In England (I live on London-Euston to Birmingham line) the railway lines in general have no trains on it after midnight and until 6:00am so very quiet.
In Switzerland, the goods trains (which are very noisey compared to passenger trains) mainly run at night (international freight trains over the Gotthard etc). This can be seen at Chiasso station (border station to Italy) which has a huge goods yard where these goods trains are basically stacked during the day from Italy and then sent on their way to the Gotthard at night.
Therefore noise on the railways on the main lines in Switzerland is 24 hours.
Goods trains are much much noiser and longer than passenger trains that are very quiet now a days.
If you live close to the railway, you might not just get noise but vibrations from the goods trains if they are heavy.
I would rather live close to a modern electric railway than a motorway where there is a continous hum and unnoticeable but unhealthy fumes floating around.
To me, living next to the railway embankment is not a problem and I would argue the following advantages:
(1) No problem with one of your neighbours (i.e. no barking dogs, no noisey parties, no ASBOS, no sticky-beaks etc.)
(2) More wildlife in your garden as the uninhabited ground round railways attracts wildlife.
(3) When you live a reclusive life as I have for the last year; you know that there is still life out there when you loook up and see a train go past.
(4) The embankment runs South to North and my house is positioned on the East of it. Winds blow from the West to East so the wind hits and blows over the embankment and house and when everyone else was having there house roofs blown off, I was not even aware of the winds.
Someone has mentioned Electro Magnet Fields which was all in the news about 5 years ago with regard to national grid power lines and mobile phones. The electric overhead power cables of the railways are not anywhere near the power of the national grid powerlines and would expect them to have no effect.
At the end of the day; you would expect to pay less for a property near a railway line (at least 10-15%) and it might actually be the difference between you being able to afford a property or size of property that otherwise you could not afford. That was probably the deciding factor I had at the time.