Removing silence from audio files

Is there a way to remove silence from the end of audio files in Linux? I'm pretty sure you can do it with SoX, with the silence effect, but its parameters are so mind-bogglingly complex (yes, I have read the fine manual) that even after an hour or so of experimentation I still can't get results. Does anyone have an example recipe using SoX for me to study and learn from, or does anyone know of any alternative tools to get the same effect?