answer:My sister had a store in town for three years. The tracks for the freight trains ran close to the back door (50 yards). The trains (really big ones) roared through 14 times every 24 hours.. It was unpleasant; the whistle with its eerie Doppler effect was unnerving and always a surprise. There were two apartments above the store and above all the other ones on Main St; the renters simply grinned and bore it. The town was built around the railroad. I live about five miles away as the crow flies. I hear them when I am awake and find the noise evocative of rural living and rather soothing, but the distance muffles the noise, the vibrations and the air pollution.