House ticks all boxes but right beside railway line

[ForGreatSeal]

Right in target area, lower price than similar properties because of proximity to the main railway line into Oxford from the north...would it be worth it? Do people get used to the noise? https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/167402753#/

Lived next to a railway for years. I barely noticed it.

I live a similar distance to a railway line and quite like the sound tbh!

With that house I’d be more concerned about flooding. Port Meadow floods regularly - is the ground higher on the other side of the railway?

That's exactly what I said and I don't live anywhere near the area !

You get used to it really quickly, and it's only the odd noises like steam trains or leaf cleaners that make you look up. We've had maintenance work this week, which woke me up but once I'd worked out what it was and remembered they wrote to us about it weeks ago I just went back to sleep.

I wouldn’t even view a house anywhere near a railway line.

I’m not a trainspotter but I go on lots of trips around the country via train and it has very happy associations so I’m sure I’d feel happy.

We can hear the trains from our garden (a little way away) and I love it

If the line isn’t electrified and is in the future you could have overhead wires and structures next to the boundary line. It’s safe but unsightly. Railway work tends to be covered by permitted development and is covered by different planning laws so you wouldn’t have much say in any upgrades or improvements to the line outside your property. There are pros and cons to living next to the railway like pp have said you have a degree of privacy and security and you’d get used to it.

Our road is next to a railway line but it is our neighbours opposite that have it in their gardens, we are the opposite side of the road.
It’s really quiet, I never really hear it, just catch glimpses of the train between gaps in the houses. Which I quite like.

But when they are doing maintenance on the line it can be pretty noisy and they seem to use incredibly bright spotlights to illuminate their work at night. That doesn’t happen often though and only lasts a few nights at a time.

I'd say be prepared to panic at what you've done when you first move in! For the first 2 weeks in our house that backs on to a railway line I was woken up every hour by a freight train. These days I never notice them at all and they definitely don't wake me.

Your instinct was right - I don’t live in the area anymore but here’s a picture I took of the meadow in winter a few years ago!

I grew up in a house next to a railway line - never really bothered us, house located near a suburb stop for a medium sized city, poster further up is correct, they are slower nearer the stations so less vibrations.
Once in 20 plus years they did overnight works to the tracks - no one slept that night due to the noise.

Very rarely there was a cargo train that came through - once in a blue moon, that was loud!

I’d try and research first before buying

good luck op x

I guess my concerns would be:

• the line isn’t currently electrified so diesel fumes especially if trains are waiting for a platform
• the Cherwell line is a key rail freight line so you will get overnight trains
• it forms part of the East-West proposal and so it is planned to carry more freight

I’d do a lot of research into how other residents find it.

I would worry about flooding in that location, especially in the future. You get used to train sounds. I quite liked it.

The trains wouldn’t bother me at all. The fact that the living room has no windows would be a major problem though! That’s more likely why it is cheap.

Sorry, realise someone already said that earlier in the thread. They’re just bringing a congestion charge into central Oxford and there’s a lot of parking/LTN drama so just check how you feel about that as well if you’re not already local.

I live near there, and nearish the railway line and we’re moving as close at that house is to the tracks soon so obviously we don’t mind it! There are freight trains through the night, I actually really like the sound of a train at night, but it is a busy line.

We have friends who live near one and the house shakes every time a train goes past. I wouldn’t be prepared to live in their particular house, it wouldn’t be worth it for me.

The main Liverpool to Euston line runs behind my son’s house where I have stayed overnight in many occasions. We never really notice the noise and there are several trains per hour .

We have a train line directly behind our back fence. I barely notice the sound - I couldn't even tell you if a train's gone past today (but lots will have done).

I love it when there is a crew of railway maintenance workers out there in the middle of the night - it makes me feel so safe and cosy.

The only things to warn you about from my perspective is that the back of our house gets dirtier than a normal house. We've had to have it repainted as it's rendered. I think we'll only have to do that every 10 years though.
Also, beware of brambles, ivy and buddleigh from the railway sidings trying to endlessly push its way through your fence. We've had to put really heavy duty weed membrane all over our fence and then put reed screening over the top to hide it.

People who own railway homes and say it's OK probably don't want bad PR.
We rent near railway tracks with maybe a hundred passenger trains a day passing past my windows and no way I'm buying near the tracks.There was one nasty driver who sounded (very loud) horn every time he had a shift at 5 - 6 am for no reason and it took 3 months to sort it out. Even without horns, you can't open windows in the summer even when it's +30 at night and I sleep in earplugs.
I used to think trains noise is cosy, but not anymore.

Yikes !!

We live next to a track only time I have found it annoying is in the summer with the windows open, we are next to a cutting and they will sometimes run an engine there, I assume waiting for another to pass.

It's no more annoying than any other noise that you get living near people.

Mostly it's good and I know the general area of Jericho and you have the best of both worlds near everything but still fairly quiet.

I'd buy it. A busy road would be far noisier and more polluting, but you've just got the railway line then fields beyond which is wonderful. Put in an offer! Good luck.

I work for Network Rail, it's my dream to live next to a line 😄 I find the noise of a train comforting
I live near an A road, I don't hear /notice the traffic noise so I think you'll get used to it.
Any night time maintenance NR try to keep disturbance to a minimum, although for big projects that can be difficult, believe it or not we do actually care about our communities

I lived in a house with a railway line immediately behind it, and you had to pause your conversations when some trains went past, they were so loud. But I guess some lines are busier than others, or maybe trains are quieter now. That line was very close.