Recently, complaints regarding railway noise have increased from residents living in high-rise buildings facing railway tracks. However, reducing noise for locations high above the tracks with conventional noise barriers is difficult, because the noise sources are directly visible from these elevated positions. This paper investigated the effect on noise of low barriers installed adjacent to rails. It was evident through acoustic tests using scale models and field tests on existing railways that this type of noise barrier is able to reduce noise even in locations high above the track. Furthermore, a prediction model of the effect of these noise barriers was proposed based on the results of the field tests.