How Negative are Trains? (apartment, rental, hotel)

[StMichael929]

How negative would you consider it living behind train tracks? The community I am very interested in backs up to a pair of train tracks (probably less than a quarter of a mile away). Should I be nervous about buying this home (resale, noise, etc.)?

[saturnfan]

My aunt lived 30 years next to an elevated subway line in NYC. Trains at 15 minute headways all night.

Nobody heard the trains after a few nights.

Resale may be an issue. You need to come at night to evaluate noise.

[miamiblue]

My apartment is in an old building that is much less than 1/4 mile from the tracks in Glenwood South. We hear the whistles all the time (nearly once every hour approximately), but otherwise we do not really hear much noise. There are a couple of buildings between us and the tracks, so I'm sure some of the noise is dampened by them, but we cannot hear the rumbling of the train unless it is absolutely completely quiet in the apartment and we hold our breath and we are trying to hear it. I am a very light sleeper, but for some reason the train whistles don't bother me at all.

[janny]

I would knock on a couple of the neighbors' doors and ask them how they feel about it. They would likely give you the most accurate picture of things.

[ducter]

I would never buy close to a train. resale will be an issue and with all the current choices in Wake county why pick that? If it is a slow moving freight that might be OK

[autumngal]

If no reasons exists that this is the only house I would be able to live in and purchase, I would pass it up. With the availability of so many other neighborhoods with houses to choose from, I personally would keep looking with no hesitation.
It is just a turn off for me knowing trains are so close.

[swbtoo]

I agree with the posters who don't want to be near an active railway. It was one of the considerations we had when looking for an area in which to purchase. It's not the noise - actually, I kind of like the sound of a train whistle - it's kind of a lonesome, wistful sound to me. As I kid we traveled a lot on trains in Europe, and I've always wanted to hop a train and go somewhere. Oops OT.

And, yes, you do get used to the noise. But, in this day and age, what with safety concerns, terrorism issues, etc. I wouldn't want to be near tracks, and especially down wind of them. There are a lot of hazardous materials that move by train, and it's not that infrequent that we read about areas being evacuated because of a spill of something or other.

I'd echo what others said, there are too many good homes available. I'd Look elsewhere.

[StMichael929]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I had our agent ask the seller about the trains and this was her response:

“ As far as the train, yes there is a train track that runs parallel with 54, it is behind the trees on the left side of our neighborhood. They have to blow their horn at the crossing of Hopson and then again at Church Street. It is mainly freight trains so there isn't a schedule. I tried to get one when I first got out here. They will have 3 sets of buildings between them and the train track. And those units will be the 3 story townhomes. Once we get further along in construction it will not seem as noticeable.”

[MrsSteel]

StMichael, it sounds like you're not comfortable with the situation. I say that you should trust your gut & keep looking.

When my husband and I were renting a house in another city, we lived about one mile away from the railroad tracks. Only freight trains used that line & they frequently went through town in the middle of the night, blowing their whistles. This didn't bother me because I can sleep through anything (I even slept through a fire alarm at a hotel once. Good thing the fire was controled quickly!). However, my husband is a light sleeper and the trains woke him up nearly every single night (sometimes numerous times, depending on the number of trains that went through that night). Note that we were living very close to downtown, so there were plenty of buildings between us & the tracks, but they didn't block the sound of the train whisles.

[findingmesomeday]

Originally Posted by ducter

I would never buy close to a train. resale will be an issue and with all the current choices in Wake county why pick that? If it is a slow moving freight that might be OK

I would completely disagree here. I'm in MA. We sold our house in anticipation of a move (so we could up and go quickly) and we're in a rental. The rental pretty much backs up to the train tracks (large back yard but nothing between the fence and train). There's no commuter rail, it's only a freight train. We could hear the whistle from our last house (you can hear it all over town) but it was in the distance and only occasionally bothered me. Usually it was "comforting".

Now, however, the train drives us nuts. It blows it's whistle almost directly behind us if it's going north since there's a RR crossing there at the end of the block. Coming the other way it's not so bad because there's no RR crossing at that end, it's a bridge. Still, there are 4-5 crossings in town so you hear the whistle that many times. It's only the whistle right behind the house that's loud but now the one 1/4 mile away wakes me up because I'm anticipating the train itself.

The train is loooooong. It goes by 4x/night. If it were on some kind of schedule, it wouldn't even be as bad. But the schedule is all over the place. Sometimes one even comes by during the day. There are no trains on Fri/Sat/Sun nights thank goodness.

The engine is loud. The train is long and we can feel the vibrations. It spooks me out when I'm on the 2nd floor and I can see the cars (I guess I have freight train phobia...) And depending on who the engineer is, the whistle is either a soft "toot-toot" or he/she really leans on it!

I would never, ever, ever buy a house so close to the train tracks.