Noise protection options against railway tracks in the garden

Thank you all for the responses.

The line is used for both local and long-distance traffic. Local trains run through there twice an hour, plus one IC per hour. About 500m away there is a station where the local trains stop; the long-distance trains pass through a bit slower.

This all gives me a stomach ache. I have lived near tracks for 15 years, but with a large apartment building in between and 100m away. That didn’t bother me at all, I didn’t even notice the trains anymore.

Besides the noise, when I read your posts, the question is also how the vibration affects things. I don’t believe everything will shake – but what happens to the building fabric after 5, 10, or 20 years?

I think I will probably rule out the house for us after all, as nice as it actually is.

Best regards, Marius

Have you ever spent an hour in the garden? And an hour in the house? You said the railway tracks are elevated and lie on an embankment ... how much higher is that than the garden? I could imagine that it is quieter in the garden right next to the embankment than 20 meters away from the embankment.

We were there for 20 minutes; unfortunately not in the garden when the train passed. However, we were sitting in the living room, which directly borders the garden, and a window was open. I was quite surprised at how loud it was even with the window open.

Best regards, Marius

Keep your hands off, I would say. You won’t get rid of something like that easily again.

In the end, the price does decide, but cheap + unhappy is no long-term solution either. Just how you asked here shows a bit that you yourself are rather against it, right?

I am no expert either, but for me that also wouldn’t really be an option, and we are city dwellers and certainly not picky. But a train is really loud, especially since the station is nearby plus local AND long-distance traffic and then probably also a freight train here and there? Friends have the train behind their garden, but I think it’s only the S-Bahn, and I’m blown away when the train comes. They got used to it. Except for a bit of bushes, there is no protection there and the house is definitely about 30-40m away from the tracks. Then we have relatives who live in a village in a hollow, so the train passing by the edge of the village is above them. That is also pretty loud, but it only runs once an hour during the day and not at all at night. But in your case... I would rather leave it. Or you look at it again and really stay for a while both inside and outside. But you say it was already very loud with the window open and you want to open the window in summer, and not just to air out. We once lived directly by the tram and main road. The house was well renovated and had soundproof windows. The tram came every 10 minutes or more often (it has 2 directions, after all^^) plus buses and of course the many cars. With the window closed it was not a big deal, but you could only open them to air out. And the glass decoration on the shoe cabinet in the hallway also shook a bit when the tram passed. We could still live with it quite well, but only because it was a rental apartment and it was clear that we would only stay there for a maximum of 3-5 years. And also because the living room, kitchen, balcony and garden faced a park in the back—there you couldn’t hear any street noise at all. For a house you own or as a condominium we wouldn’t have bought something like that. It’s just not worth it. But everyone is different.