I’ve been looking for a new place to stay and a place that caught my eye is ultra convenient – it’s a stone’s throw away from my school and there’s tons of services just downstairs. It’s also right across the road from a Tokyo train station, and the apartment faces the station. It’s on the sixth floor, but the trains are very audible when they come into and leave the station. The place is very residential, however, so the amount of traffic that comes by is small. I want to ask if living right across the street from a train station should be a dealbreaker or not – the apartment is great in every way except that the trains are noisy. Is there any way to rectify this post-moving in through insulation? Is it possible to get used to the sound? Should I instead look for a quieter place?
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The closest I lived to a train track was about 100 meters. It was definitely audible but not annoying. Probably around 40 dB or about the same as a regular car driving by your home at the same speed. That particular line had a train 5 times an hour.
I think you need to be about 300m away from a track to completely not hear it anymore.
If it was noisy even with the windows closed, I don’t there will be much you can do about it after moving in. The question may just be can you put up with it or not.
You might find [this podcast episode](https://freakonomics.com/podcast/please-get-your-noise-out-of-my-ears-update/) about noise interesting. It was recently updated.
Live about 200m away from a railroad crossing. Train passes in each direction about every 5mins but it has never really bothered me. If it is a major station that might be a different story.
That largely depends on you, doesn’t it? Are you sensitive to noise? If so, it’s a deal breaker. I’ve lived close to the tracks before back in Europe and the first two weeks I noticed every damn train and then my brain starting filtering them out. It’s not like you don’t hear them any more but you just get used to it. The line wasn’t very busy though, maybe 2-5 trains an hour and none at night. And not at a station where they slow down, so YMMV. But I had friends over who couldn’t believe how I put up with that.
Train stations can be hotspots for political campaigning. So if it’s election season, some might say every other week in this country, you’ll get all the loudspeaker vans of all the parties taking turns to yell at everyone incessantly for hours. That’s more annoying than a train every 10 minutes or so. Just something else to consider.
My current place is within 100m of a train track and I did have the same concern. I decided to rent it anyway because it was perfect for me otherwise. And after a short while, my brain started to just block out the train’s noise. Nowadays, I don’t even realize I can hear the train, unless I intentionally listen.