Music to My Ears

This is sweet. Blues guitarists have gotten some good whistle effects with a Dobro or bottleneck guitar. Listen for instance to Tom Rush playing "Panama Limited." Listen also to Scott Joplin's "Great Crush Train Collision" for something similar to your experiments. Joplin I believe is using tritones. Rush captures the sliding nature of the steam whistle.

HI Train Dane 3768:

Do you have a keyboard to set up these sounds, trumpet, trombone, leslie, reverb and jazz organ, I played these notes on an acoustic piano and got similar results. The pitch is correct.

PRR 3 chimes - B♭- D♭- G♭

Reading 6 chimes - G - A - C - E♭- G - A

NYC 5 chimes - A♭- C - E♭- F - A♭

I do not have a keyboard, it would be fun to do these notes on a keyboard.

Hope to see you out rail-fanning. Gary 🚂

IIRC the Glenn Miller record uses the original grade crossing signal in the intro - two longs / two shorts. The record was made about the time it was changed to the still-used two longs / one short / one long.

I grew up across the street from a railroad line. Back when I was a kid in the sixties, one (I'm guessing old-timer) engineer used to do sort of a hybrid - two longs / two shorts / then one long to finish.

I like that NYC whistle!

If my hand were on a whistle cord attached to that one, no hoot owl, ground squirrel, coyote, tunnel, bridge, curve, station, pretty girl, track gang, paint gang, bridge gang, or crossing would go unrecognized and at night or in the hills or mountains or in frigid weather, I'd do more of it, just to hear the echo.

@wjstix posted:

IIRC the Glenn Miller record uses the original grade crossing signal in the intro - two longs / two shorts. The record was made about the time it was changed to the still-used two longs / one short / one long.

Maybe we should listen?  (I think you're right.)

Mike

Cool topic!  I used to swear that back in the '90s, the horn on Amtrak's F40PH sounded like a chord from the Carpenters!

Music to My Ears • Let’s Find The Notes

In this video we will be using a Piano Tuner to find the notes in “Chattanooga Choo Choo by: Glenn Miller, from the Time Life Orchestra; “The Swing Era - Swing Time”. So hang onto your railroad hat as we use technology to find the notes.

Hope to see you out rail-fanning. Gary 🚂

Gary,

Nice!  Very nice.  While watching the notes fly by it seems to be very repeatable.

There's so much going on in that clip.  Several different riffs, running simultaneously, that lead themselves very nicely to potential whistle sequences.

The good news is that the app tracking the notes appears to keep pace quite nicely.

Mike

Here's another swing clip to consider, from Count Basie's One O'Clock Jump (1939).  This one might be less about the notes, and more about cadence and tempo.

A little background -- This piece, and in particular Count Basie's arrangement of it, has been cited as being heavily influenced by the rail travel so prevalent in the experience of bands touring the country back in the day.

In the television documentary series "Jazz" by Ken Burns on PBS, a few years back, a couple of the still-living members of the Count's band were interviewed.  They mentioned expressly how the rhythm of the rails and the sounds of the equipment during hours and hours of travel got stuck in their minds and heavily influenced the creation of this piece.

While listening to this segment, in my head I can see the drivers and rods on an ATSF Northern spinning and moving in time with the music throughout, as the Chief carried the band back and forth across the country.

One other comment.  Count Basie was known to be a serious model railroader and Lionel aficionado.  I recall a post in this forum, back in late 2021, that featured a picture of him, his wife, and a corner of his layout.  Unfortunately the post was soon deleted, apparently because rights to publish the photo were not obtained by the OP from the owner.

Mike

Let’s Ask Google

1. What notes are in a train horn? C - D# - F# - A# - C

2. What are the sound frequency of bell? From D2 to C to D6

3. What notes are in a train whistle?  A# - C# - D# - G

4. What chord do train horns make? = These are the notes in the chord: C - E - G - A

Hope to see you out rail-fanning. Gary 🚂

An interesting topic. There seems to be quite the variety of notes associated with the assortment of horns being blown on all those engines.

How does the FRA define what constitutes a horn? Would a railroad (Shortline?) be able to have their own custom horn?

Fun little fact - The Glenn Miller Orchestra still performs as an outrageous 17 piece band. Go for Chattanooga Choo Choo - stay for the rest of the show.

I own a 3 chime Nathan, (hand delivered by a former TCA Prez), the plan is to put it on the wall in the entryway. Yes, my wife is fully on board (so to speak). I think some of the horns are as graceful as the engines they adorn.

Paul

Along with the chord produced by the horn's several "chimes," is the rhythmic pattern the engineer uses. My son once lived a few blocks from BNSF's Los Angeles-Chicago mainline through La Mirada, CA.  On several mid evening occasions when approaching the nearest grade crossing, the engineer was heard playing "Shave and a haircut."

The Bell is an A-Flat in: “Chattanooga Choo Choo" by: Glenn Miller. The bell chimes four times. Does anyone have any knowledge on what pitch was used on steam locomotives?

Hope to see you out rail-fanning. Gary 🚂