The train now making a lot of noise is the 11:16...

Sometimes you have the right tool at the right time, in the right place. But this is a rare event.

So I was rather gratified when I was travelling by train recently, and I tried to listen to a podcast on my iPhone. Headphones in, I turned it on and listened... and strained to hear...and turned it up to max, and still couldn't hear it unless I cupped my hands over my ears.

The problem? Not my hearing, but the train I was travelling in. It was a single carriage train - the 11:16 from Ipswich to Cambridge. And it was loud inside. Very loud. So loud that listening to an iPhone turned up to max volume was not really audible on headphones against the din coming from the diesel motor.

For once, I had the right tool - well, almost the right tool. I had downloaded 'Decibel' from the App Store some days earlier, and had casually seen how noisy it was at work and at home, but nothing more than casual use, and I hadn't calibrated it. But now I had a noise to measure, and the highest average reading I got was 89, although it was consistently above 86 for most of the journey. The conductor was very good at SHOUTING to the travelling customers, or is that victims of ear assault?

Now I'm not an expert in environmental noise, but it was very noisy in that train, and it made the 88 minute journey all the longer to have to put up with a loud companion... Not a pleasant experience.