Train horn blares for 3 hours straight in Upper Merion, Pa.
UPPER MERION, Pa. (WPVI) -- It was a relatively sleepless night for some residents in Upper Merion, Montgomery County after a train horn sounded for three hours straight.
Residents started complaining about the noise around 11 p.m. Sunday.
Action News is told the blaring horn didn't fall silent until 2:30 a.m. Monday.
Police said the train, located at North Henderson Road and Hamlet Drive, belongs to Norfolk Southern.
Norfolk Southern released a statement Monday morning in response to inquiries from Action News apologizing to residents for the incident.
The statement explained that a mechanical valve on the horn had frozen up, and that it took time for a mechanic to access the device and disable it.
Here is the full statement:
Norfolk Southern apologizes to residents in the Upper Merion Township area for the disruption caused by a locomotive horn that became stuck late Sunday night and continued sounding into the early morning hours Monday.
The eastbound train was traveling from Harrisburg, Pa., when the locomotive horn became stuck in the vicinity of the Valley Forge, Pa., area, near Norfolk Southern's Abrams Yard. Because of train activity occurring in the yard, the train, for safety reasons, had to be held on the tracks until yard tracks could be cleared to accommodate it.
When the train arrived at the yard, a Norfolk Southern machinist discovered that a mechanical valve on the horn had frozen up. To silence the horn, the machinist had to take up the floor panels and physically disconnect the horn, a process that takes time.
We did everything we could to silence the horn as quickly as we could within the existing operational constraints and following safe work practices.
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