PRR S1 (Photo of the Day)

[Utley26]

So looking at today's photo of the PRR S1, that looks like a diesel style air horn on the front.  So did this locomotive NOT have a steam whistle?

[AltonFan]

That's the way it looks.

IIRC, Milwaukee Road 4-8-4s (I forget the class), and I believe, some Southern Railroad locomotives had air horns rather than whistles.

[MJChittick]

SP GS-4 4449 has both a whistle and an air horn.

[selector]

The Pennsy's Duplex T1 and the NYC's S1b Niagaras had both horn and whistle.  I would guess all the modern 'fast steam' engines had dual horn/whistle, maybe even by federal regulation?   That much I don't know.

[feltonhill]

The production lot of PRR T1's did not have horns, only the PRR standard whistle.  No sure about 6110 and 6111.  I'll see what I can find. 

[selector]

I may have been tripped up by a foobie provision of a horn in the decoder files of the BLI Paragon T1.  It has both.  Live and learn.

Crandell

[rrboomer]

The horn may also have been an economy move.  The whislte uses more steam (meaning coal/oil, water) than one might imagine.  Another reason could be the horns sounded more "Modern".

I believe the MILW S class had both horn and whistle..

 

[nyc#25]

On the Southern Pacific locomotives equipped with air horns used them for grade

crossings as the road thought the sound carried better.  The same locomotives

also had steam whistles which were only used for "railroad" signaling such as

calling the flag our or back.

[Juniatha]

Air horns provided a ‚modern’ sound in that they made steam sound like diesel - I think it might be called a kind of camouflage.

About: steam consumption of whistle blowing leading to low boiler pressure -

*ggg*

That would have taken some formidable whistle indeed with Berkshire, Texas Type, Hudson, Northern and the like!

Air horns run on compressed air, on a steam locomotive supplied by air pump, i e steam again:

- no fuel savings whatsoever.

 

I remember a story in an old Trains Mag of a heavy ramp section on the Santa Fe where having to blow the whistle approaching a certain road crossing was said to have had a delicate tendency to trigger priming in 2‑10‑4s on maximum tonnage and in consequence this could make a train stall. There could have been something in it if steaming conditions just before had been very close to the edge. The author (don’t remember his name) claimed he had substantially improved reliability of freight train running over this grade when he had issued an exemption that did away with the need of whistling on approach of this crossing.

I presume, a 2-10-4 forced down to walking pace by maximum train load on that ramp might have been somewhat difficult to ignore anyways - whistle blowing or not.

 

Uh, by the way: if passenger diesels are equipped with boilers for train heating - why not provide them with steam chime whistles. That could bring back ... ok, ok, I say no more!

With best wishes for 2011

   

                      Juniatha

[Juniatha]

It’s me once more.

 

By the way:

Does anyone believe the Loewy shrouding of the S-1 looks real nice? I don’t think so. Just look at those deep side valances – no meaning, no function, no going together with the locomotive’s inherent lines and proportions. Looks became much improved when they were cut later and the seven foot drive wheels fully came to view. But in the front treating and all the boiler top line it feels to me like Raymond didn’t really know what to do with a steam locomotive, less with a most formidable one as # 6100!

I think it’s a shame, she was such an engineering wonder, should have had some art deco of the kind of Dreyfuss J-3a – whadda ya say?

 

And by the way by:

Who remembers Loewy’s ‘coming-or-going’ Studebaker with the wrap-around bay window in the back? To me the best he ever did was the Hawk.

 

And by that, too, now:

No, I don’t think he designed the Connie (Lockheed Constellation) although she tolerably looked like it.

 

And with that: bye-bye for now

                     Juniatha

[selector]

Thanks for your comments, Juniatha.  It seems to me that a steam whistle will use more steam than will an air horn will use air...a lot more.  If the pump(s) use steam for brake-pipe pressurization, and they run intermittently, and a horn is used intermittently, the comparatively little air the horn would need seems small by comparison.

Crandell

[henry6]

I believe the Lackawanna put a horn on at least one of their Pocono's very late in the game.  Never heard it used, however, only the natural whistle.

[Juniatha]

@ Crandell

 

Ok, >> they run intermittently, <<

– that’s a point.

 

  Only, I would hope that didn’t mean

having to decide between blowing the horn –

or  braking ?

 

Regards

                  Juniatha

[seppburgh2]

I can't put my finger where I read this (Trains or Classic Trains), this is from memory.  At speed, the frequency of a steam whistle would not project forward enough to be heard at grade crossings.  However, the air-horn has a different frequency that would project ahead to warn those at the grade crossing.  Simple fact of being heard vs. hitting something at 80 + MPH.

Maybe some of the experts here can confirm.

Thank you.

[selector]

Juniatha, I was not precise in my statement.  I'll try again...the pumps don't operate continuously, but the various steam appliances, including the whistle, operate either continuously or regularly.  The horn, if used, would draw a small volume of air, and along with leaks and the required crossing horn sounding, the use of air would be easily handled with intermittent pump operation.  The pumps would use less steam than a whistle at full pitch, would they not?   I am asking, since I don't really know...it just seems to me that in a number of randomly sampled five or ten minute periods for a given steamer working at track speed on a certain route, steam whistling is likely to use more steam than would the pumps and the air-fed horn.

Crandell

[Juniatha]

@ Crandell:

 

Yes, I see what you mean – only, sometimes I tend to look at things from a sarcastic rather than a fully earnest viewpoint, sorry.

