Buying a house near GOBLIN line

[Jay Fiedler]

My wife and I are currently in the process of buying a house in Forest Gate. The corner of the house is roughly 6m away from a bridge which the GOBLIN line runs over. We were concerned at first with the prospect of vibrations/sound from the freight trains in the night, so we managed to work out the schedule from realtimetrains.co.uk and plan a viewing so that we could hear a few go by. We reckon there's no shaking in the house, and the noise is bearable, although may take a bit of getting used to. We have a number of concerns, however, and I'm hoping some of you who are more knowledgeable than me about the line could help us out:

1. Capacity. From realtimetrains it seems that something like 30 freight trains go by in a weekday. We hear talk of this 'superport' opening up, which is likely to increase traffic on the line. Is there any way to guage how much greater the freight volume is likely to be in the future? How many trains could that line actually accommodate?

2. Electrification. I believe this stretch of track is due to become electrified within the next few years. What effect will this have on the trains? Will volume increase? Will we notice the trains becoming significantly quieter?

3. Walthamstow campaign. We've spoken to someone who organised a campaign among homeowners in Walthamstow near the line against Network Rail. Apparently the trains were shaking houses as they passed and making a significant amount of noise (these are ground level tracks, as opposed to the overhead tracks in Forest Gate). After some pressure NR performed some sort of maintenance on the nearby track and now the trains are much quieter. It seems that maybe the track in FG is in a better condition (as the noise doesn't seem so bad), but will the trains become louder as the track gradually wears down?

Thanks in advance, I really appreciate any help/advice anyone cares to give!

 

[Crossover]

1. Capacity. From realtimetrains it seems that something like 30 freight trains go by in a weekday. We hear talk of this 'superport' opening up, which is likely to increase traffic on the line. Is there any way to guage how much greater the freight volume is likely to be in the future? How many trains could that line actually accommodate?

2. Electrification. I believe this stretch of track is due to become electrified within the next few years. What effect will this have on the trains? Will volume increase? Will we notice the trains becoming significantly quieter?

For 1, RTT shows all the possible paths that could be used, but I imagine a lot will not be used, at least not every day. The best bet is to have a look back through some previous days and see which freights ran. My guess is it will be possibly just a handful.

2. I am surmising but I imagine the trains under electric power will be less noisy than the diesels that currently go past

 

[EM2]

I live in Forest Gate, two houses away from a GOBLIN bridge.
Electric trains will be quieter, but you will get noise during the engineering work while the infrastructure is put in place. As for freight, I wouldn't be surprised if frequencies increased but I couldn't guess by how much.
You get used to the noise, to the point that I barely notice a passenger train any more, and it has to be a very loud freight to wake me up during the night.
My house is in this link, when there was a similar query - http://www.railforums.co.uk/showpost.php?p=1226038&postcount=9
Just to add, I work shifts and when I do nights and need to sleep during the day, I use silicone earplugs and don't hear a thing!

 

[Jay Fiedler]

For 1, RTT shows all the possible paths that could be used, but I imagine a lot will not be used, at least not every day. The best bet is to have a look back through some previous days and see which freights ran. My guess is it will be possibly just a handful.

Can I just check whether I'm using RTT correctly? I'm searching for Woodgrange Park (as the house in question is between there and Wanstead Park), and filtering for Freight Only. The attachment is for last Thursday. Looking at the far right, I'm interpreting anything which has a Cancel or a (Q) as no train passing, and the ones with a time in bold as a passed train. I don't actually know what the (Q) means, but I'm guessing it's something that was scheduled in but didn't actually run.

Is all that correct? If so, for the handful of days I've looked at I'm seeing around 33 freights in each 24 hour period.

 

[jp4712]

That's pretty much it, yes. A (Q) means 'conditional', which in layman's terms means that it's a 'slot' in the timetable that's kept there for that train, but it doesn't always run. The times in bold are real trains that actually passed.

Paul

 

[GB]

"Q" literally means "runs as required".

 

[EM2]

...I'm searching for Woodgrange Park (as the house in question is between there and Wanstead Park)...

Depending on where it is between the two stations, it may be a lower number than that, because a number of freights access the line from the Great Eastern main line, via a junction just to the east of Forest Gate station.

 

[Jay Fiedler]

Ahhh! That's what I've missed. Schoolboy error. So it's really Wanstead Park that I need to be searching for. Makes sense. Thanks for that!

 

[telstarbox]

Is there any way you can speak to the current owners directly to see how they find it?

 

[RochdalePioneers]

When I was a younger man I once ended up at a girl's house in Haringay. We were woken up in the dawn light by a 33 tooting at a red signal which was at the end of her garden....

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Jay Fiedler]

Is there any way you can speak to the current owners directly to see how they find it?

The house is tenanted, but we've actually managed to speak to a couple of the tenants during a viewing. They've said a similar thing to what I've read on other message boards - that it's loud at first but you get used to it after not too long.

I think we're happy enough with the way it is now, we're concerned about some of the unknowns in the future, such as the capacity greatly increasing due to this superport or the electrification of the line as these things could impact have an impact on resale value.