Steam & Excursion > New Audio CD Of Illinois Central 4-8-2 #2613

The accompanying photo shows Illinois Central Railroad 4-8-2 #2613 southbound at Makanda, Illinois, on January 28, 1959.  On that day, she was running on a Carbondale to Cairo, Illinois, local turn.  J. Parker Lamb and Bruce Meyer chased the train from Carbondale to Cairo and return, and this photo is from Mr. Meyer's camera.  Had I been alive and sitting in my living room on that day, the pair would have passed the end of my driveway twice and I would have heard the train pass in both directions... but I digress.

In January, 1959, #2613 was remarkable in the fact that she was still running on the mainline.  Ten months later, she would become something of a star.

The Louisville & Nashville decided to run a 100th anniversary steam excursion, but they had a slight problem: they had completely dieselized.  The Illinois Central on the other hand, had a number of steam locomotives still servicable.  One of these was #2613, a member of the finest class of steam power the Illinois Central ever fielded and built new at the railroad's Paducah Shop in 1943.  The L&N leased #2613 for the excursion, which operated a roundtrip between the railroad's namesake cities on October 24, 1959.

Aboard the train, William & Mary Bauer set up a reel-to-reel recorder in the baggage car.  The audio recorded that day has never been released... until now.

Mr. Bauer tried his hand at the steam train LP market under the name Railfan Records, releasing two (as I understand it) records. His work came to my attention in the form of the Railfan Records LP "Local Freight."  He rode along on the caboose behind the tender of a Baltimore & Ohio Mikado on a local freight in Indiana, only weeks before the last steam power was retired.  It's an excellent record, and worth seeking out for those so inclined.  Unfortunately, it would seem not enough people did seek it out at the time: Railfan Records was a short lived enterprise.

Fast forward sixty years.  The recordings made of Illinois Central #2613 some time ago came into the possession of Jim Herron of Herron Rail Video, along with other field recordings from the Bauers.  Now I won't say that I had anything to do with the decision to release these recordings, but in correspondences in the past I said that if they ever did become available I would be at the head of the line.

Well, Mr. Herron has just released a pair of audio CD's:  "L&N Centennial Special with ICRR 2613" and "Chasing The Pigeon Creek Shifter."  The latter features a pair of N&W Y6's recorded in December, 1958.  He had mentioned to me some time ago that the releases were coming.  For whatever reason it occurred to me to check the Herron Rail Video website; and there they were.  They have been released for but a few weeks, and they haven't yet been publicized... it was just pure happenstance that I made a random check.  But there they were, and I ordered them.

The pair got here this morning, and I'm concentrating on the 2613 recordings.  Definitely worth the price of admission!

The technical quality of the recordings are on the better side of what you would expect for the period.  As is common for the period the frequency response is a little light on the low end, but  is better than most I’ve heard.  In fact, I’d rate the frequency response as similar to O. Winston Link’s “Sounds Of Steam Railroading” and “The Fading Giant.”  Considering that those are some of the classics of the genre, that’s not bad company to be in.  I suppose limited low-end frequency response was the norm for portable equipment of the era, unless you were getting into the realm of very high-dollar professional grade equipment.

As to the sound of the locomotive, the exhaust strikes me as being somewhat reminiscent of Nickel Plate 765.  It has a similar snappy crack to it, rather than a deeper (like 4449) or mushy sound (4501).  The 2613 was built with seventy-inch drivers and was considered a dual-service locomotive, and here she makes quick work of a long passenger train on the hilly profile of the L&N mainline... if we could be so lucky to see such operations today!

The whistle on the other hand, sounds almost identical to Texas & Pacific 610 on the Southern Railway from some on-board recordings from 1980 or 1981.  While the whistle is a standard I.C. long-bell three-chime "steamboat" whistle, it is worn to the point that it tends to shriek quite a bit.  Perhaps this is from a steam cut distributing plate in the bowl; the whistle I got for use at Monticello tended to shriek at times in videos I found of it, but absolutely refused to cooperate in that regard after Kent machined a new plate to replace the worn one when it arrived at the museum.  The 2613's whistle in these recordings tends to only keep the deep tones with a light touch on the chord, and screams like a banshee with a solid tug.  That doesn't bother me; your milage may vary.

Track 1:  The train departs Louisville, crosses the Southern Railway and accelerates through South Louisville

Track 2:  Climbing Muldraugh Hill, including multiple slips on the grade

Track 3:  Accelerating south of Elizabethtown

Track 4:  Accelerating after a stop and passing though a tunnel

Track 5:  Oops... they failed to load enough coal.  The train comes to a stop.  Diesels are added to get the train the rest of the way to Nashville.  (This incident and rebuilding the fire in Nashville caused a four hour delay)

Track 6:  Close to midnight, #2613 screams through the at speed.

Track 7:  The whistle calls in the flag and the train departs Horse Cave, making a fast departure toward Elizabethtown.

Track 8:  Departing Elizabethtown, the train falls in behind a freight and torpedoes are twice heard exploding.

Track 9:  The train stops at Gaulbert Street and then backs into Louisville's Union Station.  Initially slated to arrive at 11:25pm, the train arrived after 3am.  Come to think of it, I've backed into Louisville's Union Station myself, working as the assistant conductor on the Kentucky Cardinal a good 17 years ago.

If you are a collector of railroad sounds on LP, Tape, CD, etc., this is about as good as you are going to find in vintage recordings.  While this review looks at the IC 2613 disc (I admit to being partial), the N&W disc is of similar quality.  It was recorded from a car pacing N&W Y6 2-8-8-2's on one of the last mine runs to see steam in use.  The link is HERE to check them out.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

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Thank you Mary for bringing this to my attention. I asked Mr Herron about Mr. Bauer's audio recordings some time ago here on Trainorders and he said he was considering releasing a CD or two of them. Glad to see that he did. I've ordered mine and I hope they sell well and perhaps more can be released in the future. It seems there is a lot of vintage audio in the possession of video producers who use only a small portion of it in their videos and the rest never sees the light of day. It would be nice if a few DVDs came with audio only bonus features that highlight more of the wonderful sounds that didn't fit in with the movie footage.
Ken Gear

I have 2 Owl Records out of Boulder of C&S steam -All Steamed Up and UP Steam - The Big Steam.   There is nothing like getting woken up on Christmas morning to the sound of Safteys popping, sounding like someone screaming their heads off.  Both were done by Howard Fogg.  The are both Monaural. 

My collection is so rediculously large that I've completely lost track of what I have... until someone mentions a title.

Kurt found a record listed on eBay that had a shot of I.C. 2613 on the cover titled "An Evening With Steam."  Being an I.C. fan, he was about to jump on it until I whipped a copy off my shelf and gave him a rundown of the track listing.... no I.C. stuff whatsoever.  He couldn't remember the title when he described it to me, but the cover description was all I needed to engage the gray matter.

There are two more Howard Fogg records besides the two mentioned: "Power Of The Past" and "The Talking Giants."  I picked up all four on eBay over the years.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions