Ames residents can sleep a little better now.

After a decision made by the Ames City Council on Tuesday evening, quiet zones have been established at railroad crossings.

Each of the six Union Pacific Railroad mainline crossings in Ames meet the requirements of a quiet zone — meaning the crossing’s wayside horns, lights and gates are appropriate substitutes for louder on-train horns. Therefore, once the Federal Railroad Administration rules are finalized, train operators would be breaking the rules by unnecessarily blowing an on-train horn in a quiet zone.

The council passed a motion that will use the strength of the Federal Railroad Administration regulations, as well as the prior investment in wayside horns, to work with the Union Pacific and the area residents to enforce the quiet zone rules.

“I very much agree with the recommendations,” said Paul Berge, who wrote the letter requesting staff attention to the issue of train horns in Ames. “I hope the City Council will proceed with enforcing the rules that the federal regulation allows so that our neighborhoods can be more peaceful and have some recourse in the event that the engineers choose to wake us up at 3 in the morning.”

The council recognized that the unnecessary sounding of on-train horns is a problem throughout the community.

“We know it’s an issue not of just [Berge’s] neighborhood but throughout the community, and we’ll certainly do what we can to enforce this,” said Councilman Steve Goodhue.

“Alternative one is to direct staff to utilize the strength of the federal regulations,” Goodhue said. “Once those rules are finalized — and we expect that they’ll be finalized sometime later this year — we can talk about the next step.”

Once the policy is put into play, the city will discuss the situation with neighbors and train officials to see if the policy is working.

“We will monitor the situation with neighbors and the railroad to see if we’re having a problem,” said Steve Schainker, Ames city manager.

If problems continue, complaints can be filed. Fines are $5,000 per violation and $7,500 for a willful violation of the quiet zones.

“The procedures to file charges would be part of the finalized rule,” said Paul Wiegand, Ames public works director. “However, the general assumption that we have is that we’d have to file some kind of complaint with the federal railroad administration. They would then follow up with the violating rail company. In this case, it would be Union Pacific.”

Wiegand also said that the council would like to work with the railroad and the neighborhood so it does not have to file charges frequently, but that will be established as part of the final rule.

“We will try to utilize neighbors’ proximity to the intersections as much as possible and work with them as far as identifying the time and direction of the train, that type of thing,” Wiegand said.