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Hearing it in a distance OK, not in my backyard. I don't want to be any closer than say 1 block away. Didn't even realize the pollution problem... Good point.
I live where I can faintly hear trains occasionally. I live within a mile of the New Haven line track of the NYC Metro North train. The commuter train passes very frequently, especially during the day. Every 15 minutes there's a train going by. I can't hear it going on the tracks. They're electric so you don't get the loud diesel. There's usually no whistle since there's no street level crossings, but occasionally it does at the train station which is a few miles away. I think the Amtrak Acela train whistles occasionally too. Unless the wind is blowing in the right direction, I barely hear it. Even if I do, it's so faint that it really doesn't matter and I'd be hard pressed to hear it inside the house. Once in a while at night some freight trains come through, and those sometimes whistle closer to my house and you can hear the big diesel engines, but again - pretty faint. Doesn't bother me at all. 999/1000 trains that pass through are electric, so no pollution worries.
However, in late 2009 I bought a townhouse in another area. Beautiful high-end unit, got an amazing deal, which is why I pulled the trigger so quickly. First home purchase. Got in contract before it was built. Slowly realized the mistake I had made. There was a street-grade crossing less than a 1/2 mile, maybe even 1/4 mile from the townhouse. The townhouse was also elevated higher than the train tracks with direct exposure. Every 30-45 minutes from 5AM to 1AM a diesel commuter train passed through with a whistle blow several times. At least 4 prolonged whistles as it approached. They are required by federal law at street-grade crossings. Some conductors were more obnoxious than others.
Needless to say, after researching sound-proof windows for my bedroom and finally realizing I couldn't deal with it, I sold the place. Luckily for me, and a huge relief to the huge amounts of stress over it, it was so grossly underpriced I was able to sell it for more than I bought it for only after 6 days on the market and completely broke even. I don't think I would have gotten used to that. And here I am in my new place with the occasional very faint train whistle that doesn't bug me at all.
Grew up in Bound Brook, NJ and, as a kid, the trains passed within a couple hundred feet of my house, and the railroad crossing. Our back yard was lined with tall hedges, and 5 (I think) rows of tracks were right behind that, with one side of the yard being a road that led to the crossing. Never seemed to bother me then, probably because I knew no different.
Now, it would bother me. I know because I lived in an apartment not too far from some tracks thinking they wouldn't bother me because of how I grew up. I only lived there a few months before I had to move.
I think we can adapt to our surroundings, but if I can help it, I'll find a place away from the railroad or airports.
We also have train tracks a couple hundred feet from our current place (we're moving next month, not because of the trains, though). Big freight trains. Honestly, after eleven years here we don't even notice the noise unless we're trying to watch a quiet TV show or something. Most of the trains go by at night and they don't wake us up. None of us are light sleepers, but still... I think you'd get used to it.
We live about a quarter of a mile from tracks and we're pretty used to it. The sound is a bit muffled and the horns aren't bothersome at all. Like someone else said, the more annoying thing is getting stuck at the crossing, which honestly doesn't happen that much.
That said, when we were house hunting, we looked at a house in our subdivision where the the same tracks practically run through the back yard. Someone posted a picture upthread and in this case, I feel like the tracks were much closer to the hosue, maybe half the distance. That was too close for us and that house sat on the market a long time.
We found a beautiful house that we really liked, but the train tracks ran across the street from the home. There was a separation of a few hundred yards of trees, but it didn't matter. You heard every train that came by!
If it had just been freight trains, that might have been manageable, but it's was the DC metro (subway) tracks, so those trains ran every 5-10 minutes starting at 5:30 in the morning, and going until 2am. No thank you!
At one point as they were dropping the price, our realtor asked if there was a magic number we'd take the house for (we really liked the home). I thought about it, and realized they could have dropped the price from $450k to $100k, and I still wouldn't have wanted it--my sleep is more valuable that a pretty house!
In used to live about a block from the tracks. It actually rattled the windows when a train went by. But we actually did get used to it and didn't even hear it.
Years ago .. coming home from nam, I had just enough money to purchase a pup tent and not much else.
I pitched the tent in some brush, away from the civilized world .. not ten feet from the railroad tracks.
CSX ran that line at least two or three times a night.
Never heard it after the first night!
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