What’s it like having a train line at the end of your garden?

[booboo25]

we have had an offer accepted on an amazing house which is everything we wanted as a family, so much potential, great area, fantastic schools, close to our jobs, family and friends, a perfect forever home. BUT at the end of the garden runs a busy train line with trains going past every 3-5 minutes. The garden is 40ft and then another 30ft of trees until you reach the raised train tracks, which is a double line. We have viewed the house twice and been back several times at different times during the day and the trains vary in noise but are all gone within 3 seconds and it’s back to being a peaceful and quite cul-de-sac. I didn’t think too much about it at first but now things are progressing I can’t stop worrying about the train noise and if it’s going to cause problems for us when we move in. I am really interested to know for those of you that live with train lines at the end of your garden, especially at this frequency, what it’s like living with it every day and if maybe I’m blowing it out of proportion?

We live on a very busy mainline. Echo PPs who said they heard every train the first few nights and now don’t even register them - and we have a lot less than a 70m distance between the house and track.

if it’s a fabulous house, area etc OP then please don’t worry about it. It’s also a fab way to gain cool points if you’re ever visited by young kids! We’ve seen the Flying Scotsman and the Paddington train a few times too.

We get about one Network Rail notice a year for night works. We’ve only heard them once in eight years.

There’s a lot worse you could back onto than a railway line!

I love watching the houses along the railway line when I'm on the train. The gardens actually. Fascinating and so many different layouts. If I see people in their gardens I make up stories about what they are doing. I can never see inside the houses because the trains move too fast.

Is it a main railway line or local one? How many high speed trains go by? I’ve lived at the bottom of a railway line with local trains and freight and they had quite a pleasant chugging sound through the night. I’m not certain what high speed ones would sound like. I always found the sound quite soothing going to sleep.

Our house backs onto a Midlands line and growing up my parents house backed onto the East Coast main line.

If you're in the garden you'll need to pause talking for a few seconds as they pass, but this becomes second nature. We never really noticed them overnight.

Honestly, maintenance work is a bit of a pain but it's only a couple of nights a few times a year. We have woods the other side of the line so a few times a year they're out with strimmers, saws and chippers which are loud but we get notified so we either go some place else for the weekend or close all the windows to keep the sound out.

I'd far rather back onto a train line than a road. Having said that, the line you're talking about is very busy compared to ours (half a dozen trains per hour in each direction) and probably even busier than the main line from when I was a kid. You do have a fair buffer between you though. If you love the house I wouldn't consider it a deal breaker.

So I guess it depends, one of my kids lived in Clapham for a while and the train noise seriously affected his mental health. Butt there was no double glazing in the house.
if it is a high speed railway line then that will affect you more than slow trains but if they are turning up every 5 minutes then that might be hard to get used to

We live directly opposite a railway line/bridge - maybe 50 feet or so from us. We have double glazing and don’t generally notice the regular trains though we can sometimes notice vibrations if very heavy loads go through on goods trains. The track maintenance can be a bit weird at night if we aren’t expecting it, it can wake me up but I know what it is and even find it quite reassuring. When my late mum visited us, she said she liked hearing the trains at night and she was both a light sleeper and used to a very quiet rural area at home.

We have a similar situation - trees hide the trains from view. When we first moved I was bit "oh, god" but it's been 2 years now and I don't notice them anymore. I love our house (and how close the station is!!)

Only annoying thing on occasion is when they do maintenance work but that can't be helped.

I viewed a house with a smaller garden than that with train lines just the other side of a row of trees. I then went and sat on a bench nearby and decided that passing train noise is 100% acceptable to me. More the issue was the trains that were braking to stop at the station. The screeching of brakes is unpleasant. If you won't be near a station or junction I reckon you'll be fine.

I lived in a very similar set up for fifteen years. In the beginning I noticed every single passing train but after a few weeks it became much less noticeable.
The only time it was a disadvantage was summertime when we had guests in the garden and we would need to pause conversations.
Only disturbed by maintenance noises once.
If you are local to the station I will say that I found the increased foot traffic at antisocial hours more annoying than the trains themselves. HTH

You get used to the noise and the routine. It’s better than unpredictable loud neighbours.

I loved it, never minded the noise at all, but it was an issue when we decided to sell.

You honestly completely zone out to it

My garden is only about 25 feet long and I back onto a train line that has mainly massive freight trains.

I have triple glazed windows at the back of my house, normal double glazed at the front. There’s also a ‘noise reducing’ fence which does absorb some of the noise and vibrations.

Honestly, I barely notice the trains. And even when I do, it’s a faint rumble which I actually find really soothing. I’m not overlooked at the back which is great and it actually feels really secure.

When I first moved to London years ago I lived in a house share which was a former signalman’s cottage - it was alongside the tracks, in zone 2 on the mainline to KingsX, so pretty busy. There were steps in the yard up to the remains of the signal box and we used to clamber up there to sunbathe and wave at people on the trains ☺️. We were so close to the tracks that when you took a bath the water would slosh about when trains passed by. 😆
However, I got used to the noise really quickly, didn’t bother me at all - the traffic noise on the road was much more noticeable.

Our garden is next to a train track. The noise doesn't worry me, being set on fire during dry summers does - it's a heritage steam railway.

We have one.

Noticed it for thr first few days. After that it just became part of the 'house noise' and don't even notice it.

Same here.

We love close ish to a train line and don't hear the commuter train

Occasionally we hear the freight train at night (quiet), I actually find it soothing & romantic

I thought I was alone in loving this. I used to live by one and the trains put me to sleep. I miss it.

Friends think I’m crazy when I mention it.

I have lived directly backing on to a high speed lien and was fine. I now live about half a mile from a line in a town that has a depot. It is worse now! The trains idling in the depot make so much more noise!

My house backs onto a trainline and I bloody love it. It's mostly freight trains throughout the night, every half hour or so. I live close to a huge port so the freight trains come thick and fast. And they're often 40 carriages long! I find it soothing and restful. They don't wake me up, but if I'm awake and hear them, they lull me back off to sleep.

It's nice in my cuddly bed to think that somebody is awake and doing stuff like driving a train from one side of the country to another. It's quite soporific and reassuring. It wouldn't put me off a house at all. Quite the opposite.

That would be amazing if you could look into it for me, the property location is Thames ditton and it’s the line that runs to Hinchley wood, Thames ditton & Esher from Waterloo.

I know it well, I used to live in that neck of the woods. Pretty much all electric commuter traffic, you won't get much that's particularly noisy. Go for it, I wouldn't hesitate.

Modern electric trains are a lot quieter than the old diesel inter-city trains. You also have less noise if you aren’t on a bend or close to a station. I suspect you won’t notice it after a couple of weeks.

bit different - lived in a house with the a14 at the end of the garden so we are talking about constant noise. For what it’s worth though I didn’t get used to the noise. However I could live with it. Big downside though was it made the house difficult to sell as other people had bigger problems with the noise than us