Campaigners have persuaded rail bosses to review noisy train horns that cause misery for householders.

Network Rail has agreed to look at the 117-decibel horns fitted to new rolling stock trains and decide if they need to be so loud.

The news marks a huge success in a campaign that has been gathering pace across the country for several years.

Nick Herbert, MP for Arundel and South Downs, Nicholas Soames, MP for Mid Sussex and a representative from the office of Francis Maude, MP for Horsham, attended a meeting yesterday with Network Rail managers and nine other MPs from the South-East.

More than 70 MPs have signed an early day motion asking rail companies to pay for quieter horns.

The Network Rail review will report in March. At the moment drivers are required to sound their horns at certain places under health and safety laws.

Mr Soames said: "There is no single answer to this. The report may well conclude that the railways should challenge health and safety rules.

"Changing the horns on the trains would be a substantial cost but peoples lives are being seriously interrupted by this excessive noise."

The Argus spoke to villagers in the Arun Valley last year who said horns sounded at an unmanned level crossing between South Stoke and Burpham were keeping them awake at night.

They successfully campaigned for signs telling drivers to hoot their horns to be removed.

Mr Herbert said: "Initially we just thought it was affecting a few constituents locally but then realised it was causing concern to a lot of people."

The problems started when Southern Rail introduced its new Electrostar rolling stock two years ago because the new horns are louder, reaching up to 124 decibels. Southern has since cut the decibel level but campaigners say the two-tone horns are still too loud.

The Brighton-based Noise Abatement Society (NAS) said the horns were "louder than instruments of torture" and it had been contacted by one resident who found the noise so distressing she tried to kill herself.

Peter Wakeham, of the NAS, said: "Is a review all they could come up with?

"You can have a review on cigarette ends on the street but it doesnt clean them up.

"Why do they need a review to show something that is already substantiated?"