          ~ “Don’t worry – be happy”

Ok, seriously talking : 

Typical for those slow working piston steam pumps was an incredibly low thermal efficiency, starting with generally low enthalpy of live steam (in most cases saturated steam), using but a fraction of the available, already low adiabatic heat drop with practically no steam expansion (except for that rudimentary expansion HP : LP to the Woolf principle in a compound steam pump) and with heavy wall effects. While the power output of these pumps was – erh – at best unimpressive in relation to size and mass, low thermal efficiency caused high steam consumption.

Assuming a somewhat better conversion rate from volume of pressurized air to extending volume of sound by an air horn as compared to a steam whistle, there still remains that dual thermal conversion process of -a- burning fuel to generate steam and -b- using steam to compress air standing against the air horn on a steam loco. So, it is efficiency of the air horn by efficiency of piston steam pump by boiler efficiency by combustion efficiency that counts and that makes primary fuel heat consumption very high for a “hoot”. Considering that using steam directly you can wipe out that factor of (un-) efficiency of the piston steam pump, a steam whistle would appear to have a comfortable margin to allow for a lower conversion rate until its heat energy balance for a “choo” would become worse than that of an air horn on a steam loco, each for same volume of sound.

Another aspect that comes to mind, though:

Air horns generally create sort of an ‘economy’ ~mono pitch~ tone, sounding rather squeezed in many cases (diesels sound much better in America than in Europe where railways seem to care more for the virtually deaf than for those deafened by the horn). Steam whistles, again especially on American steam power, have offered a much milder, multi pitched, variable tune, that by itself would likely need a higher flow rate to create – steam or air irrespectively.

The sound of French, British, Italian steam locos with high pitched, also variable steam whistles was closer related to air horns – while German standard dual tone steam whistles sounded deeper, somewhat reminiscent to B&O steam. DR / DB standard classes featured definitely ‘self-confident’ businesslike, even gruff sounding chimes, to my ears well befitting might and power of steam. However, as I listened for the first time to a recording of an American built 141.R Mike on an SNCF freight about to roll through Rouen station, it was outright appalling to me when all of a sudden it started squeaking like a frightened piggy!

I mean, really they ought to have put a note down in those contracts to make it illegal to mount a French high pitch whistle on an American built Mike at any rate for any time from delivery to scrapping.

On the other hand, however, I concede that in 1949 a driver in a Renault or a Citroen Traction Avant on a rural country road in the Bourgogne or Lorraine, in the Auvergne, on the Côte d’Azur or anywheres in France might not have associated an American five tone chime whistle with a train at all – so in the end I think with a nice glass of red wine we should forgive this unintentional insult to the French ...

With Regards            

               Juniatha

[selector]

I am late to see your response and to acknowledge it...my apologies. I shallnow  ponder it and reflect as I am able, Thank-you!

Crandell

[arkady]

Juniatha

And by the way by:

Who remembers Loewy’s ‘coming-or-going’ Studebaker with the wrap-around bay window in the back? To me the best he ever did was the Hawk.

I remember them well.  A family on my street owned one, and I used to pass it on the way to school each day, giving it admiring looks on each trip.  In fact, I have a model of a '51 Studebaker bulletnose in my living room today.

I must disagree with you about the Hawk, though.  They're outstanding cars, but for my money, the most beautiful Studebaker was the Robert Bourke Starliner coupe:

 http://www.carlustblog.com/2010/03/195354-studebaker-loewy-coupes.html

 

 

[Juniatha]

Hi, Arkady

 

You guys go back in history – gasp ! Pwwh, I check it up in my book on American cars of the 1950s … A-alright, now I see what you mean.

Well, no problem, Arkady, I guess that’s why they make so many different cars …

Ok, so on that linked site I read that by that time Monsieur Raymond Loewy had designs being designed by his designers, I stand corrected – although I can imagine his casual adding one or the other correcting line on a drawing presented to him, which miraculously yet obviously lightened up what had so far just been a tolerably ‘useable’ idea, making it all come together. I hope you’ll allow me some credit for I was only born some 20 years later, so it’s all history to me.

However, what really made vigilant was to read of Virgil Exner in this context since his name would lead directly to my favorite Chrysler cars with the swift swept look, 1957 / 58 and some of the 1960 / 61.

BTW, while I was turning pages in my book, I noticed a Ford model, apparently built 1952 – 54 or 55, approximately I’d like to add. I thought: ‘Gee, look-a-here: while makers in the automobile industry are generally accused to aim at mass production only, it’s nice to see that sometimes they were prepared to put up a model especially designed for a very limited group of customers – like this-here Ford, obviously produced specifically for the employees of one engine facility of the Pennsylvania RR!’ A large one, admittedly, probably much the working heart of the small city of –

Crestline!

Then, as the Pennsy dropped steam, so Ford dropped the Crestline – logical, or so it seems?

Well, I don’t know – anyways, Chrysler clearly aimed at a larger potential clientele with their New Yorker, covering both Grand Central and Pennsylvania Station travelers – and then some !

But look what has become of the former builder of Mopar muscle cars: now FIAT's Marchionne has marched in – it’s a shame, that’s all I say.

Yet, some of the iconic cars are still on the road and they will be when others are long gone. 

Hemi !

With regards

                Juniatha

[joseywales]

ok id stummble on this subject..air horns? ok logicaly horns on a steamer would be produce by steam..i saw a old video with it and steam came out of that horn.. on the air lines that connect each cars had steam comming out...as for whisels using more steam thedn horns?/ My opion they use the same amount.. think they did the horn to fool people has a deisel loco or they wanted people to get used to hearing the horns since deisels where just comming out.horn sounds do travel far.

[seppburgh2]

The air horn were added for high-speed running.  The horn generated a sound wave that could be heard before the steam whistle. At high-speed the whistle sound would not travel ahead to the point to be an effective warnning device.  But, I'll leave it to the experts here to do a deep dive on the question.