What is it like to live near a railway line?

What is it like to live near a railway line?

Living near a railway line usually means noise that comes and goes: quiet stretches, then a train, then quiet again, rather than the steady background hum you get beside a busy road. That is our summary rather than a measured finding, and how much you notice depends on your distance from the track, how many trains use it, whether freight runs on it, and the track itself. Two homes the same distance from different lines can feel quite different.

Several things can make an individual train louder or more irritating than its average suggests. D. J. Thompson and colleagues, in a 2018 review of curve squeal, describe it as an intense tonal noise made when railway vehicles go round sharp curves. They describe it as highly unpredictable, so we cannot say whether a given bend produces it.

Freight is another variable. Jones, Fenlon and Whitfield (Institute of Acoustics, 2015) cite research finding that freight trains caused significantly more awakenings than passenger trains at the same sound level, and they say freight trains can stay at a high sound level for an extended period, usually more than 20 seconds.

Network Rail says that, apart from emergencies, drivers are instructed not to use horns at whistle boards between midnight and 6am, and that most of the noise at a level crossing comes from vehicles crossing it.

What do Defra's noise maps show for railways?

Defra's round 4 strategic noise maps (published as the 2022 maps) are modelled, not measured. Defra says plainly that no actual noise measurements were taken in producing them, and that they do not necessarily give an exact picture of the situation on the ground. Defra says the modelling took account of all public roads and railways (including light rail) in England.

Defra's explanation does not itself define a major railway and sends readers to the regulations. Under the 2006 environmental noise regulations on legislation.gov.uk, the Secretary of State is told to identify railways with more than 30,000 train passages a year as major railways for the relevant mapping rounds. A quieter line can still appear in round 4, but a blank patch does not mean silence.

The map figures are annual averages. Defra describes Lden as an annual average over 24 hours with a 5 dB penalty for evening and 10 dB for night, and Lnight as the annual average for 11pm to 7am. Levels are modelled on a 10 metre grid at 4 metres above ground, and values below 40 dB (35 dB for Lnight) are cut off. The indicators Defra lists are all sound levels, so ground-borne vibration is not part of them.

What does the WHO say about railway noise?

In its 2018 environmental noise guidelines for Europe, the WHO strongly recommends reducing railway noise below 54 dB Lden and, at night, below 44 dB Lnight. The executive summary describes these as values at the most exposed outdoor facade.

A guideline is a level the WHO recommends reducing exposure below. It is not a rule about where you can live, and it cannot tell you how a particular household will feel. Our guide to what the WHO noise guidelines say goes into more detail, and is your home affected by railway noise covers rail specifically.

Why can a quiet-looking average hide loud trains?

An annual average blends every quiet minute with every train. A line with a few loud night services and a long quiet gap can produce the same average as a line with steady, moderate noise, and the two would not feel alike. This is our explanation of how averaging works, not a figure from the maps.

Jones and colleagues make a related point for night-time rail noise: a representative average (LAeq) for a night is rarely hard to obtain, whereas the maximum level of an event (LAmax) is far more variable, and the length of each event matters for sleep. If sleep matters to you, the Lnight figure is the better place to start, and our guide to what Lden and Lnight mean shows how the two are built.

Is vibration the same as noise?

No. Airborne noise reaches you through the air. Ground-borne vibration travels through the ground to buildings and can make floors, walls and ceilings shake, and the shaking can be heard as a low rumble, which HS2 Ltd's information paper E21 calls ground-borne noise. That paper dates from 2017 and says it is now historic, so treat it as an explanation of the idea rather than current guidance.

We have not found a simple threshold to give you, and we have not invented one. Network Rail says that, because tracks are checked and maintained, it is unlikely their condition would cause vibrations that damage nearby buildings, and that anyone who thinks otherwise should first get an independent surveyor's report. Whether vibration is noticeable in a particular house is best found out by standing in it when a train passes and asking the seller.

What can I do before buying near a railway?

Visit at different times, including a late evening and, if you can, early morning, and stand in the bedroom with the window closed and then open. Our 10-minute sound walk guide sets out a simple routine. Check the timetable for the line and ask which operators use it, since a quiet visit tells you only about the trains that happened to pass.

Find out which side of the house the bedrooms are on. A bedroom facing away from the track may be better placed than one facing it, but we have not found a figure for how much, so judge it by ear. Our guide to how much windows reduce road noise explains what glazing can do, though it is written about road noise. Our guide to what to ask the seller about noise lists useful questions.

For a first look at an address, the AcoustaPLOT check gives a modelled road and rail noise estimate with a plain-language rating. It is a modelled estimate, not a measurement or survey.

Limits of this evidence

The maps are modelled annual averages, so they do not tell you how many trains pass on a given night, how loud the loudest is, or whether any run late. We did not find a UK source giving typical decibel levels for passing trains at set distances, so we give none. We did not cover how planning standards treat rail, and we make no claim about house prices.

The freight finding comes from a paper summarising other research, the squeal review is about the mechanism rather than any particular line, and the vibration paper is historic. We read the WHO executive summary rather than the full guideline.