Northstar Commuter Rail

[coolguy676]

MP36PH # 504 Was the one that was in "Dirty Jobs"!!!

[miked9372]

what horn do you think is better

[goldeneye98]

I personally don't care for either one, but the locomotive's horn is far superior to cab car's.

[Railhead1956]

Nice vid

[xxxDeath9572xxx]

Wow, talk about Awful

[RailFanDavid]

neat horn and i like that paint scheme.

[AmcalAJ]

Horn FAIL

[Lukelr]

nice doppler effect on that first one.

not too crazy about the horn though.

[BNSF5608]

A calibrated dBA meter.

[jeteye97]

So you say. What about your test conditions?

Did they comply with 49 CFR 229.129?

What was your distance to the Horn?

Was the train moving or static?

What was the ambient noise level?

What was the wind speed and direction?

Did you do Six, ten second applications of the horn then calculate the average and StDev values?

[BNSF5608]

It was not compliant. Thus why I called the FRA to see fi they would do the official test.

100 Feet

Static

Little to None

Wind: 2 MPH South-South West

No, I am not apart of the FRA, thus I cannot say. Like I said, I called them to see if they would also do testing because I only pulled up 85dBA from my equipment.

[jeteye97]

Bet you looked up the regs after I posted them and made up the conditions posted above...

For a 16yr old fake railroader from Wilmar, MN (from your page) to carry a dB meter and an anemometer up to the Twin Cities and then put himself exactly 100 ft from where the train was stopped at a place where that train would use its horn even once while stopped stretches credibility.

Only 3 entities are qualified and authorized to make those measurements. Bet you wasted a lot of their time...

[martinlumber]

I'd report that horn every time I heard it. If that is what the horn is supposed to sound like, in Northstar's opinion, then why are they applying K5LAs to their equipment? Why not equip a simple KS-1 to everything?

[mtymex1]

I always love it when 16 year olds know everything !

[jimsyard]

the horn is not as bad as metrolinks

[BNSF5608]

You're right. It's WORSE.

[nhlives]

4 car train with all four cars being cab cars...... do the horns really suck as bad in person as they sound in this video?! I mean you and your video no offense, and BTW thanks for sharing, but my goodness the horn sucked on both the cab car and the engine....

[goldeneye98]

I agree, that cab car was pretty painful to listen to, and the horn the engine wasn't anything special.

[BNSF5608]

Yes they do suck that bad. I reported them for non compliance with FRA rule of minimum of 96 dB.

[jeteye97]

How did you measure that?

By ear or with a calibrated dB meter under the required testing conditions?

[nels1jac]

Can't wait to see this up and running, perhaps even ride it if I'm in the area :)