer" as to the most effective horn sound, or the least objectionable minimally effective sound, to effectively warn oblivious idiots that they are about to win the Darwin Award for their lack of the "laws of physics" gene. Some folks is just bound and determined, no matter what we do, what sound we choose, or how much money we spend.

And, yeah, from every aspect, including even musicality, most of these new fangled "train" "horn" sounds really do suck......

And speaking of a train horn that sounds like a "train" that's happening, right now.