Train related noise: Annoying or not?

I'm pretty sure that many of us will answer ''no'' as this is a train related forum, and there's most likely more railfanners than anything else here. I, however, still want your opinion about all ''common noise'' that are often/always related to trains. Like those bells at crossroads, train whistle, or noise that can be heard inside trains...

As for myself, I've always been a sucker for any thing train-related, noise included. I've even been known to Open the car windo at -20 celcius at a crossroad to hear the song (yes, it sounds like that to me) that the crossroads bell makes. And how can I forget the bell most train uses (usually when they depart/Arrive from/to a station)

However, the most beautiful ''song'' for me will always be the sound the train wheels make when riding.... from inside the train. For some reasons, I've always found myself at peace when I hear this.

There is one thing that DID annoy me to no end in my 13 hours trip from Charny to moncton, though is the noise that can be heard at 1:45 of this video

Other than that, I'd say trains (and related stuff) make a better job at singing than most people who participated in American Idol (No offence to the people here who might have respect for the show)

I find I relax on a train because the sounds work well for me. I can fall asleep in the hard-plastic subway seats if I'm tired enough... But I could sleep for days on a LD train.

I grew up around trains and work with them and can honestly say the noises do not bother me. In fact, I hardly notice the sounds associated with trains anymore, with the obvious exceptions. Everyone notices a loud crunch or an engineman blowing the horn when there are people on the tracks.

As for the sounds while riding on a train? The VIA has a real habit of putting me right to sleep. This causes friction in my marriage as my wife can't sleep on trains. I'm well rested and she's completely over tired. She now flys out to where we're going if I decide to take a transcontinental train.

I enjoy any noise having to do with my local railroads but can understand that those noises are probably quite annoying to people who don't enjoy railroads as a hobby.

Some of my fondest memories are laying awake on cold, snowy winter nights in my home in Bethlehem, PA when the nightly local would cross our street or the when endless parade of freights would signal for the crossing on the south side of town.

And nothing could make me feel more at home and homesick, all at the same time, than the sounds of a railroad aboard or near any of the military bases around the world I was stationed at. Smelling the creosote on the ties while listening to a bright red government unit switch a base spur always reminded me of the hundreds of times as a child I would watch the switchers down at Port Newark with my father.

I find the sounds made by the railways to be like music to my ears too (except for the squeal of steel flanges rubbing against steel rails on tight curves). Since this topic isn't specific to VIA Rail, or even just passenger trains, it's being moved to the General Railroad Operations and Facilities board.

I work on the railroad, and around it alot, and it wouldn't bother me to live next to a railroad, as I too like the various noises associated with the RR. HOWEVER, i would NOT live around a grade Xing, where the trains constantly have to blow their horns for the Xing. That would drive me nuts. In the distance, fine, but I always feel bad for those folks who live in those houses where I have to start blowing the horn for a grade Xing.......hahah

I have to agree about the flange-squealing noise on curves; Sometimes it's bad enough to send chills up my spine!

Another noise I think I can do without are those wayside electronic train "horns" at grade crossings that are whistle-exempt... Who was the genius who came up with THAT idea?

Oh yeah, tottaly forgot about horns. Man do they sound awesome!

NeoArashi wrote:As for myself, I've always been a sucker for any thing train-related, noise included.

I try to keep it in check ... but I agree that the sound of the railroad is a key part of the experience. There are times when I'm sitting at home and I can hear trains idling miles away or notching up to start their train rolling out of the yard. I can hear distant horns as I type this message. When actually out railfanning I've noted the sound of the wheels on curves and going over points. With continuous welded rail the "clickity clack" is mostly gone so when I hear a rail join I know it is something special (a turnout,crossing or cut in rail for the signaling system).

Hearing a distant horn, the crossing bells (even the new electronic ones) and the grind of the gates lowering and raising is part of the experience (although obviously heard from off the train). On the train racing past crossings and hearing the doppler effect of the bells is as cool as the doppler effect of a passing train horn.

For modeling I like the idea of replicating the sounds ... which probably answers the question of if it is annoying. If it were annoying I wouldn't want to replicate it.

Some day I'd like to get a P-5 sounding electric horn for my car (not the air horns that peel the paint off of other cars - I want the sound, not the brute force). Having a "bell" as a back up alarm would be cooler than the usual "beep". But nothing beats reality. Real trains, real sounds. Drink it in.

Would smells be off topic here? In the winter of 1953-54 I was stationed at Fort Benjamin Harrison, outside of Indianapolis, and the barracks were heated with soft coal. On a crisp night it was possible to imagine there was a roundhouse just beyond the next barracks. (Actually, the Big Four was still running Hudsons through Indianapolis, and you could get the real smell at Union Station periodically.)

I think you get used to the background noise of all types that is present where you live. When I lived in New Jersey, this included trains (former CNJ), planes (flight path in and out of Newark Airport) and automobiles (the Turnpike).

When I moved to here in Western New York, I had none of those things and getting used to sleeping without them was a non-trivial task.

Though off-topic, your question took me back to the days immediately following 9/11. The experience of not hearing aircraft in the sky was eerie, to say the least.

Having worked in the industry for a long career, I got used to it. Don't really pay much attention to it, The only sound that still gets my attention is the "collision imminent"-----that TANT-TANT-TANT-TANT-TANT-TANT-TANT of the whistle that says they're about to hit something. THAT still gets my attention right NOW since I "deadheaded" on engines in the early days of my work and saw people racing us to a crossing just bound and determined to beat the train. It says somebody's fixing to get HIT, and i hope it isn't a tanker truck. I knew a crew that happened to! Only one survived!

That still makes me perk up even tho I'm retired. Few things compare to being aboard the head end and feel so helpless as some goofball's car DISAPPEARS under the nose of your engine, or see kids in the car as their parent drives headlong to uncertain death.

GF

I spent two years living within a hundred yards of a grade crossing on NS' Reading Line. After the first week or so, you just got accustomed to the regular whistling (30 times a day or so).

Back in the late 1970's, Trains ran a feature story on a headon in upstate Michigan involving an operator who apparently slept through the passage of a train. A few minutes later he apparently woke in response to a call for his station on the telegraph sounder, and copied a meet order for the train which, unknown to him, had already passed.

Another reader contributed a story of an "op" who used to string a wire from the opposite side of the track though his bay window to a (presumably) empty coffee pot. Anything that passed would generate enough commotion to wake him for sure.

So I find it not hard to believe that a sleeper can condition himself to loud noise, if it's customary and expected.

2nd trick op wrote:So I find it not hard to believe that a sleeper can condition himself to loud noise, if it's customary and expected.

That is why the rule book allows for a 45 min. nap on the motor. I don't know how many times I have cherished that meet where we sat in the hole for 3 hours taking turns napping while the motor chuggs along at 366 RPMs and the air spitting out load every 3 seconds.

slchub wrote:

2nd trick op wrote:So I find it not hard to believe that a sleeper can condition himself to loud noise, if it's customary and expected.

That is why the rule book allows for a 45 min. nap on the motor. I don't know how many times I have cherished that meet where we sat in the hole for 3 hours taking turns napping while the motor chuggs along at 366 RPMs and the air spitting out load every 3 seconds.

The drone of the prime mover, the slight vibration of it running, the sidewall heater on low on a cold day = zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz