March 2, 2026 - TRA Newswire -

Customers at hotels in downtown Waco will be able to get rid of their earplugs in the future when a series of 10 grade crossings will be turned into Quiet Zones. Train horns in the middle of the night will be silenced once the city's quiet zone is established from Peach Street to the 13th Street throughout the downtown area. Construction is expected to begin this month.

A feasibility study for the quiet zone project that started in 2017 was finally approved by the city of Waco in 2021 for $4.2 million. Pandemic supply chain issues, inflation costs and modifications made when the city decided to expand the project, pushed the cost up to an estimated $10.76 million. Approximately $4.6 million of that total is dedicated to upgrading water, sewer, and storm water pipes located near the crossings.

Guests at Hotel Herringbone, which opened last year, and others including Hotel Indigo and the AC Hotel will still get an earful of train horns until the 10 street crossing projects are completed. Under current rules, trains must travel no faster than 10 miles per hour through downtown and must sound their horns at every crossing. Because the street crossings are located so close together, the train sounds its horn almost continuously as it travels through downtown.

Certain safety measures are required by the Federal Railroad Administration to quality for a Quiet Zone designation. As long as there are no intrusions of vehicles or pedestrians at rail crossings, trains will not routinely sound their horns when approaching an at-grade crossing once the quiet zones are activated along some one and a half miles of track.  

Trains have crossed through downtown Waco for decades as the Union Pacific Waco Subdivision is a central hub for traffic throughout the region. Union Pacific will be responsible for installing new signal gates, signal huts and concrete crossing panels. The city of Waco will be responsible for curbs, gutters, sidewalks, raised concrete medians, pavement markings and new signs.

The project is expected to be totally complete within 24 months.