CLEARWATER, FL. (WFLA) – From her condo, Joy Hancock and her husband hear train horns at all hours of the day and night.
She recorded video from her third-floor window. “We can hear them from a long, long ways away. It just seems to go on forever,” Hancock said.
“And if I’m having meetings over the phone, the people I’m talking to can hear it and they always say, ‘What is that noise?’ And then I have to talk about the train,” she said.
Hancock isn’t the only neighbor dealing with the noise.
“As a matter of fact, I can set my clock by the darn thing,” David Patterson said. “Maybe two or three times a night, but most of the time, it’s 3 in the morning … It drives you crazy.”
The people in charge of Clearwater’s traffic operations are working with the CSX railroad to establish a “quiet zone” in the area.
Being able to walk to stores and closeness to the Pinellas Trail bring people to this area. Silencing the train horns will be a welcome relief.
Work will begin Jan. 17. It is scheduled to last for 2.5 months. Grove and Hendricks streets will be closed off. New gates will be put up – and so will signs, warning drivers the trains won’t be sounding their horns.
Patterson is looking forward to the quiet zone being established. “I hope so. I hope so. Please, I hope so,” he said.
Hancock reaction to the soon-to-be quiet zone. “Fantastic. Let’s hope that the construction stays on schedule,” she said.
