Say you were in the market to buy a house and a railfan. Would you buy a house right next to the tracks, or want to be 1 block away or 1/2 mile away. I’m sure a busy yard might not be a good place to live near if you are a light sleeper.
Me and my wife just bought a house about a 1/4 mile away from a crossing,we both dont mind the horns(i kinda like them)This summer with the windows open will be the true test.
I grew up ~ 200’ from a CNW main & ~ 800’ from the Milw/Soo main. I didn’t mind one bit!
I live roughly 200 feet from a short line. In fact, I write this, there is train coming from the North. The way I know is because of the crossings and the horns.
I would probably go into the market for a vacant lot, and build my own house - preferably on a slight rise overlooking the busiest rail junction/classification yard I could get next to.
Between berming, multi-layer sound-attenuating wall and roof construction and good interior accoustics, it would be possible to hold a conversation in whispers while a multi-unit diesel was leaning into its loaded unit train 25 meters away.
The best part is that, since no one else really wants to be that close to the action, the land could probably be had at considerably less than the average price for a similar parcel in a quieter area.
Of course, if the house was a typical thin-wall wood frame tract house, you’d have to pay ME to take it off your hands…
Chuck (sometimes amateur architect)
I have always lived near them. I have even built a house on old roadbed ( cant get much closer but I think you meant LIVE tracks lol) Right now I am about 1/4 mile from our mainline to Savanna/Marquette.
If in the market I would live a little closer as it doesnt bother me.I might not want to live near a yard ( most yards are in industrial areas anyway and lets be honest not a very desirable location for a home) but near a main line doesnt bother me. Having grown up close to a railroad I can sleep when a train rolls by as its natural to me.
I would not mind living next a branch line with a low speed limit (and probably nobody riding the freight cars). But I would not want to live closer than a half mile from a mainline due to haz-mat, see the Kingman BLEVE thread, and the fact that some rather bad people hop freight trains (Rafael Ramirez for example).
the only people that ever jump on my trains was guys riding with coolers and they didnt mind giving you a cold beer on a hot day, ( now how can you call that bad) but would i buy a house close to the tracks NO!!! I want to be as far from them as i can be I want no noise anymore and if the crickets get to loud ill get the poison out and spray.
YES! I have lived along the BNSF for many years.
I live 0.62 miles from the tracks. In spite of the fact that we can have four or five trains per hour through here (and wait’ll the economy improves!), I’d have looked on a trackside location in town as a plus when house-hunting. Should we ever move from our current location to a condo, I’d want it to be in one of the buildings downtown with a view. Or perhaps someplace trackside in Elmhurst, where the trains don’t travel as fast (and are therefore consuming more time passing by).
Why would I want to buy a railfan? Most of them would gladly come along for free!
Maybe the railfan is a closing bonus!
Lets see here 1/4 from the BNSF transcon 2 blocks from the BNSF connector with the NS ex conrail ex NYC and that passes less than a 1/8 mile from my back door. So I am in HEAVEN. All this action and I pay less than 550 month for a mortage insurance and taxes a MONTH TOTAL stay here.
In a heartbeat. And the busier, the better!
I live a mile away from a CSX’s Abbeville sub adjacent to a passing siding that’s cut by two road crossings. Just close enough to tell what’s going one by the trains blowing for the crossings, but not so close that they wake me up at night. Sometimes I’ll fire up the ATCS monitor and see when trains are coming so I can take a couple minutes and go down to the tracks and watch.
The real question you’ve got to ask in a situation like this is: “Do you really want your kid’s to grow up to be railfans?” Look…my mother’s parents lived about a block away from the LIRR Jamaica station and my mother and I stayed with them until my father returned from WWII. By the end of 1946 my parents purchased a house about 200 feet off the westbound main line of the DL&W RR, less than a hundred feet above the tracks and quarter of a mile west of the junction of the Boonton Line and the Morris and Essex Line in Denville, NJ. To top that off, my fathers’ parents lived in Dover, NJ less than a block from the CNJ Hibernia branch. All this exposure to trains while and kid and you see what it did to me!
P.S. I wouldn’t buy a railfan either, they are cheaper to rent and you’re not tied down. They are also reportedly useless for getting work done around the house especially in a timely manner…
We currently live about 1.25 miles from the EJ&E main and about 2.25 miles from the BNSF main in Aurora, and that’s plenty close enough for me, thanks. As much as I love my trains, I also love my sleep and peace & quiet at times. A good mix is what I have right now and that’s just fine for me.
My railfan came along free, to start with. That changed with time. Our next anniversary will be golden.
And she was the one who found the house that had the only steam-powered rail line in suburban Tokyo right over the back fence…
Chuck
I lived my teen years about a half mile from what is now CSX’s Saginaw Sub. In its day, it was a busy line. The town I lived in had 4 crossings in less than a mile, with three in the “just stay on the horn” range. I didn’t mind a bit.
Like many here, I consider a train horn music, so I think I’d do just fine near a line.
My daughter and her husband just bought a house near a little-used CSX line here in NY. She called me after they looked at it to see what I knew, which was that it’s not all that busy. I think busy would have been a minus for them.
Once lived next to the NYC mainline west of Buffalo. There was a crossing nearby so lots of horns. The only time I lost sleep was when they were on strike and it was quiet.
I might do it again except for one word: RESALE.