How loud does it get living near a train track?

31 comments

1. I stayed at a hotel in Tokyo, 18th floor and it was around 100m away from the train tracks.

   It has many trains running every few minutes and although the sound is faint, it can drive one nuts until the train services totally stopped at night. Stay away from places near main roads as well.

   If you really must stay there, consider to soundproof your apartment at all cost.

2. I’m about as far away as your picture I think, (4 min walk to the station) and I barely hear the trains 95% of the time. When I do hear a train it’s usually a freight train, but that doesn’t happen very often, because it’s the kind of sound that makes me go oh what’s that?

3. If they run cargo trains on the tracks it can run all night.

4. My Japanese GF and family have lived next to train track (similar distance to your picture). It’s a house and you can definitely hear the trains as well as the crossing alarm every time it goes off. A few times an hour the house will shake a little due to the express trains flying by.

   They are all used to it. I can’t stand it.

   But that train is directly on ground level with no sort of barrier around it. Some trains have soundproofing walls, or elevated and walled, which reduces the shaking of nearby houses.

5. I haven’t lived near any, but I asked someone if they had. They said yes. They said it’s the breaking screech sound that’s the worst. If it’s just going past it’s not too bad.

6. I used to live near one that connects a local-train only station and a pretty big station serving two lines.

   My old place was at roughly where the cafe is in your picture. I lived on the second floor and my bedroom’s window directly overlooked the tracks. My building was a wooden frame one, pretty new though (built after 1981 IIRC).

   I actually loved living there. I weirdly felt comforted by the sound of the passing trains. It was reassuring to know that I was never*alone alone*. There was no noticeable shaking, my miniature collections stayed where they were.

   But then I’m someone who don’t really mind the sound of engines. It’s the sound of people chatting and honkings that usually annoys me.

7. I live right next to (like literally adjacent to) a station and a train crossing where the gates go bingbingbingbingbing every 3 minutes to block cars and after a while it just became background noise. Sometimes I notice it and it annoys me a little, sometimes if I’m having a bad day it’s the perfect thing to be super angry at, but those are few and far between. You get used to it

8. Do some of the trains in Tokyo run all night? I thought they closed down at midnight (speaking only anecdotally when getting turned away by security guys at stations late at night on a couple of early attempts). Transit stopped at freaking 10:30 where I lived in Hokkaido. Learned that shit the hard way too.

9. That seems min desired distance
   Worse is at night when trying to sleep
   Or waking you up early .
   Hopefully windows have good seals to block most
   Better if train entrance is further away.

10. I lived in an apartment that was right by the tracks. Closer than your pic. Got used to it pretty easy actually

11. A freight train is about 117db. Hair dyer is 87db. Shinkansen maybe somewhere between?

    Good article on this question:
    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/09/health/noise-exposure-health-impacts.html

12. I live about 200m from an overhead line. I like it.
    The sound is blurred and almost feels like the sound of a flowing river mixed with the clicking of horses hooves on a path

    The only baaaad times is that once every six months when the track tamping machine comes at like 3am and it sounds like the bowels of hell

13. A 5-meter wide alley separates one of my apartments and Keisei on the south, then a love hotel plus narrow street separates it and JR Sobu on the other side. So uhh definitely way closer than your pic, I could easily throw a shoe onto the train tracks from my balcony.

    I’ve lived there just over a year now and it’s definitely loud if I leave my balcony door open. Like so loud that I can’t hear conference calls without using earphones.

    Closing the door (and using the lock, which tightens the seal) makes a huge difference, and I can do conference calls without anyone noticing a train go by.

    Some things to consider:
    -How far is it from the station? Stations make plenty of noise, with announcements, chimes, brakes screeching, trains accelerating away, and of course the occasional train horn when someone gets too close to the tracks at the wrong moment.
    -If it’s just a matter of trains passing, how often? And what kind of trains? What time are the first and last trains?
    -If you can see the place before renting/buying, spend at least like 15-20 minutes in there to see what it sounds like when a train goes by.

    FWIW sound insulation makes a huge difference. My in-laws have a place also along JR Sobu, about the same distance from the line as your pic. Despite being further away, the train is much more noticeable than my apartment room because their house wasn’t insulated at all.

14. You’re fine. I’d be worried if your place was that Cafe.

15. Rented a house near Nishikujō Station in Osaka for a week. It was located a bit farther from the tracks in your picture, and the tracks are elevated.

    Could still hear the train rumbling and the brakes screeching from morning until services stopped at night. The sounds were faint, but the neighbourhood was quiet so you’d hear them more clearly. Wasn’t really annoying to me, but I can see (or hear?) how it would be to some people.

