Anyone close to a Railroad?

[LittleRedHen]

There is a high chance of us making an offer on a home that has a railroad track as one of its property boundaries. A train only goes by 1-2 times a day and not even every day but it will blare its horn as it goes by as it goes past a road.

This is my question. If you live near one (less than 500 feet) do you regret living there? Do you get used to the noises? and how long does it take to get used to it? Have you ever had problems living by railroad?

[April]

I live near one - although in a small town right now, not the country. It also goes through once or twice a day and not every day.

I find the sound of the whistle pleasant and kind of old-timey.

-April

[agmantoo]

Previously I lived where the track crossed the farm. When I first moved there for the several weeks I would startle awake thinking the train was coming through the house. Before long I did not even notice it was there. On the occasion when I may be awake in the wee hours of the night and the train passed it was reassuring that all is well in the world and the train is passing to prove it. Additionally the train people are awake to somewhat check things out as they travel by. I never found it to be a problem.

[ELOCN]

My best friend lives in a house that is only one house away from railroad tracks. He says the only time he is bothered by the noise is when he is outside. He can't talk to anyone or hear what they are saying when the train goes by.

I would say it depends on you and how sensitive you are to noise.

[chickenista]

I have a friend that lives in a town in a steep mountain valley. The train goes within 10 feet of her building in downtown. OMG! It is cool to visit, but if I lived there I would go nuts.
You need to hang out at the place you want to buy and see what it sounds like.

Is it loud enough to scare your birds to death? Are your plates and windows going to rattle? Can you take it?

[LittleRedHen]

It is a 100 year old updated farm house. It looks to be my special heaven in the country LOL. It would go through around noon and 4pm so nothing to wake me up unless im lazy. Trains around here only tend to have less than 20 cars, sometimes only 10 so its not long like you have in the midwest. I really think I would love the noise of the train moving. I just wasn't sure if the horn would be annoying. I have 6 kids so obviously i am not noise sensitive LOL. And if a house is still standing at 100 years old then the train must not shake the house too much.

But I hadn't thought about what chickens etc would think about the noise. Would they get used to it or would twice a day would it set everyone off? I suppose it might not be a good idea to have guineas and turkeys by a railroad. There is a fence that runs along the property line so I am not worried about any animals getting out and getting hit.

I think the railroad won't cause me to hold back from putting an offer on this place. I am so excited. I have been packing and decluttering my house for a few days now in anticipation of putting this place on the market.

[OD]

I live about 600 feet from a busy railroad, & it's not bad. If the windows are open, sometimes we can't hear the TV for a minute or so, but we're used to it & don't mind.
We have horses, cows, guineas, & chickens & they mind even less than we do.
I certainly wouldn't let it keep me from buying a place if I liked everything else about it.

[DC_Hound]

My grandmother's house was about 500 feet from the Southern Pacific. It came through at 2 AM 3 times a week. Honestly you get to where you only notice it if it comes through at a weird time. It will take you a while (several months maybe) but you will get used to it.

[jim/se kansas]

What train!! I have lived in Altoona, KS all my life. Altoona is five blocks wide and one mile long with a train going straight through the middle of town. I pastor a church next to the tracks. Coal trains seem to go through every hour. Unless someone says something about the trains we would not have noticed it. Here comes one now. There is one thing about living in a small town, you are only lost for two minutes. Blessings, Pastor Jim

[Beeman]

I live pretty close, you can hear and actually feel the ground shake sometimes, the whistle sounds great.

Of course this all comes with a story. There was a spur that ran to town one road over. There's quite a few houses that had the tracks right thru their frt. or back yard. One old timer that lived there had about 10 kids. He said the train came by about 5AM, too early to get up but too late to go back to sleep. You might want to check the schedule.

[tnokie]

My dad was a railroad maintenace worker. We always lived by the tracks.Dad said thats why there were 12 of us kids! The four o'clock train woke him up and he couldn't go back to sleep!( Sorry- railroad family humor!lol)

[Pamela]

I love the sound of a train. I grew up in a house with a train track about 500 feet away. We have lived in numerous places near a train. I find it comforting. We once lived 10 miles up a valley in North Western Montana from the train track, and we could hear the train at night. It's like an old friend to me. Presently we live around 500 feet from a train track to the rear of us, but it loops around 2 sides of us too. We can hear it coming from a half mile or more away. There are4 road crossings near by. The train whistles at each one. So if you want, you can track its progress for quite aways! We love it.

[Quint]

I'm 3.5 to 4 miles away from a railroad. It does annoy me especially when the air get heavy and the breeze is in the right direction. It sounds like the train is coming across the creek and up through the hog lot.

I've lived in town where I was literally feet away from the tracks and I don't think it annoyed me as much. I guess because of all of the constant noise in town. That house was close enough that the coal trains would shake things off the wall and off shelves. Delicate baking was essentially hopeless.

They blow the train horns much more than they once did too. People are so dense they somehow miss that huge noisy beast that runs on those train tracks and wander in front of them and get killed. You'd swear the things stealthily hide in bushes and then jump out and run over unsuspecting people from the sounds of the rail safety hysteria. I grew up around trains and spent more time in the railyard than I ever did in a mall and never once did me or anyone I know get injured or killed by a train. We even hopped freights to go visit other towns and hopped another to get back. No one died. Young kids like us could manage to climb on, under and hitch rides on trains without ever offing ourselves but apparently the general public can't manage to avoid a huge, loud, train that shakes the earth with it's approach despite the assistance of lights, warning signs and even gates.

[rambler]

I've never lived real close to one, so no help.

