The horn became stuck about 9:30 p.m. on an engine near 161st and Sandy Boulevard. It could be heard a mile away.
"I couldn't even finish my homework," said nearby resident Jacob Rose, "There's no way. It felt like somebody had parked a car inside of my brain, with their horn just stuck on."
Neighbors left their homes and came down to the tracks with flashlights to sort why the horn would not stop.
Another neighbor described the sound as "maddening." He thought for awhile there was train wreck. With the horn continuing to blow, he thought it might be signaling a chemical spill from thetrain.
A call to the city's noise control office was a voice-mail saying it was past 5 p.m. and to call in the morning, he said. A call to the Portland Police Bureau non-emergency number was an exercise in phone-tree frustration.
"I couldn't reach anyone," he said.
An engineer finally was able to enter the engine about 11 p.m. and shut off the horn. A mechanical malfunction had caused the horn to keep blowing.
