Where I grew up in El Toro (now Lake Forest), CA, subdivisions were built right up against the ATSF right of way. Southbound freights (more plentiful in the late 1970s than now)crawled through in Run 8 against the roughly 1 percent grade, and we had more than a dozen San Diegans fly through at 90mph. Today, there's close to three times the number of Surfliners and Metrolinks stirring up noise behind all those backyards, and yet people still live there.

Where I live now in Post Falls (west of Coeur d'Alene), ID, subdivisions are being built even closer against UP's ex-SI main, and many of the new homes are along a stretch where there are four grade crossings in close succession. In some cases these homes are maybe 100 feet from the track (including some right at the crossings), with the track elevated enough that no sound barrier could help. If one of those hazmat tankers out of Canada derails, it'll roll right onto someone's back porch. Horns blare almost non-stop for a quarter mile when trains pass. Northbounds are throttling up through there for a 0.5 percent grade after creeping across the BNSF diamond at Grand Junction, and southbounds roar in with dynamics and pounding tonnage.

I like hearing trains, but not THAT much.