16. See Hina’s house in Weathering With You

17. You get used to that noisy in 6 months or so until suddenly you are stressed. Liking the trains’ sound also helps.

18. Our place backs onto the chuo/sobu line, the main noise comes from the Narita express and the chuo rapid service, so it depends what services run and how fast they are. The noise is most annoying on the third floor which is about level with the tracks, 1st floor is pretty good. The house has double glazing so it’s really only a problem if the windows are open. Once the trains stop at night it’s dead silent which is great, also weekends are much quieter.

    A couple of the unexpected benefits: we get a double car space at the end of our dead end street, no through traffic so the kids can play on the street. But my favourite benefit is the JR land out back, it’s about a 3 meter green zone from our fence line to the base of the train tracks which is overgrown with trees and all sorts of plants, we never get any cockroaches because the geckos eat them all. Heaps of bird life and butterflies too.

19. I used to live close to the Hankyu, a big street between our place and the rails, trains every 5mn.
    With closed windows, you almost don’t hear them, with open windows it’s another story.
    But people usually get used to it.

20. That distance shouldn’t be an issue at all.

21. My study room window on the second floor is about 20 meters from a major JR line. This line also carries Liner trains in the daytime and freight trains at night. FTR, I’m in Saitama-shi.

    The longer one lives here, the less of a nuisance it is. After a while, you sort of grow deaf to the train sound and it becomes nothing more than neighborhood noise. What’s more distracting are the railroad crossing bells. I do a lot of work from home and those can be more jarring than the train passing by.

22. Train track for my town is literally right behind my house. Like if I’m in my backyard it’s two steps and I’m on the tracks. No railings or gates to block anything.

    The house shaking and noise was extremely loud and annoying at first but I’ve gotten completely used to it. Cat was also very terrified the first few days but now it doesn’t even wake her up. You get used to it pretty quickly. My train usually only runs until about 10:30 but sometimes we do get freight going by during the early hours of the morning.

23. I mean…..

    Stand next to a train track. Wait for a a train to pass….

    …. That’s how loud it is.

24. You’ll hear it. How much will depend on sound insulation and other factors, but at that distance, you’ll hear it. Especially at night when the area is otherwise quiet.

    How much it is a disturbance depends so much on the individual that getting other people’s opinions means little. That said, the fact that you are asking about it suggests that you might lean towards being stressed about noise.

    I’d definitely want to live much farther away from the tracks, but that’s me.

25. Not in Japan but I lived significantly closer to a train track in London, with a mixture of slow and fast trains. Starting very early morning and finishing late at night. My bedroom literally backed onto the tracks with just a small garden in between, so no sound insulation apart from double glazing. I’m a poor and light sleeper at the best of times. But even so, I got used to it after a couple of weeks and never really even noticed the trains anymore.

    People who don’t live near train tracks but stay there briefly will tell you it’s unbearable but people who actually live there tend to not notice it.

26. If on a straight track, shouldn’t be too loud; assuming the place is concrete with proper double-paned windows. If on a curve, you’ll get screeching from the wheels which is harder to filter out. If it’s a shitty wooden apartment, good luck.

    That place in your image has a lot of houses in between though, which will dampen a lot of the harshest sounds, unless you’re higher than the buildings in line to the track.

    Source: live 100m from tracks, but with concrete and double paning. If I close the house up I barely hear a thing.

27. We live in a smallish town directly next to both the train track and the Shinkansen track, enough that when the Shinkansen goes by every 7 or so minutes our house shakes a little.

    After the first 2 weeks we don’t even notice anymore even with the windows open, unless the shaking lasts for more than 2 seconds or after midnight, because then we realize it’s an earthquake.

28. I live even closer to a very busy train track in London and you definitely get used to it.

29. It seems quite far from the train rails, so IMO, if the sound is driving you insane, invest in good soundproof windows, and it should be fine.

    The worst is living in front of the rails and dealing with the vibration. I lived in a place like that, and I’m surprised how I could last there for 6 months. The vibration drove me nuts, and I couldn’t stay longer there.

30. I lived near a train tracks . tracks were outside my apartment and it was a busy line ( Kyoto to Osaka line so trains every 15-20 mins from early morning to midnight). lived there two years, only first few days were annoyed by the sound after that I got used to it.

31. Depends, I live that close and I never hear trains ever, but there’s a big building between me and the trains and my station is generally quiet, maybe the way they built it?

    There’s zero dust, not sure why there would be to be honest. Are you thinking of moving there? If you live at all close just go check it out cause it’s all so variable