In The Netherlands a new freight-only railway route, the ‘‘Betuweroute,’’ is being planned to carry freight traffic from Rotterdam harbor east into Germany. Inhabitants of areas near the future route are concerned about noise and vibration, and question the relevance of current legislation for a ‘‘freight-only’’ line. Results of analyses on existing data show no consistent differences in exposure–response relations between routes with a small or high proportion of freight trains, once the effects of different noise levels are removed. Thus these results do not support the need for special legislative provisions for freight-only lines. However, hardly any freight-only train route was included in the analyses, and concern remains. The most western part of the future Betuweroute is an existing freight-only line, the ‘‘Harbour line.’’ Some 109 inhabitants living near this line were interviewed in order to pretest the questionnaire for a social survey in areas along the future Betuweroute. For most homes accurate noise data are available. This offers another opportunity to test the hypothesis that, once the effects of different noise levels are removed, freight trains do not cause more annoyance than passenger trains. The results of this test will be presented.