It's interesting, this concern about heavy freight trains. A few years ago I was resting and chatting on a hump-back bridge over the Portishead line, near the foot of Rownham Hill, and was amazed when I looked down to see a trainload of cars passing about 2m beneath me. I hadn't heard it over the traffic noise coming from the A4, about 200m away on the other side of the river...


Edit - split thread from http://www.passenger.chat/1219 where concerns over noisy freight trains at night are leading to some objections ... I have quoted that further, 3 posts below here too - grahame

Likewise, Chiltern Trains when they use the Thame Branch Siding at Princes Risborough for stabling purposes, they do so by running the full half mile to the boundary gate with the CPRR heritage line so as to be away from the houses adjacent to the outlet signal, ME174. This is for noise abatement at said houses.

My (late) uncle was a train driver in Tasmania (back when they had railways). I remember him saying the hospital in (I guess it was Hobart, might have been Launceston) was overlooking a rail yard (stables? I don't know) and at one time there was a patient with some particular illness which meant they had reduce noise on the trains; no horns and stuff. His comment was "Silly place to put a hospital"!

Looking back, I don't think we've had a general "train noise" thread in the past, but the topic has come up from time to time ... I can recall incidents or concerns which I could group as follows:
* Freight trains passing
* Passenger trains passing
* Train horns for crossings
* Engines running on layovers
* Level crossing audible signals
* Noises of shunting in yards

I suspect that freight train and shunting noise has gone down over the years, with the demise of loose coupled train with clangy and squeaky wheels, and the sounds of buffering up on unbreaked trains; I wonder if some of the Bedford concern is from people who were familiar with railways in past days but haven't seen the modern setup?

We have had complaints locally about train horns for crossings (by people who have moved into the area and not realised that there was a local crossing that trains honked at!) and in some ways train horns are a very crude way, noise polluting way of alerting people at a crossing - they blast the whole area when an alarm sounded at the crossing, triggered by the approaching train, would be much less noise overall ... reserve the train horn for emergency use?

We also had objections prior to the start one the 2013 trial TransWilts service about the extra train noise that it would generate as extra passenger trains passed through, but I think that was fear of the unknown from residents living between the railway and the A350 to the north of the town, and fearing that rail noise and nuisance might rise in level like noise and nuisance on the A350 has done.  But there *are* places where passing train noise in noticeable.

My "pet hate" - if you like to call it that - is engines running on layovers in platforms and I'm going to single out Westbury.   In the days of loco hauled trains and HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train), the engines were towards the ends of the platforms, in the open, away from significant passenger areas.   These days, on layovers / turn arounds, the engines are within the canopied area and effect passengers waiting under cover, and in the cafe and in loos, waiting rooms, meeting rooms, offices, etc.   One of the few examples of where the noise effect of rail has got worse rather than better over the years.

Hear hear Grahame!

I have often cursed (under my breath) idling Turbos and those track clearing trains (Windhoffs?) at Reading, where since the rebuilding the noise seems worse - to say nothing of the fumes from the exhausts, the latter seeming to collect under the roof of the over bridge when the wind is in certain directions.

I have sometimes felt tempted when there is a driver on board to tap his window and ask him to cut the engines. The track cleaning trains are particularly bad.

I have a hypothesis that no doubt someone else on the forum will have the expertise to dispel or confirm. The "upswept" roof edges along the platforms may not help. As well as providing relatively poor shelter from the rain, do they also reflect the noise from the trains back to the platforms?

There's also a travel trip in case anyone is travelling to Klapeida in Lithuania. There's an otherwise very good Ibis Styles hotel on the edge of town that is next to freight yards by the some docks and associated sidings south of the city. These are busy with trains of large hopper waggons (I think for cement being exported to Russia) that are noisily shunted and marshalled through the night. The sound proofing in the hotel is sadly not up to the job, and a good night's sleep is not to be had. 

Perhaps NOT a thread onto which to post this 

EDIT - hadn't turned the sound up on yours, Lee, before I posted. Something about than piece of music!

As suggested earlier in the thread, some of the concerns voiced by the public are more due to their perceptions rather than the reality of what will happen.  My good lady's daughter and family have a house backing onto the Filton Diamond on the line from Bristol Parkway to the Severn Tunnel and they had concerns about the noise resulting from the construction and operation of the Hitachi IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) depot just the other side of the line up the embankment.  Light pollution was also one of their concerns.  In the event, they have experienced no problems with it.

Around here (Pangbourne) I’ve heard people complaining that the Class 387’s are noisier than the Turbos they replaced.  The issue is the whine of the motor/axle gear drive, which is particularly noticeable during deceleration.

I remember when I worked for Thames and Chiltern in c 1991 that there were complaints that the new Turbos were noisier than the heritage dmu’s they replaced, because of the high engine revs during acceleration.