I would like to react to Robert’s Zeis article in Tuesday’s edition of the Daily. According to him, spending money to do something about the noisy trains would be ridiculous. I don’t think so. When I first read in the Daily that the Ames City Council wanted to install automated systems so that trains would no longer have to horn, I thought: “Duh! Finally!”

The first few weeks I spent in Ames the train horns woke me up several times a night. Now I got used to it, but I still think something should be done about it. I think it is not a stupid idea, I think it would be money well spent.

Zeis says that people should not complain if they choose to live near the railroad. But the horns are annoying everywhere in Ames (except maybe in the far south part of the town). So people who want some quiet time at night should not move in Ames? Now, this is something stupid to say. I come from a small village over in Switzerland.

We also have a railroad going through our town. My house back home is closer to the railroad than the place I am living in here is to Ames’ railroad. Yet, the noise coming from the railroad back home is less annoying than what I have to live with here. That’s because, in Switzerland, most railroad intersections, even the ones in the country side, are equipped with automated systems.

Over there, it just makes sense to us.

The main reason why the government put those automated systems is security. Horns here in Ames are so loud that you can hear a train coming from a mile away. That does not tell you where the train is. All it tells you is there is a train passing through Ames. It’s an important piece of information for a driver who is about to cross a railroad.

Back home we say that the U.S. Midwest is the land of “cowboys,” meaning, people who are not afraid of taking risks, people who do not need any security. So maybe having trains going through the city at 70 miles per hour without barriers at intersections looks normal to Iowans. It looks mighty risky to me.

But it seems like even cowboys need to sleep at night, so installing automated systems at railroad intersections is a good thing, if not for security, for tranquillity.

Agnes Bischoff

Sophomore

Physics