Trains make too much noise!

R

rjhowie

Active member
The Stirling to Alloa Branch was reopened last year and as I said here attracted over 400,000 passenegers and been successful. Not bad for a line closed 40 years ago. Hwoever a newspaper has reported in Scotland that residents are complaing that trainz make an awful lot of noise at night as there are goods trains running after passengers servcies stop.

Everyone was over the moon at getting regular passenger trains back not noise is a problem. How they will get round this one will be interesting for First Scotrail and Network Rail!
 
How did they do it?

There was another post in addition to this one about a rail line in the UK that reopened after 4 decades. I was wondering how they accomplished this? That is, did the right-of-way remain in possession of the rail line all these years, and all they had to do was restore the infrastructure? Or did they have to go back and reacquire the land? (Is there an equivalent of "eminent domain" in the UK?)

Here in the US, that kind of thing is very convoluted, because the railroads did whatever they need to do to get the land. It some cases, they bought it outright. In some cases they had "quit claim" arrangements. It some cases they leased the land for 99 years. In some cases they got long-term easements. For example, when they built the Monon Trail Trail here in the greater Indianapolis area, the Marion County (Indianapolis) part was easy. CSX Transportation owned the whole thing, and the city got it in one purchase. However, in Hamilton County (Home Place and Carmel), every parcel had to be re-acquired because the "creative" methods I described above had been used.

-- Russ Schwartz (aka "LoudTrain")
 
Hi LoidTrain,

Regrading the point about bringing old lines back.

Yes the trackbeds are still there and not built on. We have had several lines re-instated here including suburban electric. We are perhaps more fortunate than our American cousins when it comes to passenger rail. One recent line re-opend as part of the suburban/urban network may eventually be taken even further as the bed beyond the present stop is also still in existence.
 
tardis626 said:
Adding to rjhowie2's point most disused lines are now footpaths making it possible for them to be re-layed and the route used again.

phil
Click to expand...

Well it matters on how you look at it. Those in the Rail to Trail programs are trails now but most still have the gravel and ballast in some places. The rail to trails would be a great place to start if they did rebuild. Then again so many lines either opted out stations and made them freight depots or the stations are now leased out when the track stayed in use.

I guess what I'm saying is, we don't really need to rebuild that much as much as we need to place down new track in needed areas.
 
Reminds me of Durango, the citizens in Durango complain about the smoke from the steam engines. Mind you, the railroad has been operating continuously since 1880.

Its like moving next to an airport then complaining about the air traffic.
 
It's funny you should mention that Klinger. Most of the people living near the Frankfurt am Main airport, one of the busiest in Western Europe, bought their homes and the plots they were on in the 1970's for one reason only, it was cheaper than dirt, something of a rarity as dirt is actually very expensive in this country. When they bought the houses they knew full well that they were going to be living next an airport that could possibly expand over time, and they also knew that they would have to do some serious soundproofing work on their homes if they didn't want to live to the serenity of USAF C-130s and various passenger craft flying over their heads. Now these same people are griping about the noise made by all the air traffic.

The former Army Airfield in Finthen, the nearest airport to my home, had almost the same problem. Ever since the Army pulled out and the base was turned over to the German government in 1992, it's been kept running as an airfield by a number of private pilots who are mostly weekend flyers. Sadly, this little airfield which I enjoyed bicycling to just to see the planes taking off, has been closed to all air traffic with the exception of planes that must undertake an emergency landing. Why? Because some knuckleheads in the next town over made a petition, signed sadly by a large number of the local populace, to close down the airfield due to all the noise from the small Cessnas and Pipers puttering about on sunny afternoons.

Again, not unlike this heritage railroad which was reopened. The heritage railroad I work at, the Nassauische Touristik-Bahn e.V. runs 50's era passenger trains on the part of the Aartalbahn between Hahn-Wehen and Wiesbaden-Dotzheim (we used to be able to run to Hohenstein (Nassau), but that's another story) during the warmer months of the year. The Aartalbahn in its entirity now stands a decent chance of getting completely restored to a regular railroad line with daily train traffic. Upon hearing this some members of the Wiesbaden populace who live near the railroad line raised such an uproar that they have gone so far as to form a group called BSAB Wiesbaden. The goal of the group? To curtail, prevent, and so otherwise make impossible the "reactivation" of the Aartalbahn, and uses buses instead as a means of passenger transportation. They have even go so far as to get the city of Wiesbaden to no longer allow freight traffic on the line within the city, due to the supposed "hellish noise" and the possibility that vibrations in the ground will cause cracks in their house foundations. And yet, many of these same people have lived in Wiesbaden long enough to have endured the many heavy freight trains shuttling between Limburg and the Wiesbaden-West freight depot. Some have even lived there long enough to have seen these same trains being pulled by steam locomotives, which when climbing the hill to Eiserne Hand create the greatest cacophonous concert of steam and metal for miles around.

