One of the things that make railways so interesting, is that wherever you go in the world, they
are completely different – from train designs, to infrastructure, right down to the rules
governing their operation.
Knowing a bit about these differences is a great way to look for how things can be done
better, but the average person usually just assumes that their local system is 'normal.'
If you've grown up in Melbourne, you will know that trains whistle a lot..
like, a lot a lot.
In all sorts of situations, often very lou..
very loudly and very frequently.
But what you might not know, is that not all railway systems are like this
not even elsewhere in Australia.
Victorian trains whistle far more often than trains in most other states, and way more
than in many other countries.
In this video I'm going to talk about why trains here whistle as often as they do, and
what we could maybe learn from other less-whistley parts of the world.
Before I dive into that, a quick note on terminology – the actual device that makes the sound
on modern trains is an air horn, and the average person on the street is most likely going
to say "the train blew its horn."
However the word 'whistle' is still widely used in the railways, a term dating from the
steam days – and that's what I'm mostly going to call it in this video.
Ok, so trains in Victoria are required to whistle in a number of specific situations.
The most common ones are:
-Before starting to move, under any circumstance
-Before entering a tunnel
-Before running express through a station
-Twice on approach to a level crossing: firstly when passing the whistle post – these are located roughly
400m before each crossing
-and again, just before passing over the crossing.
-When approaching track workers on or near the line.
-And importantly – 'as required,' which can be anything from sounding a warning to
a person or vehicle behaving dangerously
Right down to the important task of greeting small children.
Now the Melbourne suburban area is well known for having a lot of level crossings, far more
than any other Australian city.
The current state government is working pretty hard to get rid of 110 of these in the form
of the Level Crossing Removal Project, but even once that's complete there will still
be something like 70 level crossings in the metropolitan area.
So, imagine you live.. somewhere about here, between Dennis and Fairfield stations
on the Hurstbridge line.
In the 1km stretch of line nearest your house, every train will whistle approximately 6 times
– give or take, with some variation between drivers.
First for the Victoria Rd whistle post, then for Dennis station, then Victoria Road its self,
then the same pattern for Fairfield and Station Street.
This section has a mixture of stopping and express trains, and while both are required
to whistle the same overall number of times – stoppers when departing the stations and
expresses just before passing through, express trains travelling at speed will often whistle
longer for level crossings – for obvious reasons.
In addition to that, if an express train finds its self passing another train in close proximity
to a crossing, they will often whistle continuously right up to the crossing, as this is a high
risk situation for people and vehicles dodging the boom gates.
Roughly 150 trains pass through here every day, which adds up to about 900 whistles, which
is roughly every 80 seconds on average during the 20 hours each day in which trains are
normally operating.
Obviously this is just one example, but it's typical of lots of places around Melbourne.
Now, it just so happens that one of my childhood friends did live somewhere along here, in
fact they had a whistle post right next to their back fence.
Like most people who live near a rail corridor, they said that after a short time of living
there, they didn't even notice the trains going past any more – it just became part
of the the background soundscape they listen to every day.
So, it's all fine, right?
Before I answer that, lets take a quick look at how it works in some other places.
Up in Sydney, whistles are used far less often.
This is partly just because Sydney has hardly any level crossings – I can count the ones
in the suburban area on the fingers of one hand.
Sydney drivers also only whistle once for level crossings.
They don't whistle before passing express through a station, and the requirement to
whistle when the train starts moving was scrapped a few years ago.
This basically leaves entering a tunnel as the most common reason to whistle, but even
that doesn't apply in every case, as some inner city tunnel entrances have a 'No Whistle' sign,
aimed at reducing urban noise pollution.
Having a quick look overseas, I've spent a total of about 3 months in Europe travelling
by train virtually every day, and during that time barely heard a single train whistle.
As far as I'm aware no western European countries require a whistle when beginning to move,
and many don't require it for tunnels.
Most only require a whistle for a level crossing if it has no active protection – that is,
no lights or bells – just a sign.
The British are a bit more whistle-happy than Europe, but still far below Victorian levels.
And they actually have a designated quiet period late at night,
where reduced whistle use is allowed.
New Zealand has also taken steps to reduce whistle use in recent decades, eliminating
the whistle on departure, and they even have some level crossings which don't sound bells at night.
Meanwhile, there are certainly plenty of places where trains do whistle more than us:
I've never been to North America, but in many places trains whistle a lot on approach to level crossings,
like almost constantly for about 20 seconds.
Many North American systems also require the use of a bell when moving through platforms
and yards, and while this replaces the role of the whistle in some instances,
the pros and cons of this practice are pretty similar.
And all other examples pale into insignificance when you see how trains use their horns in India.
I wasn't able to get permission to use any footage from there, but if you do a search for it,
you won't be disappointed!
Ok so, it's clear that the railway world at large has no consensus on how much whistle
is too much..or not enough.
So should Melbourne's trains whistle less?
