The Ottoman Empire granted concessions to two British companies to construct the first railroads in Anatolia. These railroads connected the port city of Izmir to the fertile river valleys of inland western Anatolia during the second half of the 19th century. The construction of railways was an intensely material act, requiring not only the laying of tracks and the construction of station buildings, but the alteration of an entire landscape in order to accommodate the particular movement of the train. Beyond this physicality, railroads brought with them to this region novel sensory stimuli. From the moment the first locomotive whistle was heard in Izmir, to the bells of the camels transferring their cargo to the trains, and to the calls of porters waiting in front of train stations, a new and auditory sensorium was woven onto the existing sensory geography of the area. The sounds of this new machine, the train, reformulated the everyday sounds of this place, and impacted the people living in and around Izmir in myriad ways. The auditory aspects of the railways, therefore, constitute a salient element in unraveling a burgeoning space-based dialectic between technology and people. Railways were noisy. Locomotives produced rhythmical tones as they traversed the terrain. Whistles frequently called out to draw people’s attention to the dangers of the machine. A whole set of auxiliary sounds, ranging from the humming of machines in repair shops to the chattering of passengers enjoying a new mode of sociability filled the new railroad spaces. Railway spaces were also liminal, enabling the acting out of cultural transgressions. Embedded into a changing urban fabric, railway sounds became part of the everyday experience of the city. Utilizing evidence available in official documents, such as company reports, city directories and furniture inventories, as well as newspaper and travel accounts, this paper will explore the effects of railways on the soundscapes of Izmir and beyond.