The original Georgia Railroad (now CSX) runs roughly 200 feet from my front door step. There is also a crossing in front of my house, so I get to hear horns blasting at all hours. I like living that close, sitting on the front porch watching em blast by, and after 23 years, the noise doesn’t bother me.
During my career as a conductor I had to learn a great deal about hazardous materials, especially what actions to take if a tank car should rupture in a derailment. I would not want to live within 2 miles of a railroad track.
Could you imagine how funny that would be if it was reported on the news?[:D]
Yeah, they always like to get the weird stories like that. Just imagine the wife or parents seeing that though!
Sure - but in a nice country setting. Might even run out and buy a couple of those driveway annuciators and put them out where they would sense the trains coming so I could be at the window to watch them go by…
When I was growing up, the N&W was about 40 yards through the woods, a short peddler ran daily, the noise was not noticable at all. Today I live two blocks from light rail, and the occational SSSSSHHHHHHH at night is pleasant. Just because you live next to the tracks doesn’t suggest an urban setting, a hill top overlooking a line would be cool. A busy mainline might be too noisy, unless you had some distance.
…No, too close. Our home now is about one mile from the NS line heading west out of Muncie. We can hear them some of the time but can’t see them. Next to the tracks would have too many negatives.
At my dad’s house in Columbus, you could hear the train 4 miles away in Tryon during the winter when all of the leaves were down. Of course it’s silent now.
Hell I live right next the UP’s Blair line,And you want to know something…These DAMN trains DON’T bother me one bit…no sir ree. As for the train horns,Hell I just sleep right through them even if my window was wide open [:D]!
BNSFrailfan.
We live one block away from the old Ft Worth and Denver main, no one of BNSF’s main lines into Houston.
Same house my parents bought in 1959.
After 45 years, still dont understand what the fuss is all about.
I havent lost one minute of sleep, nor have I ever been awakened by the trains, which have to blow for three grade crossings in less than a mile.
A short walk down the block lets me watch whats going to show up at work tomorrow!
And I get to see the trains I put together at the PTRA leaving town every day.
Ed
Sort of like the people who live next to the L in Chicago. You become accustomed to the sound. Sure as hell shocked the heck out of me. Though I find the sound of the trains in the distant nice.
i live 3 blocks away from the tracks right now. if the wind isn’t blowing that strong i can hear the horn like the train is coming through my front door. its really cool. my room is upstairs and it sound really close when i’m up there. kind of nice to go to bed to. one of my friends’ aunt and uncle live about 500 feet from the tracks. they have a little child i think she is 2 or 3 and they put up a playground thing behind their house. our town doesn’t really have a slummy place or poor neighbor hood. but this house looks out of place. its the only one on the block. i wouldn’t mind it as long as i can sound proof my room.
my mom lived right next to the tracks when she first started teaching. her house was no more than 30 feet away from the tracks i guess. the stuff on top of her frig would slide off whenever a train came through. she said it was really loud and hard to sleep the first few weeks but then she got used to it.
If I’m going to live close enough to the tracks to hear the trains, I want to SEE them!!! (More Exclaimation points.)
I found the TWO places you can easily see a train (obscured) from Indiana Institute of Technology’s campus… Sometimes, I like to just stop and listen to the music of the train horns (knowing I can barely see the train.)
I like the idea of living out in the open, maybe 1/4 mile or 1/2 mile from the track but over on a ridge or some other place where one could see the trains.
Many years ago when house hunting in the city we looked at an open house next to the (then) Santa Fe Harbor Line. They had a binder on the coffee table showing news articles about the Alameda Corridor, explaining that train traffic would decrease. This was before construction had even started. Even though trains with tank cars passed by daily, IMHO the greater risk came from the “homies” who used the RR as a shortcut through the area. The graffiti painted on the RR property walls, with names crossed out, translated to “turf war”. No thank you.
More recently, a railfan friend looked at an open house in Santa Fe Springs, right next to the main line. The first train that went by when he was looking was “ok, not too loud”. But the second train, on one of the other main tracks, was a lot worse. There was a switch frog or low joint or some other thing on that track, and the train’s wheels made a brain-jarring kaCLANK-kaCLANK, kaCLANK-kaCLANK for the entire length of the train. No way was he going to put up with that…
In a heartbeat!!! Even have the house all picked out! Just can’t get the lady to move out of it! It would be kitty (got that?) corner from where I watch trains right now. I have my heart set on it! You can see just everything as it comes and goes through the BNSF yard! Just purrfect!
Mookie
My paternal grandparents and oldest paternal aunt had a house down in Nolin, KY.
The train tracks were RIGHT behind the house. I remember us going down there
for visits. I’d sit out in the side yard and watch the trains go by. Being very little at the
time, it wasn’t fun in the middle of the night when the trains went by all through the
night. THEN I didn’t like the tracks being right next to the house. Would not mind it
now, though. And they were all frieght trains, too!
There should have been some passenger trains on their way to Nashville, but
I can’t remember seeing any of them: definitely remember the freights.[:)][:p]
I guess the comment about living next to the tracks and gunshots must be an L.A. thing.
Recently, a set community of $235,000 townhouses were built less than 200ft from one of our interlockings in Maryland. Now, we run on the average 136 trains a day Mon-Fri, and, I bet those people buying those homes didn’t have a clue. Most trains are running through there at 125mph, and, with an 80mph crossover. I can’t believe the real estate developers didn’t erect a fence to keep the kids from wandering over to the tracks. What a treat they’re going to be in for when the undercutter and other assorted track maintainence machines work there — at night! The sad part is, the potential loss of life for a child who happens to wander up onto the tracks and gets struck. There are other safety scenarios to consider, too, with kids…a kite that may end up in our overhead 11,000V and 138,000V power lines will conduct that power through the kite string. At one time, that area was just woods (a tree doesn’t stand a chance now-a-days!).
If any of you have a problem with this, there are good solutions, with special sound-isolating windows, gasketted doors, etc. I think it is still the website www.nacc.org, for the national association of acoustical consultants, but it might be slightly different. The advise you pay for from a listed and certified consultant should be worth the money. Another organization is www.inceusa.org, the USA branch of the Institute of Noise Control Engineering. This latter organization has a Board certification program and a list of active noise control specialists with addresses and email.
Being in the main flight path of an airport can even be a more serious problem.
When you live there for a while, you will miss the trains when you not at home!
No joke. Friend of mine lives next to the MAIN-WESER-Line between Frankfurt and Kassel here in Germany - More than 100 trains each day will pass his house.
When he is in vacation - in the first night he is missing them. And when the line will be closed because of a derailment he wakes up because of the silence !!!