Nostalgia & History > Sounds were special too

The sounds were distinctive and I can still hear them in my memory. During WWII and my dad was overseas we lived with grandparents in Missouri Valley , Iowa very close by (right next to) the war-busy CNW main and the traffic was constant. The power short CNW would hook everything on that the engine "might" pull. The trick was getting it all underway. I can still hear the rapid thump, thump, thump as the slack came out car by car. Then often as not the steamer would lose traction and rev rapidly only to try again. The engines were mostly "J\'s" and "H\'s" ; one made a woof and the other a sharp crack out of the stack but I can\'t remember which did what. What a shame these sounds are no more.

Another unforgetable sound nearly caused me to put my \'49 Merc in the ditch one night. I was driving across Nebraska in the dead of night (night was always the best time to cross that state) on my way to the U. of Colorado on highway 30 (no Interstates then). A driver could fall in behind a semi and stay there for 100 miles and be only slightly awake. Of course the UP main was right alongside. I was overtaken by a Turbine going my direction only twice as fast as I was going. The shock to my befuddled brain by that howl caused momentary panic until I realized what had just happened. I stayed awake for a long time after that.

As to railroad sounds...
1) the sound of a telegraph key echoing in the office.
2) the sound of a nice tight air compressor on a steam loco.
3) the sound that drifting valves made when you first cracked a throttle & admitted steam to the cylinders.
4) and best of all, the sound of a steam whistle, especially a good one in a nice acoustical setting.

Im not old enough to know "how it was in the old days" But when I hear that whistel off thoes Shays at Cass. Gives me a felling I was there along time ago.

Cory McDonie

As a country kid I lived too far from the mainline where steam was used on the SP. But when I stayed overnight with my grandparents in Merced, CA. I would lay awake in bed at night listening to the steam chime whistles of trains passing through, some 2 blocks away.

Then one night around 1954 or so I heard a very different chime sound I termed the "ghost train" in my mind. I had no idea what had passed through but in another couple of years that sound became the familiar sight of the SP\'s SD-7\'s with their chime horns. But even these were quickly displaced in the San Joaquin valley with F-7\'s with their "blaat" sounding horns. Now I miss them all!

Listening to the Iron Horse Rambles recordings with especially 2100\'s passenger whistle (a little more melodious harmony than 2124\'s) echoing off of the mountains of upstate Pennsylvania. It\'s enough to give one chills up the spine.

A chilling sound was the way the 3751 came into the town of Tehachapi in 1999 after Railfair. It was about 9 pm, and the way the engineer drew out each note still sends a chill down my back. I heard they were a couple of original hoggers from the steam days, and it showed. I do not have the technology yet to let the T.O. people hear, but I am getting closer....

Jim Montague