Favorite Whistle

[cprs8622]

Whats your favorite whistle and why?

Mine would have to be the K5LA

[espeefoamer]

Hancock Air Whistles.
M5s
Single note air horns.

[Overmod]

All-time favorite horn: Nathan P01235. (Dopplered at speed as heard from the ground a couple of miles north of Princeton Junction).

Hancock air whistles are good, as are whatever horns were used on the West Shore in late NYC days and throughout the PC years.

Some of what constitutes a 'favorite' whistle involves the context -- 844's for example, while not a favorite musically, is a favorite 'by association' because it evokes thinking about the engine. Some others, like N&W 611, are in the same category.

I grew up hearing the air horns on EL commuter RS3s. To this day, that's one of the Sounds A Locomotive Makes. (Like the idle of the 567 in a NW2, or the distinctive sound of a PC FL9 trying to pull away from a platform at Harmon with too heavy a train and not enough maintenance in the early '70s)

Wish I could say the same about N&W A 1218's whistle... but I just can't stand it! (I think I can say the same for Cotton Belt 819, at least about the whistle she had a few years ago).

[Anonymous]

Hands down, the whistles on the N&W J class 4-8-4's

[Allen Jenkins]

Great-CPRS 8622! I recommend checking out the five chime, three large front, two smallest rearward, Seaboard Air Line, Seaboard Coast Line, And Family Lines Diesel air horn. None other like it in the world! And my question is, what is this arrangement called? Only one model company produced it, in HO, and they're out of business since the late eighties! I cannot believe no one has produce this product, and Ajhin horns are too large, out of scale. Horn Fans to the Rescue! ACJ.

[Anonymous]

The whistle of a 70 ton 3 truck shay.

A fiting voice for such power[:D]

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[Anonymous]

Mine is the Nathan P3. Wonderful horns.

[agentatascadero]

While there are some melodic diesel horns, most are just annoying. I much prefer steam whistles, and please spare me from "steamboat type " locomotive whistles, I want mine to scream(like a banshee?) rather than moan/groan as do the N&W and UP steam program locomotives, so much that it is hard for me to watch video of these. No, I prefer something like 3751, more high pitched, and URGENT.

[Anonymous]

Not sure of the technical name, but UP's Challenger 3985's whistle screaming out over the Wasatch would definently get my vote!

[samfp1943]

My most memorable air horn was an air chime on a Canadian National unit running on the NC&StL crewed local that ran from Leawood Yard to Lenow,Tn [ last NC&St.L track and senority crew in Memphis] and then to Brownsville, Tn and back to tie up at Leawood about 3 days a week, They managed to hold on to that unit for some time and the engineer loved to listen to that unique air chime, It gave a teenager goose bumps to hear that in the morning as it went by the house with a cut of cars. I do not remember what type of unit it was, but that horn was haunting in a town full of air horns that allsounded flat..... And to hear the air horns on a set of IC E's with the Panama Limited, as they blasted through the Bottoms south of Memphis at speed, building up for for the da***o New Orleans, horns sounding and sparks curling from flanges as the got out of town. It was a heck of a show...

[John Krug]

For me it would have to be the N&W J-1's. If you can get O. Winston LInk's recording where the train is leaving town on Christmas Eve whistling at the crossings while the bells in the church tower are playing Silent Night. It has got to be the most beautiful sound of nostolgia in existance.

[TheS.P.caboose]

I liked the Southern Pacific horns. I think they were 5 chime.

[squeeze]

The Pennsy's "I" class steam were tops for me. Sounded like a banshee screamer. They always sounded sooo different, I fell in love with em. I never heard any other rail line use them, anyone remember other line using them?

[trainboyH16-44]

Nathan K3H
The sound a CP SD40-2 makes asit's climbing the field hill is one of my favorite memories, with the 3 tones resonating off the hills!!
Trainboy

[Anonymous]

I recall the Rock Island and the Frisco horns from the 1970's that stand out in memory. The RI were a high pitched sound and SLSF a bass mouring sound that I enjoyed hearing from a distance at night