Caltrain and its sinister and sadistic plots

I’m fairly certain Caltrain’s primary goal is to make sure enough trains run on time down the rail line to comfortably move as many passengers as possible as often as possible while keeping pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers safe from harm. But raise the volume and the pitch of the horn and the theories know no bound.

I too noticed the higher pitch of the horn. I live near the tracks and hear the trains that run a short distance away — particularly in my backyard. But my house has other forms of ambient noise at all times — the construction behind us, the hardware store next door, the bus barreling down the street along with a variety of bass and boom aurally undulating from souped-up Chevy Tahoes and Pontiac Trans Ams as they speed their way to their driver’s next stop. It’s an auditory smorgasbord. I guess the new horn volume didn’t bother me too much, except for the one time when my wife asked me in the middle of the night, "Why is that train blaring its horn?” I contemplated the question for approximately three seconds then returned to some odd dream in which we were considering making dinner plate chargers from the totem poles we used to decorate the dining room because they were too tall. Don’t ask me, it was a dream.

Seems the official reason for the louder horns was the federal requirement that trains emit two long, one short and one long horn blast as it comes close to an intersection. I don’t know why they are required to; Morse code indicates the pattern means the letters MET, or maybe Q. I don’t know if that is any kind of particular message, but I suspect the overall message is supposed to be, "This is a train and it is coming.” Caltrain tried to quiet the horns by placing them under the trains, but the length of pipe made the specific pattern impossible to sound. So back on top the trains the horns went. The horns were louder and the average person was slightly annoyed before moving on with their day. But for some, their irritation and dismay sparked ... the theories.

One was that Caltrain made the horns louder so that when they cut service, people wouldn’t complain because at least that was one way to quiet the horns. No trains, no horns! Another was that the horns were punishment for communities that did not want grade separations — you know, when there is either a combination of raised tracks or lowered roads so the crossing are safer but it creates a wall? Someone else theorized that the louder horns were in response to recent suicides on the tracks and that the blaring horns would keep the rails safer. Still another theory was that it was to ease the progress of higher tracks for high-speed rail. My favorites, though, are that Caltrain engineers are a collective bunch of jilted lovers who blare the horns to jar their true loves from the arms of their new partners in particular cities — or that the engineers are just disgruntled A-Holes who get as giddy as school girls hopped up on Skittles and Red Bulls just by rattling people near the tracks. But no, I suspect they are just people doing a job.

Perhaps I am a bit naive, but I’m sticking with the explanation that the horn pattern is required by the Federal Railroad Administration and Caltrain got busted for trying to keep the horn volume low, then, like the rest of us, had to suffer through trying to comply with some weird government mandate decided by people far far away from the communities those regulations affect. The horns were loud, I get it. I do. But I’m sure the workers there have better things to do than conjure up ideas to tick off hundreds, if not thousands, of people who decided to move next to the rail line. What might be next? Replacing the horns with Kenny G’s soprano sax? Or perhaps accordions and tubas?

Credit Caltrain with figuring out a way to muffle the horns and keep everyone happy, but maybe, just maybe, they are now simply lulling us into submission while they process data from their evil and sadistic social experiment for use in a larger and more sinister plot to send out mind-controlling gamma rays. Just how does one make a foil hat? And what is the best shape for that hat? Any theories?

Jon Mays is the editor in chief of the Daily Journal. He can be reached at jon@smdailyjournal.com.