I can't remember who it was that said that trains approaching crossings blow the CW for "Q" (dah dah dit dah), but I can confirm that you are mostly quite correct! Since I started paying attention a few days ago, I have found that they mostly do, but not always. Perhaps 20% of the time they just blow one long blast or something that seems random...
@croyle Generally, "OO-O" (that's long, long, short, long) is the whistle signal for Approaching a Grade Crossing, and it's supposed to be blown... I think about 20 seconds ahead of the crossing? But if you have a series of crossings all back to back, that can quickly become A Problem. It's easier to just lean on the horn for a few seconds.
You can look up the book of whistle signals, they're slightly different by railroad and they go all the way back to the beginning. But you have ones for grade crossing, stopping at next station, handing train control between locomotives, approaching station (signal the conductor to give a go/stop indication)
@tek_dmn Interesting to learn.. I'm just basing this on the crossing that's nearest my house, so I hear the horns quite clearly! And yes there's a series of them, which could lead to them getting jumbled up. Or maybe the guy on the horn was distracted by cars or people on/near the track or whatever, also an issue around here.
@croyle They could've also just forgotten and not had time to blow the correct sequence.
I don't know if PTC (Positive Train Control) can command an entire horn sequence, or if it can only command "a horn blow." I do know that PTC can (and will) blow the horn if the engineer forgot.
@tek_dmn I've noticed that the length of the "dits and dahs" can vary a lot too, like most could be automated or similar, but others definitely sound unusual, like all the horn blows are twice as log as usual... Thanks for the info!
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