Railroaders' Nostalgia > SP & The California State Railroad Museum

SP made many donations of equipment, records and other artifacts to the California State Railroad Museum. I had a part in just one.

In another Trainorders.com member's earlier post I mentioned the old Foreman's Office building just north of Bayshore Roundhouse. That small office building was in use until about 1979. In the early years when the roundhouse was busy with steam locomotives and many workers there was often need for different foremen (machinists, pipefitters, etc.) to be called to the office for work assignment changes as well as a host of other reasons. Public address amplifiers had not been invented in pre-radio days and pagers were expensive and not common until the 1980s. But the steam whistle was readily available and could also be run on compressed air. One was installed above the little office building where various signals could be blown to summon the needed official or foreman from in or about the roundhouse.

Around 1980 the two last foremen running the roundhouse, Glenn Ransford and Boyd Rose, gave the old 4 chime whistle to me, knowing that I was active in the Pacific Locomotive Association in the East Bay and wanting to make sure the artifact was preserved and hopefully placed on display. All three of us believed that the 18 inch long or so whistle had been built in the SP Bayshore shops just for the purpose it had served for decades. At that time the CSRM did not exist and the PLA had no place to display it.

In 1993 I took it to the CSRM office along with a letter explaining its history on the SP. The whistle looked pretty worn and I could not find anything on it to hint at its manufacture or history. There did not seem to be much interest in acquiring it and I felt as if I had to convince them to take it. But it did still work and I proved it. Long ago I had played the trumpet. I drew all the air I could into my lungs, placed the base of the whistle (it had no on / off valve) against my mouth and blew as hard as I could. You could hear the loud sound of all 4 chimes for about half a second and every head in the office turned to look. The lady who assisted the curator reluctantly accepted the whistle, probably just to get me out of there.

I received this letter several months later and was surprised to learn the whistle was not made by the SP but by the Fulton Company. Apparently it was cheaper to buy it than have shop forces build one. I don't know if it was ever placed on museum display since the original purpose of these whistles was to serve the railfan community way back in the 1920s! Yep, back then certain railfans (don't know what the term was then) wanted to make their car sound like a steam engine and this whistle (second photo, not the same one, but same model) was installed in the exhaust system with a bypass valve allowing the driver to blow his own signals.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/15 20:20 by Westbound.

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Photos of SP's Portero Tower up near the Mission Bay roundhouse in San Francisco, CA appear to show a step-top steam whistle on the tower roof as well.  I've seen towers with a klaxon of some sort for getting the attention of employees/trespassers in the vicinity, but that's the first whistle I've seen.  Don't know if it ran on compressed air or house steam piped over from the roundhouse.

Westbound Wrote:
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> I received this letter several months later and
> was surprised to learn the whistle was not made by
> the SP but by the Fulton Company. Apparently it
> was cheaper to buy it than have shop forces build
> one. I don't know if it was ever placed on museum
> display since the original purpose of these
> whistles was to serve the railfan community way
> back in the 1920s! Yep, back then certain railfans
> (don't know what the term was then) wanted to make
> their car sound like a steam engine and this
> whistle (second photo, not the same one, but same
> model) was installed in the exhaust system with a
> bypass valve allowing the driver to blow his own
> signals.

So, by inference, we railfans have always been kinda goofy (-:

EO

Well, that's kind of the way I felt as I left the CSRM office even though my mission was accomplished.

hogheaded Wrote:

... So, by inference, we railfans have always been kinda goofy (-:
>
> EO