Article in the online NY Times about people who buy houses at a bargain because of defects. Defect? I don’t see no defect!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/garden/18houses.html?_r=1
20 years ago I lived about 150 feet from the Grand Trunk main line running north from Detroit. We saw more than 1 train a day. Some of the northbound coal drags in those days, pulling uphill, would darn near bring the ceiling down. Lived there 4 years and every time I heard the whistle I would head to a window. But we didn’t pay extra! In fact we had a hard time selling. Seemed like every time a buyer came through the house we had a train go by.
George V.
Thats a nice house, but a train that close to my house…[bow]
What about the people in NYC/Chicago. This house has doesn’t compare to the subways/appartments.
“Not in my backyard, you won’t,” many say.
Efforts to reactivate existing rail lines in this area (Greater San Francisco Bay Area, specifically the old NWP right-of-way in Marin County and the former SP Mococo line in Contra Costa County) are being stymied because people don’t want the noise and perceived increased danger of trains moving through their communities. It is too bad because the traffic congestion is awful here. (We need a little relief here!)
Mark
George I read this article and I can tell you there is another reason not to buy an old house not mentioned here. Some time in the 20th century construction methods drasticly changed. The older method of framing the structure was called “ballon framing” This type of framing basically built with very long 2x4s from the first floor level to the roof level. The floor joist were usually nailed onto the side of these long studs. There are several very bad problems with this type of construction. First and formost is the danger of a fire. Should a fire develop in the wall cavity , the cavity acts like a chimney and the house burns up super fast. The second problem with this construction method is the load on the studs from the floor joist . Because the joist are attached to the side of the stud it does not have any support under the floor joist . Thus the reasons for sagging floors , and exterior walls bowed to the exterior as the weight bears on the side of the stud. I could write a book on why not to buy an old house with all of its “charm” , read money pit , But basically they are death traps.Today we use what is commonly referred to as platform framing started sometime in the 40s and 50s. A foundation is installed , floor deck is framed on the foundation . Exterior walls set on the platform and then another floor system and so on. Along with the advent of SSW panels , bearing points , fire stop , house wraps etc… housing construction methods has become much smarter. I think these folks are NUTS , bad hood , former toxic waste site , on a former junk yard , mega bucks spent remodeling etc… If they wanted to throw away money I could have made some suggestions on where to throw it away better , like my layout [(-D]
Our townhouse in Decatur, GA, just off the Emory University campus, had a CSX track behind it. When we first moved there, I didn’t even notice the tracks hidden in the dense tree cover. That night, I hear this deep rumble and know it is motive power creeping slowly - somewhere. As it got closer and louder, my wife says it has be right behind the garage entrance.
Sure enough. It was a three engine lash-up of GEs pulling a container train. Became a regular event. Have no idea, but there had to be a yard close by because the trains were always going very slow as they went by.
And they didn’t charge us extra for it. We were 3 stories above the track plus the drop from the pavement to the road bed, another 20 or so feet. Sweet.
The last time I lived in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, I had the Hachiko-sen for a neighbor - DMU trains (23 in each direction, 7-10 cars, all powered - sounded like a squadron of steel-wheeled busses) plus D51 and C58 powered freights - a dozen or so in each direction. My wife learned not to try to hang wash outside to dry.
http://www.kurogane-rail.jp/sl/ed51.html
http://www.kurogane-rail.jp/sl/ec58.html
The time before that, I was backed up to the Ome-sen - EMUs (about 50 schedules a day each way) plus ED16 powered strings of limestone hoppers on the double track. Happily, catenary motors don’t generate coal smoke.
The one house I would have liked to own was located on a bluff overlooking the Agematsu station on the Chuo-Nishi hon sen. It was about 50 meters from the point where upgrade trains really started to dig into the 2.5% grade to Kiso-Fukushima. In addition to mainline - mostly steam, some DMU - it had a nice view of the Kiso Forest Railway terminal operation. (These days the main line is electrified and the logs come out of the woods on highway trucks.)
Chuck (and now you know why I’m modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I lived in this house when I was a kid:
http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCC&cp=qqmtcy8tx6hy&style=b&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&scene=8482929&encType=1
From my bedroom window I could see K4s, sharks, Train Masters, and the daily doodlebug.
Years later, I lived in the house across the street. It was closer to the tracks, but by then all the good stuff was gone.
When we were in the market for a house here in central nj a while back we went to see a really really nice old colonial and guess what was right behind the house an old rarely used branch line but that particular day there was a N/S loco ideling a few hundered feet down the line music to my ears, but of course the wife had to kill the moment and say I aint living this close to dand train tracks. This coming from a women who could see the Pearth Amboy yars from her bedroom window growing up, lucky little bratt.
