What's your favorite sounding prime mover & why?

[fafnir242]

I honestly have to say that I prefer the 7FDL16 in the P42DC, especially if you're walking by one idling while in Chicago Union Station.  Just the feel of 4,200 horsepower pulsing through your body is quite the exhilarating experience!

[nik .n]

 Basically, any Alco prime mover. Just any. 

[sps]

Must be a younger set of readers answering this question.  For me it has always been the EMD E8/9 with the 567 and single exhaust stack.  No other sound is like it through the entire range of the throttle.  I worked passenger service on E's in late 1960's.  What a thrill at up to 100+ mph.

[K4sPRR]

sps

For me it has always been the EMD E8/9

 

Could not agree more, nothing like the sounds of a working E unit during a calm hot summer night.   A close second were the F's then some other 1st generation units.   I still hear them working upgrade past the house toward Lilly, then Cresson...slowly echoing into the distance.   

[BerkshireSteam]

I personally love the glug-glug of GE FDL's, but have only heard them from sound clips on trainiax.net and youtube videos. Most of the trains I've actually heard in real like were EMD. Lately CN has been running an old GP40 Illinois Central 3106 IIRC, but they used to run a guantlet of trains out back. Actually now I'm scared, the little lady wants to move and found a place, but.... I doubt there will a fairly active track behind it. Back to the subject. Lets see I've heard...3 different old WC SW1500's run alothough they only seem to run the still in WC paint by the apartment, I love when that goes by. The couple times they had a CN GP38-2W (9426 IIRC or something close to that) that sounded real glug-glugy. The WC GP40's they run around are quiet, to quiet if you ask me. But again all these trains are never more than notch 3. The one time I heard engines running it was a short train, I think I counted around 70 cars, heading south on the tracks following Ashland Ave. here in Green Bay. I followed it from the CN North Yard to DePere. I have to find the pictures I can't remember it clearly, but I want to say it was led by a pair of SD70i's and another unit. I've also heard some GTW units, one of witch I think I later identified as a rebuilt GP9. Oh and I heard the old Alco S1 the Nation Railroad Museum runs of old Green Bay & Western fame (#106, got a 20 minute cab ride) but I don't know if it counts. When I asked the engineer replied "the diesel was out of an old WWII submarine before it was put in this unit. Unless Manitowoc used Alco engines in their subs...

[enr2099]

 For switching I love the EMD 567. Wind em right up while kickin cars they make a hell of a growl. For heavy drags I love a GE FDL or EVO, they make a hell of a sound climbing the 2.2% grades out of the Pemberton Valley on the old BC Rail.

[Bob-Fryml]

In descending order of preference mine are these:

1) A brace of 1920s-built "Cincinnati Heavyweights" accelerating out of a station anywhere directly under the Chicago Loop.  When first starting they growled with a commanding authority like a pack of lions that are mightily p.o.'d.  At speed they could give a sweet, high pitched harmonic that suggested a rate of movement far in excess of what they were actually making.  Although nearly all of this equipment has been retired from revenue service for the better part of three decades, I still get "bent-out-of-shape" whenever I experience the few that are still running at East Troy, Wisc. or Union, Ill.

2) Normally aspirated EMD 567s.  Sorry, I can't help it.  That's what happens when you misspend too much of your youth hanging around a C.& N.W. suburban station.

3) A brace of 4-cycle G.E.s on an ascending grade accelerating from a dead stop.  The bark of those prime movers and the roar they make really says that they're some "big muscle" moving some of the "big tonnage" that keeps our economy humming.

4) Not really number four on my list, but Union Pacific has a couple of Alco's on the roster that sound great no matter what they're doing.  They hiss quietly when idle.  One can hear something that sounds like a heart beat each time a reciprocating air compressor kicks in.  The chuff-chuff-chuff breaths that come out of their stacks sound almost baby-like as they tip-toe through a freight yard; but, oh-boy, they're king of the high iron as they move a train at speed.  And when a hoghead pulls on their whistle cord, they make a mournful sound that could hold its own in any choir of steamships moving through New York Harbor.    

[atsfm177]

 Baldwin 606.  Especially when they are starting.  You can really feel it shake before you hear it start.

 

Honorable mention would be a Fairbanks Morse OP engine

 

 

[oltmannd]

I prefer a 645 blower engine over a 567 simply because the 645 revs to 900 RPM vs. 800 or 835 for the 567. The 567 just doesn't seem to get to "full boil". They both sound great when revving up, though!

[schlimm]

Bob-Fryml

1) A brace of 1920s-built "Cincinnati Heavyweights" accelerating out of a station anywhere directly under the Chicago Loop.  When first starting they growled with a commanding authority like a pack of lions that are mightily p.o.'d.  At speed they could give a sweet, high pitched harmonic that suggested a rate of movement far in excess of what they were actually making.  Although nearly all of this equipment has been retired from revenue service for the better part of three decades, I still get "bent-out-of-shape" whenever I experience the few that are still running at East Troy, Wisc. or Union, Ill.

2) Normally aspirated EMD 567s.  Sorry, I can't help it.  That's what happens when you misspend too much of your youth hanging around a C.& N.W. suburban station.

 

Ditto.  Same reasons.  Early childhood impressions are lasting ones.  By Cinci Hwywts. I assume you meant CA&E?   The reference to "directly under the Chicago Loop" is a bit confusing.

[eolafan]

I'll seperate my answer into "older" and "newer" units.  For "older" I'll take a normally aspirated 567 from a F unit or GP-7/9 any day (they sound as if they are "singing a song" to me) and are quite relaxing in a strange sort of way..  For "newer" I will take the prime mover from a SD70MAC all day long (they sound as if they are going to pull the rail up behind them for many miles as they go along). The MAC's  are completely different from the "relaxing" sound of the F units in that the MAC's sound menacing in a way.