I live within hearing distance of a Missouri Pacific facility. One can hear a faint roaring grinding noise of the turntable and louder thunks as they assemble a train.
I currently live in a townhouse-style condo association, with another one next door and small businesses all around us. Delivery trucks are rampant, along with professional lawn services. Barely a day goes by without the sound of lawn mowers, leaf blowers, and trimmers. Down the block is the start of a warehouse district which adds trains, air brakes on semis, etc. It would be nice to have some peace and quiet, but I chose to live here.
Not reslly common, but there is an Aerojet testing facility a mile or two from home, and we’d occasionally hear rocket engine tests. They were a little alarming as they were unexpected. I dont think that facility runs rocket tests there any more.
Much more common sounds are from leafblowers, lawnmowers, and cars going down the street.
Someone mentioned noontime sirens, would church bells count as “industrial”?
As someone who grew up , years ago, next to an interstate, the first industrial noise I think of is those old Detroit Diesel two-stroke v8s grumbling down the highway.
That reminds me of another one. My family’s business, where I spent much of my youth, is located at the bottom of a hill on a busy street. One of the noises I regularly heard (and still hear, but not as often) are the big trucks engine/Jake braking as they come down the hill.
Also, them holding their air horn the entire time because the car at the bottom of the hill is making a left turn but instead of pulling into the median they just sit in the left lane, at a complete stop, waiting for traffic to clear and the truck would rather honk for 5-10 seconds instead of just moving to the right lane.
I live in a lovely small city that has lost it’s damn mind! Metropolis is upon us, at every turn. Multiplexes and condo towers going up in every vacant space. This kind of development means major upgrades to most infrastructure, lots of it buried under the roadways. In addition, a railway underpass is going in, to ease anticipated traffic bottlenecks. Construction and road rerouting have been going on for months. In the very core of the city on major thoroughfares.
Was pretty upset to see city buses going past my house, but it only lasted a month.
Just received (short) notice that a new phase is upon us! 24hr construction! For TWO weeks! Yikes!
As if it could not get worse, I’m pretty sure we’ve reached the pile driving phase. I’m 4-6 blocks away, but it’s still hot enough that we’re sleeping with our windows all open. It’s going to be a long two weeks.
It starts tomorrow.
I’m a bit confused by the thread title. Does noises “common to residents of North America” mean noises that are unique to North America? As in noises one wouldn’t hear in Europe, Asia, etc… If so many of the noises mentioned in this thread (such as planes and engine noises) wouldn’t count, since they’re sounds one would hear in any industrialized country.
There’s been construction going on at the school across the street from my house since the beginning of summer break. The construction workers like to start their workday super early, like 5am, I assume so they can finish before the hottest part of the day. So every morning now I’m awakened at 5am by the “beep beep beep” of their equipment.
I live about 3-4 miles from O’Hare Airport and work about one mile from its border. The airplane noise is is pretty much constant. Like @Joey_P said, jets were far, far louder 30 years ago.
My house is a few blocks from the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago. The Blue Line is a Chicago Transit Authority mass transit node that is some combination of elevated track, subway or runs between the lanes of the Kennedy. It’s well below grade over here but noise gets through. I can hear trains whiz by, especially at night. And motorcycles scream around when the weather is dry and above about 50 degrees.
A while back I was talking to a customer when he stopped mid-sentence and said 'you don’t even hear that anymore do you?". I asked what he was talking about and he pointed up and said ‘the airplanes’.
Nope, not at all. Or, rather I hear them, but I don’t notice it any more than I notice the background noise from traffic since we’re on a busy street.
To be fair, I do notice when the airport noise is ‘different’. That is, if a particularly large jet is taking off/landing/taxiing . Fighter Jets are particularly loud. Ospreys and Harriers will usually get my attention as well.
But otherwise no, I don’t notice it at all.
I am glad, however, that I generally like living and working so close to the airport. I love watching them and I do actually like the noise.
I’ve had a few Presidential helicade overflights and they’re amazing. They don’t sound like anything else and are super low and rumbly (Double points for A=22 Ospereys) . The helis fly over real fast, real loud and its gone before you know it. Pretty cool, actually, I’m sure time to target is a major metric for these guys.
And we always know when Air Force 1 is about to take off or land because of the red Coast Guard helicopter flying around for 10 minutes (checking rooftops, from what I’ve been told).
I once attended a funeral Mass two miles away from Midway in Chicago. The small church shook from the airplanes, and you couldn’t hear half of the service.
From ages 3-6, I lived in the Marquette Park neighborhood. A plane crashed into a house several blocks away.