New subdivision is plotted out for my town, couple houses are backed up to the RR right of way. One of the spec houses is about the closest can be - they actually scooped out a bit of the track berm to be able to walk around the back of the house.... This is in a hill area, the track is bermed up 30-40 feet or so. It looks like you could jump off the tracks & land on the roof of the house. I mean, right there! This is on a grade, the engines will be lugging going up hill, brakes will be squealing on the downhill. First road crossing in town is right there, so I'd guess horn will be blaring, don't know that for sure tho.

Can not imagine living in that house. There is no back yard at all, it is the rr berm. Any derailment, & cars would be drop-kicked onto the roof.

It's just been amazing me to watch this house go up. What are people thinking?

--->Paul

[goat^farmer]

Originally Posted by LittleRedHen

There is a high chance of us making an offer on a home that has a railroad track as one of its property boundaries. A train only goes by 1-2 times a day and not even every day but it will blare its horn as it goes by as it goes past a road.

This is my question. If you live near one (less than 500 feet) do you regret living there? Do you get used to the noises? and how long does it take to get used to it? Have you ever had problems living by railroad?

We use to live close to a railroad track about 40 or some years ago and the trains would go by every 4 hours horn blowing and everything. The train was only 300 feet away from our home. We got use to the noise that the train would do where we wouldn't even know when the train went by at night. We loved it. You asked how long did it take to get used to the nosie from it well that I can't remember but I don't think it took long when one would go by everyday at our place. If we could go back to that place we would but a flood came and took out lots of stuff so had to move. Do miss that old place and the train sounds. Also when the trains went through all the hound dogs would howl due to the horn blowing but later they got so use to it never howled anymore that also's includes all the other animals there to they got used to it. We never ever had a problem with living by the railroad at all.. Only problem we had was our creek years ago flooding our land or washing out our bridge until one year we had a MAJOR flood and it took out the bridge, washed our car down the creek and flooded our home. We couldn't move back after that it runied it all.

[Ken Scharabok]

I have friends in town with the tracks at the end of their back yard (maybe 150'). They also say they really don't notice the trains. However, they tried to sell the property and didn't get a single bid. As soon as a potential buyer saw the tracks they were ready to leave. Thus, think about resale in the future. (And the property should sell WAY cheaper than farther away from the tracks.)

In crossing accidents sometimes the radio or such was cranked up so loud they apparently didn't hear the training coming. Several years ago I was following a train up the road when it hit the box of a semi. Was interviewed later by RR company and guy said the truck driver didn't hear the train coming. First thing he knew his box was flying over the cab. Also a couple of years ago train hit a local propane delivery truck - and they are suspose to be VERY aware around tracks.

Now one local crossing is at a popular convenience store/gas station. Friend had a large dumptruck equipped with a train horn. For sport he would wait until someone was sitting crossways on the tracks, waiting for the light, then blow the horn.

[Scrounger]

We live 3 miles or so from the tracks. The noise STILL wakes me up at night. I Used to live in Grand Island, Nebraska. A train would go through every 4 minutes, day and night. We lived about 1/2 mile from the Burlington tracks (before the merger with SF), and about 1 mile from the UP tracks. ALWAYS had to wait for a train no matter where you went in town. Can't stand them, now.

[fantasymaker]

I once lived 200 feet from the tracks near Houston Alaska.
The Topography conspired to make it no problem at all. It was on the inside of a gentle curve and at a place where the train was always just drifting never pulling hard in either direction.They had also dug out a ditch and there was a 20 -30 foot berm between us.
So no problem.In fact as an upside it was one of the few places in Alaska with public transportation 2 trains and 2 rail cars a week would stop at my front door if I wanted a ride!

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT...... what if the number of trains changes drastically? Winter in Alaska there were about 2 freight trains a week in winter and about 4 a day in summer.
I have acquaintance in Southeastern Wyoming who bought a place in the 70's, he considered placing his house near the tracks so that the once or twice a week trains would help relive tedium. Now that track is the most heavily used track in the country with trains every few minutes.
THINGS CHANGE.

[Mike in Ohio]

We have some (raised) tracks about 1/4 mile away from us. A few points from our experience:

1) Just because it is a couple of trains now doesn't mean it won't be a lot more trains later. When we bought it was two trains a day and that was just a single engine shuttling empty cars for positioning. Now it is 12-14 trains a day and they are "real" trains.

2) Weather seems to make a big difference. When the ground is really wet we can feel the rumble from the trains rather than jsut hearing the sound when the ground is dry.

At the end of the day though it's not a big deal overall.

Mike

[Truckinguy]

I grew up near Toronto airport and our house backed on to the highway also. When my parent's bought the house in 1964 the airport was a LOT smaller and the highway was only two lanes each way if I remember the stories correctly. WELL.....the airport grew and grew and the highway widened (I believe it's five or six lanes each way at that point now and that's the narrow part!) and we grew with them. The planes follow the highway to line up with the runway so they fly right by the backyard. When I was a kid I used to leave my bedroom window open at night and the highway sounds would put me to sleep. To this day when company comes over we just talk louder when a plane goes past and if the company doesn't mention it we don't even notice.

My Parent's still live there and we go there regularly to visit. They did try to sell the house in the 70's and couldn't sell it so I think the noise would be a factor for some people. That being said, many houses have changed hands in the neighborhood over the years so not everybody is too concerned about it.

I live out in the country now and love the peace and quiet but I do miss the planes and the highway sometimes.

I think the point is here that it depends on the person. If you can get used to it than you will never notice the noise and will actually only notice if it is off schedule. If you can't get used to the noise you will regret the purchase very soon after moving in.