Living near train tracks

330d

Were looking to move and have found a house which is 'cheap' compared to similar houses in the area. This is because there is a train line behind the garden.

I have done some research and the track is connecting two stations which are 2 miles apart. Therefore I doubt the trains will be going at high-speed between the two stations. I have also checked the time table and there are two trains every hour. One at quarter past and the other at quarter to.

So my question is, has anyone lived a train line? How bad is the noise?

I am planning on going to the area in a few weeks and listening. But thought I could get some feedback first.

Anamox

What station is it either side? I'll be able to tell you how much freight and "movements" occur on the line regardless of the passenger service, I can also tell you the line speed and likelihood it'll increase over the years.

If you are right and there is only a branch line connecting two stations infrequently, then it's highly unlikely the services run into the night/start early/run on Sundays; thus disruption is minimal to your sleep and rest time. It is something you get used to and many live in expensive houses around train lines in my area, and live there for many years with happy families.

Tigsteroonie

Anamox said:

What station is it either side? I'll be able to tell you how much freight and "movements" occur on the line regardless of the passenger service, I can also tell you the line speed and likelihood it'll increase over the years.

I suspect we must share the same employer! I'm surprised you didn't direct the OP towards the published Network & Route Specifications to see what the chances of development might be ...

homeless9

I am in process of buying a house near a train line. You just have to go and see what the noise, frequency is.

Where my house is I actually think it's better to be besides the railway (which is raised on an embankment) than be 200 yards away. By the house I find you only notice the train for 5 seconds, it is high speed and not too loud, but if you are 200 yards away you notice it for about 10 seconds.

I'd rather deal with this 5 second noise every 6 minutes than have a busy road next to my house or even just a regular estate road as the rest of the time it's quiet.

Anamox

Tigsteroonie said:

Anamox said:

What station is it either side? I'll be able to tell you how much freight and "movements" occur on the line regardless of the passenger service, I can also tell you the line speed and likelihood it'll increase over the years.

I suspect we must share the same employer! I'm surprised you didn't direct the OP towards the published Network & Route Specifications to see what the chances of development might be ...

I can access route diagrams and working timetables through my work iPad, I can use my working knowledge of railways to suggest the chance it'll ever be upgraded rather than search any planning applications like a NR employee might. I don't have access to any public material, but there's a fair chance I've driven the route!

davidmcn

Having lived next to a line, I can advise that you stop noticing the trains after a few weeks. It helps if there are no services at night, of course.

Once in a blue moon you'll get some sort of 3am engineering noise or chainsaw massacre of vegetation, though Network Rail do try to give some warning of disturbance.

330d

Anamox said:

What station is it either side? I'll be able to tell you how much freight and "movements" occur on the line regardless of the passenger service, I can also tell you the line speed and likelihood it'll increase over the years.

If you are right and there is only a branch line connecting two stations infrequently, then it's highly unlikely the services run into the night/start early/run on Sundays; thus disruption is minimal to your sleep and rest time. It is something you get used to and many live in expensive houses around train lines in my area, and live there for many years with happy families.

Thank you for the offer, really appreciate it. The two stations are Wilmslow and Styal.

Also looking at the time tables, the trains run between 7am and 11pm. But hopefully you can clarify this.

strawb_shortcake

We have a train line at the end of the garden, and I can't recall the last time I noticed one going past and there is at least one an hour. 
I quite like it, when the children were small we would take them to watch when a steamer was going past and we've had the Flying Scotsman go past a few times too 

Tigsteroonie

homeless9 said:

I am in process of buying a house near a train line. You just have to go and see what the noise, frequency is.

Possibly risk at the moment, you might not get a true picture of the frequency of trains as they are running a reduced service. 

Anamox

It looks like a medium busy route, nowehere near as bad as a mainline but a lot busier than a sleepy branch line due to freight. At night it is fairly quiet with only the necessary track maintenance trains running, I can see three paths between 1am and 3am which they may use for this purpose but it'll be infrequent. In the Autumn you may get a railhead adhesion train run past at 3am a few times per week, it'll zoom past though. The first passenger train passes at 5am but it's an express to Bournemouth routed that way because it is running early, they route elsewhere for the rest of the day. In the majority of the day it is a mix of 3/4 passenger services an hour and 1/2 freights per hour. If every freight train ran that has a slot it would be around 25 services per day, but this is extremely unlikely as freight is based on demand.

The line speed looks to be 70mph, and with the types of train running I'd say they're likely to be at 70mph if you're bang on in the middle, slower if you're nearer either station. Wilmslow is a fairly busy station with only 4 platforms (only 2 look like stopping services use them) so you may get trains stopped on the track running into Wilmslow as they'll have signals to wait for space. It's quite likely freight will get trapped at these signals.

Sundays look fairly similar for passenger trains but seem to have less freight running.

Regarding the future, I highly doubt they'd increase the quantity of services or speed, the line looks like it is running at it's maximum capacity already.

Anamox

And you're correct, normal passenger times are roughly 7am-11pm. There is a potential steam trains/"special" trains would use this line on the odd Saturday as it's a fairly quiet route into Manchester Picc which wouldn't hold up the mainline services.