I personally think that all these people are idiots for very obvious reasons. Those who are complaining about air traffic in Frankfurt have no doubt flown into or out of that airport before, the same people who closed down the Finthen airfield never raised a fuss when the US Army was flying Chinooks and Hueys on a daily basis, and they still didn't complain for nearly two decades afterwards. I think the biggest fools though are the ones complaining about the Aartalbahn. These people apparently do not even realize that there are certain parts of the world where public transportation in any form hardly exists, and those of you who live in the United States can certainly attest to this. I find it catastrophically stupid that people complain about something that was already there to begin with, especially when they've used it on occasion. However, they're really stupid when they don't think that anybody would want to live so close to these places or listen to the noise that comes with it. I myself desire nothing less than to live next a heavily trafficed railroad line, and if that means living a kilometer from an airport's main runway that plays host to hordes of Russian cargo planes, so be it!

My 2¢ death rant of the day.

WileeCoyote:D
 
We are fortunate in having several rail re-instatements and a reasonable widespread passenger service. The vast bulk of railyways in Gt britian are passenger used and seems to be the reverse across the pond.
 
perry_weekley said:
Well it matters on how you look at it. Those in the Rail to Trail programs are trails now but most still have the gravel and ballast in some places. The rail to trails would be a great place to start if they did rebuild. Then again so many lines either opted out stations and made them freight depots or the stations are now leased out when the track stayed in use.

I guess what I'm saying is, we don't really need to rebuild that much as much as we need to place down new track in needed areas.
Click to expand...

We have them up here too. They're known as NIMBYs. They're willing to sit for hours on end in on the "freeway" in traffic, but complain about a more efficient form of transportation that makes less pollution and uses less fuel because it makes noise.

The problem is many real estate agents sell people property that they know full well is next to a closed rail line. The people move in thinking that they can plant gardens, put sheds and swingsets, or use the ROW for their own pleasure. Then low and behold, the local transit authority, which owned the ROW all along, gets an ear full when they try to reopen the line.

One of the purposes of the Rail to Trail project is to rail-bank the ROW for future rail use. The public, on the other hand, doesn't seem to see it this way and forgot that the trains once ran on the ROW.

John
 
I have noticed of recent years that in America there has been a steady growth in city/suburban light rail. This is just a fancy name for trams or trollies/street cars over there. A modest increase in Amtrak seems to have happened too. In GB rail travel is at it's highest for 50 years and the same goes acorss in S. Ireland and even the small system in Ulster is showing great increases due to modernisation.
 
rjhowie2 said:
I have noticed of recent years that in America there has been a steady growth in city/suburban light rail. This is just a fancy name for trams or trollies/street cars over there. A modest increase in Amtrak seems to have happened too. In GB rail travel is at it's highest for 50 years and the same goes acorss in S. Ireland and even the small system in Ulster is showing great increases due to modernisation.
Click to expand...

I've seen that too. This is definitely a new name for the same thing. Lightrail vehicle vs. Trolley. I still call them streetcars or trolleys when I take the MBTA Green line. I remember the old Peter Witt cars and then the PCC Trolleys, but mostly the PCC Trolleys. They're the ones with the roundish body and single pole.

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,1842381

There has been an increased interest in Amtrak lately. This mostly due to the new political administration's interest in rail versus 100% private automobile. When gas prices went up, the rail use went up as well. The Amtrak Downeaster runs daily 4x from Portland to Boston (110-120 miles) and is booked solid and reservations are necessary. When the service was first instituted, the nay sayers were quick to hope for its demise. The opposite has been true so far. This was the first passenger rail service to Portland Maine in over 40 years when the last service was a Budd RDC (aka Buddliner) out of the decrepit North Station.

John
 
I was in the USA on holiday in 1980 staying in NYC and rerturning from a day trip from DC. I got into a chat with a man and his wife getting off at Philly. He was the retired editor of the old Penn inhouse mag and she was a former newspaper journo. Anyway they said if I was ever in the US again to look them up. So on my return to NYC in 1982 I was invited down to stay for 2 nights. They picked me up at the station and I suddenly whooped when a tram crossed in fron ot us. I had to explan what "tram" meant and we all laughed. They stayed round the corner from a tram, ehrm, streetcar terminus at Wynnewood. I have via tram mmag here watched the steady growth of trams again across the States.

