So for the most part, this thread seems to be confirming that Paul Simon was right.
Trains still exist? I must be 100 miles from anything resembling a train or track. The ones 10 miles away were pulled up in the 1960’s.
But I used to live between two major routes, in a very nice neighborhood (I was on the wrong side of both tracks, but also on the right side). I remember hearing train whistles, very distant, at night, but never in the day. Maybe daytime noises drowned them out?
I sometimes speak to a friend who lives immediately adjacent to some commuter tracks. The noise of the passing train is worse than living near the airport. Oh, did I mention he also lives near one of the world’s busiest airports? Hard to keep a conversation going.
There’s a train track about a kilometer from my home. But it’s out of service. I don’t know where the closest active train track is. The closest track that I’ve seen a train using is about 50 km away - but I saw trains using that track twenty years ago and I have no idea if it’s still in service.
Not getting the reference.
Although Arlo Guthrie was right; it’s just around the back.
Ten miles to the north, an unused line. Ten miles to the south, a line Amtrak uses, but we never hear it.
A block and a half from the Brown Line L.
One of the places where I shoot concerts, the main stage is right next to the tracks. Right next to it. As the stage is here, then the entrance to the bathrooms, a bar, the fence and on the other side of the fence, trains. In this video, the Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn band was playing a song called That Train Song when a train pulls up, blowing it’s horn at the right moment.
I lived for several years in a trailer (ETA: photo) in a backwoodsy place.
Here’s a photo of the view from a hilltop more-or-less just outside my door. Beyond the mountain in the background (but before the far-distant mountain just visible near the upper right) lies the upper Salinas River valley, containing U. S. 101 (in northern San Luis Obispo County) and train tracks (what used to be the Southern Pacific line).
On a quiet night, I could faintly hear the train whistle all the way up here.
I live about 4 [sup]1[/sup]/[sub]2[/sub] miles away from some tracks. I can only hear trains on a cold clear night, though.
Maybe a quarter mile as the crow flies.
Ten miles away in two different directions/cities. Obviously I don’t hear them.
I think the farthest I’ve lived from train tracks was 1/3 of a mile, closest was in apartments with tracks abutting the complex property. Currently living two blocks away from some right now. I’ve always lived so close to them that I really don’t notice the whistles and noise.
The tracks are 1.3 miles north of here…about 2 and a half suburban blocks. When I lived on the other side of the tracks I was closer…half a mile. But there are only about four trains a day these days…I quite like the times I can hear the rumble during the quiet of the night when the windows are open.
It’s always funny how visitors at my house mention the train whistle. I learned to tune it out within a week of living here. I am thankful for the 1/2 separation. I looked at house one time where the track was directly behind the house. I decided against making an offer because that would be hard to ignore.
Ta.
Sadly, the Upper Midwest and the rest of the northern tier of states has seen perhaps the worst decimation of railroad infrastructure, and of passenger service in particular. The Milwaukee Road ran all the way to Seattle, and–it was all electrified! But it’s all gone now, or at least the electrification infrastructure is.
Minnesota having been the forcing ground of Greyhound Lines, I’ve often wondered if there’s a correlation there.
As for me, the nearest actively used tracks near me would be the Expo Line which now ends about a mile from me, and that’s just light rail so I’m not sure what I would hear if I lived close to it. As it continues west, though the Expo right-of-way comes to within about 2/5 of a mile of me. A couple of days ago I took this picture from a pedestrian overpass:
Expo Line near Overland and National
If I can manage to get back here about once a month for the next three years, and take a few seconds of video from the exact same angle, each time, I’ll have a very nice time-lapse video of the project.
About a mile, and we are never bothered.
Planes, on the other hand…small planes from an active field nearby…keep us entertained, and after a short time, you don’t even look up, then, later, you don’t remember if you heard any that day, or not.
Heh.
I’m about 0.8 miles from a spur that serves a few factories. I can only hear the trains (the engine noise is more noticeable than the horn) if everything is quiet inside, or if I have the windows open. It doesn’t bother me when I sleep because I sleep with a fairly loud fan that blocks out most noise.
There was a track running a couple hundred yards away. They had been abandoned for years. Now the city is ripping them up and making a miles long yards wide park called the Beltline. 
There are already shops restaurants and bars opening along the couple of miles they’ve finished.