Where I live now, I could throw a baseball and hit the tracks. It’s only a freight line though, and only one or two trains a day go by, and since its a residential area they go by pretty slow at that point, so no window rattling or anything. In fact, I’m sure there are trains that go by that I’m not even aware of if I’m not looking out the backyard.
My brother and I (contractors) just finished up working on a house whose backyard backed up to a high speed commuter rail line. My brother (rather foolishly) agreed to forgo payment for our services (the customer paid for materials) until the house sold (it was a fix-and-flip). Our first couple days we cursed the arrangement since the train went by every 10 minutes or so and we thought that would make it hard to sell. But honestly, by the time we were done it was obvious that the train was not a big deal (you could definitely hear it, but it didn’t shake the house or anything and wouldn’t drown out the T.V. if you were watching). Since its a commuter train I don’t think it runs terribly late so probably wouldn’t disrupt your sleep (even if they did run, I think you could get used to sleeping through it in short order).
But like I said, it took us several weeks to realize it wouldn’t be a problem. I’m afraid someone who comes to see the house will hear the train go by (and one will while they are there unless it is an extraordinarily short visit) and will be put off by it.
Quarter mile from a stop on the rapid transit line (only type of active rail in PR today), across a mixed use neighborhood that transitions into industrial/institutional. No sound noticeable from my house.
I’m 5 blocks from the tracks, but about 1/3 of a mile is a better guess. The train route by me makes an odd 120 degree turn about 1/3 of a mile out, so I can always hear that whistle/horn rolling in the distance when they go by.
I know there’s a street in the neighborhood of that name, but I didn’t know it was a siding. Unless, that is, you mean the route that crosses Imperial just west of Aviation, if memory serves. But I think that’s more than a siding, although I’m not sure where it goes exactly. I think it may join up with the same tracks that run east and west to or through Slauson.
Metro’s station names have been less than poetic, to say the least. I was glad to read that Palms will be Palms, rather than Palms/National.
When I was a kid, we lived a quarter mile from a combined passenger/freight line, one running from St.Louis up through Galesburg, thence to Minneapolis, I suppose. We were up on the bluff, up from the Illinois River valley, and freights often had to use “Old Maude”, a big big big steam engine, to make the grade up to the area where we lived. Maude would switch off at the top of the grade, let the freight pass, then slip on back down the hill to Browning.
The passenger train I would take was a milk run, taking 4 hours to travel about 60 miles to Galesburg where I went to college. I took it twice, I think, because hitchhiking was a lot faster. To take the train, that went through at 5 a.m., you had to go to the track, find the lantern box, light it up, and swing it from side to side as the train slowly approached at the top of the long grade. They’d stop just long enough for the conductor to be sure you secured the lantern properly, help you aboard and signal the engineer to get it moving again.
I grew up about 1/2 mile from a Conrail line that ran about 2 trains a day but we rarely heard anything. This only surprises me because I now live about 2.5 miles from a light rail commuter line that runs from the morning to evening rush. I hear this train every morning on my way out the door to work and I was surprised to see the actual distance.
The closest I ever lived to the train was less than 100 feet. While living in Pittsburgh, I spent a few years living on the train track side of the busway. There was a canyon with train tracks and a two lane busway in it on the other side of the street in front of our house. The train tracks were shared freight and Amtrak so there was a decent amount of traffic. We really only noticed when first-time visitors were over.
Right now both my apartment and my condo in Orlando are around 2 miles from the tracks, but in Orlando the configuration of my condo means that the sound of the 3 am train through Winter Park filters neatly into the courtyard and blasts straight into my bedroom.
Right in front of our home is the main north-south train line in eastern Japan. It’s mostly a passenger line with occasional freight trains passing through overnight.
With windows closed, we can hardly hear the 15-car trains passing every 10 minutes or so from early morning to around midnight daily.
When the much heavier freight train passes, we might feel a slight shake of the house. No bother at all, though. When my parents came to visit earlier this year, they hardly noticed any noise.
Closest was about 1/4 mile (Nevada) and the farthest was 150 miles (living in Dubai, nearest tracks in Bandar Abbas, Iran… and I have even been to the train station there). This was before the Dubai metro existed.
Despite the train station being so close to where I live, I never use it. It’s just much less of a hassle to drive instead of figuring out schedules for departures and arrivals then figuring out how to get to the destination from the train.
It’s surprising how busy a rail line can be without your ever seeing a train. The main line between L.A. and San Diego has about 11 daily Amtrak trains in each direction, Metrolink and Coaster trains north and south of Oceanside respectively, and freight trains. In quite a few places, the tracks are visible from I-5, but when driving between L.A. and San Diego I’ve never once seen a train. I know this is different from living near the tracks, but even allowing for that we normally don’t stay home 24/7.
Right across the street from our new flat, behind the shops on the other side, there is a rise covered in trees with the train track on top of it. PaulParkhead hears the trains as they go by, particularly the express that doesn’t stop in our town as it’s going quite fast, but for me the road traffic usually drowns them out unless I’m really paying attention and catch the rhythmic chuckity-chuck sound. In fact, I just looked up to see the tail end of one passing by through the gap in the trees, but I hadn’t heard it at all over the “whoosh whoosh” of the cars on the road. It’s a bit odd, as my hearing is much better than his in general.
I was much farther away than that when I lived at my mom’s place in rural Eastern Washington, but we could hear it sound its horn at night. Couldn’t hear the sound of the tracks, though.
Don’t hear the trains at all now, except when the wind is in the right direction. The speedboats and personal watercraft on the river are the most annoying. However, when we lived in Northern Ontario the Ontario Northland had tracks about 1/2 a block from the back of the house.
Every night at 11:00 the “acid train” would rumble by on its way to the gold mine at Virginiatown and every night our bedroom windows would rattle and the train’s horn would drown out the 11:00 news on the radio. We got used to it and eventually didn’t even notice it. One night, there was a derailment south of us and the acid train was held up in Temagami. 11:00 rolled around. The bedroom windows did not rattle. We heard the newscast. Herr 'spiel, half asleep, sits bolt upright in bed and shouted, “What was that!?” :smack:
Not quite half a block from the north-south CN line. They rattle my house when going through, I have all my pictures nailed down pretty firmly. I love trains
