116/97

We do not intend to adopt the safety recommendation. Prior to 1992 Rule 73 (n) and a mandatory requirement on Locomotive Engineers that when they were approaching public level crossings they were to sound the locomotive whistle. The result of this was that we were continually receiving complaints in regard to noise in built up areas at night, with Plimmerton being one area where we came under particular attack to the extent that the Porirua City Council Health Department was involved by the residents concerned. Noise readings were taken by the Council and they also employed the services of a noise pollution expert who was also working on noise nuisance created at the Wellington Airport. One of the outcomes of the noise readings taken by the Council showed that not all our Locomotive Engineers were in fact abiding by the Companies rules and sounding the whistle. After numerous meetings with Council it was agreed by the Company that we would change our rule to give the Locomotive Engineer more control of the use of the whistle depending on the circumstances as he saw them at the time that his train was approaching a level crossing. As a responsible Company I do not believe that we would want to move back to a situation where we went back to creating unnecessary noise pollution by increased use of our locomotive whistles. In other words our current rule meets the needs of safety and also the wishes of the community in regard to an acceptable level of noise pollution.