[pdxtex]

Originally Posted by AviationGuy

I'm about 10 houses away from the MoPac tracks in north Austin. It's freight trains all day and night, along with Amtrak several times. Next to the tracks is the MoPac expressway/tollway. I'm right under an incoming flight path for approaches to the airport, and the aircraft are at 2,000 to 3,000 ft as they fly over.

When I'm outside, it's noisy as hell. Trains, planes, motorcycles, cars, trucks, sirens. I love the sound of the Amtrak trains, though, as well as the planes. The freight trains are ok unless an engine is idling near by (I absolutely hate that). Until I replaced my old single pane windows, all the noise came inside. And the freight trains caused the windows to rattle. Once I replaced the windows with good quality double panes, all of the sounds are gone except for the one thing I hate...the idling locomotives. That sound penetrates and drives me crazy if I happen to wake up in the middle of the night. I've tried my noise canceling headphones but they're uncomfortable. So I just put up with that.

None of this seems to have any effect on property values except for the houses immediately adjacent to the tracks.

Just thought of something. Before I replaced my windows, one thing that was nuts was garbage trucks emptying dumpsters in the middle of the night. I'm about 1500 ft from the nearest location where this happens, (along a major commercial strip) but when they put the dumpsters down, it's incredibly loud. I don't know if anyone else mentioned this yet.

let me tell you about garbage trucks!! heh, yeah i live in a townhouse across the street from the back end of a string of bars and restaurants....those $%^&*ers are loud as hell. there isnt any law about when they can empty trash though. the argument is day time pickup would cause traffic snarls....so they come at 3 am.....