KEY POINTS:
Rail network operator Ontrack should think again about its practice of ringing noisy alarm bells through the night at its 41 Auckland metropolitan road crossings.
Hiding behind the excuse that it's following international best practice doesn't stand close examination. We're not talking high-speed, levitating whisper-jet trains here. We're
talking about rattly, 50-year old locomotives that noisily amble from station to station, giving plenty of warning of their sedate approach.
If British Rail was to reintroduce the little man with the red flag who walked a few paces ahead of Stephenson's first puffing billies to guarantee the track was totally clear, would the local rail industry follow that too?
In the 10 years to 2004 - the latest figures I could find - there were just two deaths and seven serious injuries at road-rail crossings in the Auckland metropolitan area involving vehicles, and six deaths and three serious injuries involving cyclists and pedestrians.
Of course, having an accident-free record would have been better, but the figures do suggest Ontrack could risk lightening up a little and giving some thought to the concerns of the communities its tracks run through as well.
With more than $1 billion going into the upgrade of Auckland's passenger train network, telling potential passengers that international best practice ordains they'll have to put up with alarm bells ringing all night is hardly the way to make friends and attract new customers. In response to Herald reader Lindis Capper-Starr's plea for some silence at her Avondale home, Ontrack says it recognises the "great frustration" of neighbours trying to sleep "and is trying to help find a balance between keeping people alive and keeping people awake". Just how it calculates how many people have to be woken each night, often more than once, to save someone else from being run over by a passing train would be fascinating.
With the major push going on to turn the region's neglected rail corridors into passenger transport arteries, you might have believed more thought, consultation and research would have gone in to the effect increased rail corridor noise was going to have on people nearby. Particularly when local authorities are encouraging residential intensification along these new public transport routes.
Talking to those in the business, alarm bells are not really there to alert vehicular traffic, they were designed primarily to warn pedestrians. And with barrier arms and flashing red lights there to alert drivers at all Auckland's live crossings, you have to question the need for bells as well. Are those who deliberately decide to dice with death going to heed them?
That leaves pedestrians. Once again, with the bright red LED lights now in place or soon to be installed at all Auckland's rail crossing, it's hard to imagine that the few pedestrians out after 10pm need clanging bells as well to warn them of impending doom. At that time of night, road traffic noise will be at a minimum, so hearing an approaching trains should be a breeze. And just like crossing a road, a look up or down the track will alert them to the bright light blazing out towards them from any approaching train.
You could perhaps argue the case for additional pedestrian lights as well, or lights that are more similar to road traffic lights that change from green to red when trains are approaching, but bells all night does seem, pardon the pun, overkill.
Ontrack says because of complaints it is now installing "quiet bells". These are electronic bells that "can be adjusted to give reduced sound levels". But as the agency regards them as warning devices for motorists as well as pedestrians, sleep-deprived neighbours shouldn't get too excited by this development. A so-called "quiet bell" is going to have to be louder than a brass band in full flight to have much impact on someone in a car with the radio blaring. Particularly one who is so determined or drunk - or both - to risk death that he or she has already ignored the brilliant flashing red lights and the solid barrier arm blocking their side of the road.
As part of the Western Line upgrade, pedestrian gates will be installed at crossings at Sturgess Rd and Ranui stations. That is an example of international best practice that no neighbour would object to. But ringing bells in the middle of the night because people overseas do it seems simply bloody-minded.
