What's Up With This TRAIN NOISE???

[Nashville Kat]

November 14, 2009

To the Editor:




It’s 5:30 am Saturday morning. I’m lying in my bed in my Murray Hill apartment, once again disturbed awake by the train a mile or so away. This happens all the time, all the time, ALL THE TIME.
The train is usually, apparently, NOT EVEN MOVING. It’s sitting down there on the tracks somewhere senselessly blowing it’s horn. Sitting motionless, senselessly blowing it’s horn in erratic patterns. Sharp, sharp sharp sharp little blasts for several minutes, then looooong, looooong, looooong. Over and over and over again. Loud, loud loud, then even LOUDER, LOUDER, LOUDER. Sometimes, occasionally it does move down the tracks, blowing it’s horn, from the back of my apartment at one side, moving slowly toward the front, and then gradually away. But then guess what? ANOTHER train shows up again not long after, and usually repeats the very same kind of thing, usually NOT EVEN MOVING!.
This goes on night after night after night after night- all year long. I’ve put doors up against my windows, and foam padding behind that- with little effect: I still hear the train and it still wakes me up and keeps me awake. In fact, given the general area I live in, which is quite populated, the train must in fact be disturbing THOUSANDS of people. I’ve asked myself: What on earth is the purpose of this insane ritual? Is it to wake us up and get us out of bed for work? The sirens that start up near sunrise, and the obnoxious yelling and obvious intentional noise that the garbage men theatrically make before dawn on Monday morning can be explained off that way, but this insane train noise goes on at all hours of the night, every night of the week.
There it goes again! It’s been a half hour or so since it blasted me awake and it’s still out there now going off. Sometimes it’s going off while I’m just going to sleep, and other times in the dead of night. Is it just because this is a lower income area, and the powers that be in America have more disdain for the rest of us all the time these days? Perhaps…..
But from a personal point of view- and a very unfortunate one- I know this to be some kind of happening all over America. You see, this is my third residence somehow near train tracks (although this one now is not really very near, and I doubt that I’d be disturbed by any normal train noise here- but this is indeed unusual) My own paranoia wants to take it personal, but it’s NOT personal- it’s happening to tens of thousands of us, maybe hundreds of thousands.
My house that was flooded up in Indiana lay on the other side of a highway, pretty much out in the middle of nowhere, where the train comes through day and night. That train is always moving and has some motivational excuse: there are a couple of small street crossings. But it’s EXTREMELY high-volume blast would knock your socks off! There are crossings, but everyone knows they are there, and the train comes through all the time, but night or day, there’s no sleeping when it passes through.

Before that, it was Needles California for four years, which lies on what has to be the busiest railroad left in America. Only one very very small road crosses the track at all there, about fifty yards from the station. But the trains coming into town have to blast their horns from miles out. And the blasts can be heard all over town. At first I was unfortunately right near the tracks, but later moved a mile up on the mountainside. Not much difference, especially in the winter when the dense air carries the sound even more.
So now it’s been nine years now, near some lousy tracks in one place or another. And it’s always this same senseless kind of thing. He’s still out there now, periodically sounding off, and I think this one is really the most senseless and inexplicable location. Safety? Not when it’s just sitting there, blasting away for an hour. Get us up to work? Not at all hours of the night! It’s only going to have people stressed out and tired all day from a lack of sleep. Class warfare, against the lower incomes? Whatever it is, I’ve really come to feel like its sort of an attack. It’s some kind of attack on America, no less of an attack than 9-11. It simply can’t be explained off with any real defensible logic, and it’s going night after night, year after year in all kinds of places in America, and surely disturbing a great great number of people. It’s damaged my own fragile health (I‘m no “Spring chicken“!), and cost me untold hours of sleep, that I often have to try and make up in daylight hours. What a waste of time!
So what IS it with these trains, and why does so much of America put up with it. Has sensible and necessary protest and dissent fallen that much out of political correctness in this age of conformity? Can “CORPORATE” do as they please to the rest of us like this again? Something should be done. I’m writing this letter to the newspaper. Maybe I’ll send it to Congress. Do they even care?

