The ‘Chicago Anomaly’

In Eric’s letter, he said “It is time to have a qualified and independent body such as the CDC analyze the effectiveness of the FRA’s horn rule and rescind it if the Chicago anomaly is found to hold throughout the country.” The reason it is called the “Chicago Anomaly” is that the FRA found that Chicago was the ONLY place that “whistle bans” didn’t increase collisions. Overall, the FRA found that crossings with “whistle bans” “experienced 119% more collisions than similarly equipped crossings without whistle bans. This finding made it clear that the train horn was highly effective in deterring collisions at nongated crossings equipped only with flashing lights.

The only exception to this finding was in the Chicago area where collisions were 16% less frequent. This is a puzzling anomaly. One possible explanation for this result is that more than 200 crossings (approximately one third of the crossings in Chicago) still included in the DOT/AAR National Inventory have in all likelihood been closed” (from https://www.federalregister.gov/d/03-30606/page-70618).

Chicago is the ONLY place where “whistle bans” appear to not make sense. That’s why it is an anomaly.

Kurt Topel

Wilmette, Illinois