:comfy:
Japan and China are the only two places I've been where walking around and loitering didn't feel awkward. There's a vibe you can walk anywhere and everyone's cool with it.
Oh! I rode that train and walked around there a few years back. Just an all around incredible vibe.
You see this in rural America sometimes also where the train is closer to a river than the road and the house is along the river, and I always loved the idea of it even if it would probably be annoying in reality
I would want to hang myself if I lived so close to a train track unless it was a magic silent train
This is a nice quiet electric train, running every 12 minutes each way. Japanese trains do not blow their horns at railroad crossings. This railway is also very slow, I don't think the Enoden ever tops 30mph.
:doubt:
You can volunteer to live this close then, I would not. Can't find a quick source on decibels outside the train but inside it's apparently a 10 decibel difference from electric vs regular, I can literally hear the train near me over a mile away and it doesn't exactly go fast either so I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be enough of a difference for me to not hate it passing right by my bedroom, especially since I'm sure these trains pass much more frequently (train near me is maybe once a week, I imagine an intracity train for passengers going multiple times per day)
Edit:
every 12 minutes
Yeah no thanks for me
Here's a video of it in action. Very :comfy: railway but I promise I won't make you live next to it.
Because it's a single-track railway there would actually be a train going past every 6 minutes! :troll:
The engine might be quiet but there's lots of clatter and wheel noise for rolling stock of that age, or even newer rolling stock. Going slow probably helps to mitigate that, but it's definitely not a great thing to be rolling by your window every few minutes.
I used to live about a ten minute walk away from a Yamanote line station (which admittedly is a much larger train) but I can still hear the trains with windows open. A friend of mine lived much closer to the line and he could feel the floor vibrate with the passing of the train (which is why he ended up moving).
Above ground trains that close to residences are not great and should be avoided where possible.
No problem! I did a little digging in Japanese and found a forum thread about noise levels.
Most residents say that they're used to it and just sleep through no problem. One lady says her husband wasnt used to it when visiting for the first time so he kept waking up with the first train.
https://mixi.jp/view_bbs.pl?comm_id=9642&id=15332425
As someone who lives on a very busy street, your brain is very good at tuning out background noises after a while.
All the literature I could find on level crossings suggests that they are disproportionately dangerous and should be avoided whenever possible. Idk it could be propaganda from big tunnel boring or something.
These particular crossings, while :comfy: do seem kinda dangerous, because there are no crossing gates. Enoden railway is technically classified as a tram which is why this is allowed.
