PLEEEAAASE SOMEONE HELP... I just moved back to Lawrie Park Road, and my bedroom window overlooks the train track. The last two mornings at 2am, they begin engineering works on Sydenham railway line, drilling, hammering and shouting to each other?!
Does anyone know what's going on or how long it's going to last for? Am I the only person being woken up? I know I'm a light sleeper, but surely some others are affected too? I've rung Network Rail but they can't say when they'll be able to call back (or IF I would imagine!!).
Your not the only one. The track goes past the end of my garden and it seems that at about 1 or 2 o'clock (i think every 1st Sunday of the mounth but i meight be wrong) a lound maintenance train seems to go very slowley up and down the track. About a year ago we had a party at my house wich went on into the small hours and at about 1am me and my friends could clearly hear two men walk down the track towards Forest Hill and having a conversation. I can't see how they could carry out engineering work in the dark but i'm glad i'm not the only to hear people on the track at night whoever they are.
Its a penalty of living by a railway line, you get used to it.
When I was first in Penge I was driven nuts by the tinkling sound I kept hearing some nights, it was guys walking the line and tapping the rails to test them. Always sounded like breaking glass to me.
you'd be amazed at what happens on railway lines in the wee small hours.
What you really have to look forward to is a vist from the track laying train which fits new rails, welds them together and then lifts whole sections up and down to stamp it all into place.
The machine that does this is a fantastic bit of kit, over a quarter mile long. when you see it on an embankment all lit up with different coloured lights, grumbling to itself while waiting, it looks like the starship enterprise has landed .
the machine that planes the rails flat is a joy at 2 am though,
I live by a high speed intercity line which need a lot of maintenance, I can sleep through it all now.
Thanks for the replies, I ordered new earplugs which arrived yesterday and I slept right past 2am and woke after the railway noise would normally have finished.
Praise earplugs I say!!!!
Other than that, I guess I'll get used to it all. I'll look forward to the 'Starship Enterprise' though - at least I have prior warning I suppose.
We found that familiar regular noises were quite comforting (thinking of a road sweeping lorry revving its way up Westward Hill when we lived there). There's also a noisy train near here that goes past at 6am. (Never hear the trains all day otherwise.) The familiar noise has a strangely "grounding" effect, cos whatever one is dreaming about, the brain seems to log that one is safely at home.
I know I'm a light sleeper, but surely some others are affected too? I've rung Network Rail but they can't say when they'll be able to call back (or IF I would imagine!!).