[Michigan Mike]

nashville,
You have my sympathy ... sounds very irratating to say the least.

Just incase the thought hasn't come to mind, I'll suggest ear plugs. Not trying to be funny ... I used to have a hard time getting some much needed sleep in the day time and this seemingly obvious solution just didn't dawn on me for a long time. Now I keep them beside the bed.

Hope things get better soon.....
.

[Nashville Kat]

I've used ear plugs- but a funny thing happens- they seem to super-sensitize my hearing then when I'm not wearing them! I didn't mention this in my letter, but I'm back to almost normal heealth now- I have a TMJ displaced jaw condition after it was broken, and a few years back, the tension in my jawline started giving me just absolutely excrutiating regular migraine headaches that were lasting a week at first.

Beyond all this natural train noise, I was under personal attack by hate groups, that really started to hassle me night and day about the time I was otherwise getting sick- After 9-11. I was harrassed out of Needles and in Indiana my house was surrounded at one point with 12 dogs bordering my yard, including a half dozen beagles all penned together in the next yard, whot would start howling and barking with every passing train, and take a half hour or so to quiet back down again- just in time for the next train at times!

I also had some ear muff noise dampeners I got at a dollar store, and wore those a lot, even mowing the lawn, but they too would make my ears even more sensitive- they finally broke and I can't find them anywhere for sale these days.

Years ago in L.A. I used to play CDs of generic noises such as ocean waves crashing or nightime forest sounds, to cover the other sounds of the noisy city so I could get some rest, but even those get on one's nerves eventually.

Oh well, I've sent this to the local paper here in Jacksonville, and several others around the nation and posted on chat boards at several sights. It's just senseless and irritating, but fortunately for me, at least the migraines come infrequently now.

Picture: "then I long for my Indiana home...." This is the house across the street in the SMALL flood a few years back- not the BIG ONE, the "100 YEAR FLOOD", of summer before last, which was about to the top of that man's head deep.

[Michigan Mike]

I get terrible headaches too. I call them migranes though I've never been to the doc for them. A bad attack will put me in a dark room for the day with much pain and vomiting on and off.
Excedrine Migrane will help sometimes ... especially if I take them at the onset. Walmart Equate brand does about as well and is cheaper.

Actually the best over the counter help I've found is Sinus Pain Relief pills taken with Excedrine Migrane.

Just thought I'd mention this incase it might help ...

[bandito]

Train horns mean BUSINESS and JOBS to feed some ones family. Sounds like the sweet sound of capitalism at work. When those train horns fall silent you wont have a job remember that. I suppose youd rather walk in piles of horse maneuer huh, me no thanks....I think fed regs require train horns to blow some distance before entering a town or crossing a road.

[Mike Hunt]

there's a rail road a bout 30 meters away from my house. im used to the noise although theres no horns blowing just the noise from the wheels hitting the tracks.

[Bikeguy Joe]

I love the sound of the trains in the distance....yeah, about 8 miles off. Mmmm rumbly and low.

[leftywoody]

I can't figure out why a train horn can blow and eventually stop ,at least most of the time , but a Beagle on a chain can bark for eternity .

[Spunout]

seriously, take my advice....earplugs and a big industrial (or box) fan. the big fan drowns out alot of outside noise and the earplugs seal the deal. just my .02

EDIT: just noticed you tried earplugs. but the fan helps me. put it right next to my head, air blowing away f4rom me

[Nashville Kat]

Yeah- a train in the distance sounds kinda moody, that "high lonesome" sound that Bill Monroe said inspired his bluegrass sound. But this is like Dan Ackroyd Blues Brother Loop Train Decca- the one in Indiana shakes the ground and the whole house passing through, and this one here in Jacksonville is just plain stupid INTENTIONALLY offesnsive somehow, and not even moving.