Once upon a time I had a haircutting salon in lower downtown Denver, Colorado, about two blocks from the train station. This is where I learned that the train whistles are more musical than you think, and not all are created equal. At first I thought they were just two notes, two different notes for each train. But I only heard part of the story.
Later, I learned more about these melancholy sounds that are a special part of our culture.
It seems that around 1832 the need for the distinctive sound of the train needed to be devised to communicate with other railway workers and to warn the train approach.Trains can not stop quickly, so they needed a sound to communicate, "Hey , get out of the way, pronto! ". musical instrument builder was hired to work inventing such a thing.
These whistles, or a steam trumpet, like the original name, began as a single note shriekers. Remember the show "petticoat junction "? It was the sound of a train were used.
Then different train lines adopted different sounding whistles: some have chosen to join the three whistles - it's deep, throaty lower ones with rich overtones, while others have adopted a five or six join whistles.
Another thing I notice is that sometimes you can hear some real term to put the whistle sound by engineers. Apparently the older steam whistles are driven with pull cord or lever that could be different. Now switch push button is often used, and that makes each of the whistle sounding exactly the same as the next without the musical expression. After you hear the old style, with the operator having fun stretching notes, you can really tell the difference.
Now, whenever I hear the train whistle and I listen to I do a little private game of guessing what kind of a whistle - three bells, ringing five or six ring [. [/ P>
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