Firstly let's look at the safety issue – the entire reason trains whistle is to warn people
of the trains approach and reduce the risk of accidents, so can you reduce whistle use
without making the railway less safe?
Well there's a pretty good argument that whistling less can actually improve safety – and here's why.
Remember how I said my friends living next to the whistle post didn't even notice the
trains any more?
It's a basic 'boy who cried wolf' situation.
The train whistle is a warning device, and when it's used constantly people get used to it -
it isn't alarming any more.
If a train is approaching a level crossing and already whistling like it always does,
there's nothing left in armoury to provide a bigger warning if somebody actually steps
out onto the track.
Sure you can whistle longer, but it's still not an unusual sound likely to get somebody's attention.
Most trains do have a quiet and a loud horn, but the loud one gets used by default in most situations.
This has actually been thought about with Melbourne's trams, which normally use their
moderately polite bell to alert people to their movements, but the modern trams also
have a loud horn – which is attention grabbing in an emergency – largely because it's not
part of the normal city soundscape like the bells are.
To be clear, I'm not suggesting Melbourne trains shouldn't whistle at all,
but I do think the whistle would be a much more valuable warning device if it's use was less frequent.
For level crossings and running express through stations, I reckon it should be saved for
situations where a person or vehicle is actually in a position of danger, or looks as if they
might be about to do something stupid.
Let's remember that just about every crossing in the suburbs is fitted with lights and bells
anyway, so there's already significant warning that a train is approaching.
Whistling when passing another train just before a crossing is probably a good practice
to continue, given the serious potential for danger in that situation.
As for whistling when the train starts to move, let's definitely get rid of that
virtually everywhere else in the world no longer does it.
It's a bit of a relic from the time when trains didn't have power operated doors, and there
were much more likely to be people standing near the train at ground level
I don't see it as serving any real purpose today, with the exception of stations that have a
passive pedestrian crossing close to the platform.
So the other reason you might want to reduce whistle use, is for the benefit of those people
living right beside the line.
Now, whenever this gets discussed people always immediately jump on "if you don't like the
sound of the trains then you shouldn't have moved next to the railway!"
And, look..
there's some value to that argument.
But that doesn't mean we shouldn't consider ways to improve things for people living lineside,
and if we want more people to live close to public transport, improving the urban soundscape
can only be a good thing.
Something else to consider, is that whistles have changed over time – if you bought a
house near a level crossing in the late 90s, you would have had mostly Comeng and Hitachi
trains with RVB three chime horns.
Now this is purely subjective, but I think the chord played by these horns sounds quite
nice, and to me it's a classic part of the Melbourne soundscape.
From 2002 X'trapolis trains started running on the network, which have a very abrupt and
loud single note horn, which I think is a much more annoying sound.
There is currently a program to replace the X'trap whistles with a slightly softer-sounding model,
but it's still an abrupt single note.
The Clifton Hill and Burnley groups of lines are now 100% operated by X'trapolis trains,
so our hypothetical 90s home owner now has a completely different sound rolling over
their back fence 900-odd times a day than when they first moved in.
And if you live on a line with country trains, the last 20 years has seen a transition from
most trains sounding like this:
to.. whatever sound this is.
So I think it's fair to say, people don't always know what they're signing up for long term
when they choose to live near the line.
And let's not forget – there's a housing crisis going on out there, and many people
have very limited choice about where they can live in the first place.
So once you're aware of other examples around the world, it's clear that Victorian trains
do whistle a lot.
As an enthusiast I kind of like it, but from a more social point of view I do think it's
worth having a discussion about whether reducing whistle use could actually have safety benefits,
as well as improving quality of life for the railway's neighbors.
It's really just about giving more discretion to train drivers about when a warning is required,
rather than having these hard situational rules.
As a final note, there's one common situation where whistling definitely serves no purpose whatsoever.
It happens in several places, but a great example is at Eltham:
at the Down end of the station is the Diamond Street level crossing.
The whistle post for Diamond Street is here, on the other side of the station.
Now first of all, Eltham is a crossing loop in the middle of a single track section, so
nearly every train has to stop in the platform and wait for another train –
often with waits of 5 minutes or more.
There are no timetabled expresses, so even without a cross, every 'in service' train
stops at the station.
On top of that, around half of all trains terminate at Eltham and return to the city.
So all these trains are required to whistle at the whistle post, regardless of the fact
that most will not depart towards the crossing until several minutes afterwards,
and half of them, won't cross it at all.
Some drivers do use discretion and don't whistle here, but most do.
A simple fix for this would be to make a version of the whistle post that applies to express
trains only – and there are lots of other stations with crossings right next to them
that would benefit from this too.
Anyway, whistles can be fun, but I do think they could serve a much better purpose in
Victoria with a few tweaks to the rules.
Thanks to RMtransit who kindly provided footage from the other side of the world for this video,
and thanks for watching!