Also, somnehwere i had a copy of the American Assoc of Railroads Annual Handbook for a date in the 50's. Had been given to me by someone who reckoned I would be interested. Scores of rail companies from the tiny to great and it also included Cuba (before Castro!), Mexico, Canada. Fascinating even if at the time of the decline of passenger railroading in America. Had wanted to to give it to an American who was here well over a year ago so must look again and hope it turns up. It was nearly 3 inches thick with companies. A reminder of what was once. Good to see there is some bringing back and long may it continue. We are so lucky here.
 
What bugs me is the Starthspey Steam Railway in Aviemore. They think they can make as much noise as they like just because they're a tourist attraction. There were afternoons a particular train nearly drove me made. Heaven knows what they were doing it for but they were repeatedly driving a loco a few yards out a shed, going "TOOT TOOT" with the whistle the driving it back in. They used to do this over and over again it nearly drove me mad.
 
Standard safety procedure, its the same in the US. The two toots indicate to men on the ground that the engine is going to move. get a clue and quit complaining, you wont find any sympathy here.
 
rjhowie said:
The Stirling to Alloa Branch was reopened last year and as I said here attracted over 400,000 passenegers and been successful. Not bad for a line closed 40 years ago. Hwoever a newspaper has reported in Scotland that residents are complaing that trainz make an awful lot of noise at night as there are goods trains running after passengers servcies stop.

Everyone was over the moon at getting regular passenger trains back not noise is a problem. How they will get round this one will be interesting for First Scotrail and Network Rail!
Click to expand...

Hello rjhowie,

It seems from what you are saying, the line needed to be built, because the freight needed a quicker and more direct route, than what it was taking before, as this will keep the distribution costs low.

So in order to get public backing of the line, they stated that the line will be a passenger line with station stops here and there, with more frequent trains and faster services.

This then gets the backing off the people around the line, who think it is a great idea, but what they were not told was, the line will be a main freight line throughout the evening and early morning.

However, I live near the Liverpool to Manchester Line, part of the West Coast Mainline, and trains run at all hours, with mixed passenger and freight, and what they have done to cut the noise, is plant hundreds of trees along the route, this fixes two problems, firstly it cuts down lots of noise polution from the trains, and secondly, it prevents tresspassing onto the line, as you cannot get access onto or near the line, because of the hundreds of trees and nettles.

Maybe they will do the same, around where you live too.

Hope this helps

Joe Airtime
 
It's not too bad where I am (Kidderminster - part of the Snow Hill Lines) - usually the freight runs either during the day, very late at night, or early morning, and is usually powered by Class 66 locomotives.

Some of the older locomotives, like the Class 20s and the Class 37s, can make quite a bit of noise.

Shane

P.S. Airtime, just to let you know, my site address has changed, but old links will work for a while. My new site address is in my signature.
 
Hi Everybody, especially RJ and John.
It is exactly the same down here in Somerset UK. For the first time in almost 50 years we could see passenger trains again running on the Portishead to Bristol Temple Meads line. But what do we get, as soon as the plans are announced "the objectors" come out in force trying to raise a petition to stop the plans because the trains will make too much noise passing their houses in the Ashton area of the city. This is the same crowd who are objecting to Bristol city football club developing a new stadium about half a mile from their existing stadium because of the noise and traffic on match days or evenings.

The houses where built long after the stadium came into existence and certainly a very long Time after the railway line was laid. The line closed when the Beeching axe fell but was reopened again for freight traffic (car transporters from Portbury docks) about eight years ago and the houses were built approximately 6 years ago, very large and very posh. So, what right do these people have to object to the continuing existence of two projects which were there when they bought their houses.

It's the same at Bridgwater where they wish to develop a new nuclear power station on the same site as the present nuclear power station. But again we have protesters coming in from outside the area complaining about nuclear power dangers etc. It seems not to matter that the existing power station provides hundreds of jobs in an area that badly needs them and the building of the new station will create thousands of jobs during its development. But then again the authorities have given way and we are to have a " public enquiry" into the building which will no doubt take years to come to its findings delaying the creation of all the employment if indeed permission is given.

Anyway, it's nice to be back on the forum as I don't get much chance these days with all the work we have on. Especially it's good to see RJ and John citron posting and being able to reply if only while I'm on a couple of days holiday.

Bill
 
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