SHKarlson... those Boston and Maine Limas that added small smoke deflectors alongside the Coffin feedwater heaters!
For those not in the know, he means these:
Now i have always had a soft spot for these engines with Coffin heaters (with the usual little 'frisson' of that name evoking the somewhat Reaper-like appearance) and those neat little tabs only improve the effect.
For true homeliness you need to go over to the B&A, which had some engines with smokebox fronts that, charitably, look as though designed by someone on a bad mescaline trip.
Note that keeping the exhaust-steam exchanger entirely outside the smokebox made the arrangement too long to be 'saved' by putting the smokebox-door 'face' forward of it. Some engines with Coffins did, in fact, do that (I believe NYC, for example, had some) and look more "normal".
In my opinion the deflectors on Niagaras are necessary; the early versions look like the Little Rascals built a locomotive by laying a water heater on a wagon. The same can be said for the P&LE A-2-As (the initial design from 1946 shows them).
Gosh, this has become an eclectic thread branching into music and German fiction!As far as smoke deflectors, let me make the case for Boston and Maine's Lima Pacifics, which in their initial incarnation have a vaguely Gallic look about them, with those elephant ears, slanted front cabs, the cladding streamlining the upper works, and then the red trim and the speed lettering.
That's likely to provoke some disapproval among some of the commenters. I'm building a model of one of them in O Scale, and those who disapprove at my railroad are invited to contemplate the implications of the even bigger kettle you see in my avatar!
Stephen Karlson, DeKalb, Illinois
Then your winner of the Rolling Mud Fence Award must be those Boston and Maine Limas that added small smoke deflectors alongside the Coffin feedwater heaters!
Elephant Ears are ugly and don't belong on American locomotives. Same with streamlining. The only streamlined locos I could tolerate were the GS4 in Daylight colors.
The Elesco heaters and all the pipiing are works of mechanical art.
I do not really like them either, have a friend who helped restore some of those engines and he said the "elephant ears" are hard to keep clean. I like the classic lines of #4960 and #1522.
I erred in omissions: "Talkies" did not depend solely on AT&T and its subdiaries. RCA made important contributions, including the perfecting of optical the sound tracks at the sides of 35mm film. They also developed a full line of theater sound amplification equipment, competing with the Western Electruc equipment tha5 later was manufactures and marketed by Altec Lansing, with James B. Lansing then starting a third competitior. And Professor Vern Knudson's pioneering work on acoustically treating "sound stages" certainly was necessary for intelligible dialogue.
daveklepperWith the PRR (and I love their power anyway, including K4s) having possibly the least musical steam locomotive whistles, which railroad had the most musical?
Oh, the irony: probably the most 'musical' of modern whistles were the ones applied to Cotton Belt 4-8-4s, proudly built 'at home' to keep their people at work. As a crowning touch for that pride the whistles were built and tuned by organ builders.
You would never know this from 819, unfortunately, which now has one of the most godawful cacaphony generators out there, far worse than anything KCS or Berkshire Partners dreamed up with diesel horns to scare the unwary. This came about, apparently, entirely by butchery: worse yet no one apparently knows the original dimensions or fabrication details so fixing the thing won't be easy.
My personal favorite is the whistle put on Kiefer's great swan song the A-2-A Berkshire. I do not know how this might have technically differed from other contemporary "NYC" whistle practice but the chord was beautiful and the quilling could be a thing of beauty.
There was musical knowledge and craftsmanship in the arrangement on the early Lackawanna Poconos, too... but it was tuned air horns, not a whistle, and as expected it sounds more like an Eldorado than a locomotive.
Frankly I wouldn't give you a nickel for any hooter or steamboat whistle, evocative in a Tallulah sort of way though the latter may be, when a good chime whistle could have been provided instead. The chime will arrest attention from farther away, too.
Something that I don't think was ever worked out was blowing whistles on higher boiler pressure. The Nathan long-bells in particular were dismal on superheated steam or high pressure, and while there were some things you were supposed to be able to do with them to fix the issues, I don't think I ever heard an example that demonstrated one that worked right.
Very interesting David, thanks! Quite an education there!
The money came from Holywood up to agout 1960. The work, however, was done at Bell Labs, AT&T in genral, and its manufacturing arm, Western Electric. Exponential horn drivers, compression drivers, large bass horn enclosures with 15 and 18-inch "woofers," all these came from AT&T and its subsidiaries. After 1960, with its development of the transistor, the switch to digital sound was actually started in France as early as 1938 with "Pulse-code Modulation" as an alternative to Amplitude Modulation and Frequency Modulation. In 1955, Bell Labs began working on digital audio to increase capacity of radio and wire links. Frequency modulation already increased the capacity of a single link to well over a hundred messages, but ditital could raise it to ten thousand.
In 1960 Bell Labs developed a prototype frequency shifter for feedback control of public address systems. The prototype was analogue, using frequency modulation, but the commercial versions that followed were digital. (See my entry on the Manfred Shroeder Frequency Shifter and the chance meeting in the PRR Cincinnati Limited eastbound at Horseshoe Curve at www.proaudioencyclopedia.com.) Then Lexicon and Industrial Research Products both introduced competitive audio delay units to match amplified with live sound in sound reinfrcement systems in 1971, first applied in Philadelphia's Walnut Street Theater and Manhattan's St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue (the latter landmark sound system still in operation with its KLH 6.5 pew-back loudspeakers after 49 years). Pretty sure royalties to AT&T were involved. Then came CDs, with Philips and Deutsche Grammerphone taking the lead in using digital technology and applying it to what is essentially a micro version of the original Edison hill-and-dale mechanical recording and playback, but with optical playback for zero wear. At the same time, digital control consoles, equalizers, even power amplifiers to the output stage.
From my entry on the audio encyclopedia website; the referenced JASAarticle on the figure regards the Tanglewood Shed acoustics, not the frequency shifter.
I agree completely. and it compliments my thinking of the N&W J as truly the greatest all-time locomotive. But if my memory is correct regarding sound, IC Mountains, as heard on Iowa freights, were very close in sound. Just beautiful.
daveklepper Be glad to comromise: With the PRR (and I love their power anyway, including K4s) having possibly the least musical steam locomotive whistles, which railroad had the most musical?
Be glad to comromise: With the PRR (and I love their power anyway, including K4s) having possibly the least musical steam locomotive whistles, which railroad had the most musical?
I think all had their good ones and not-so-good ones, but my personal favorite is the "steamboat" whistle on the Norfolk & Western Class J's.
However, some old-timers here in Virginia say the single-note "hooter" whistle on N&W's Class A's and Y's had a particular haunting quality all its own, especially at night when the sound echoed through a snow-covered countryside.
54light15But is that really Glen Miller in that film?
Yep, that really is him! Makes me thank God for film and all the effort that people put into it, both the photography and sound recording. Thanks to them we've got a permanent record of the Glenn Miller Orchestra at the height of its powers.
Not all agree, but among most swing music fans it's the general opinion that of all the "Big Bands" Glenn Miller's was the best.
An interesting fact, once the initial development work was done by the record industry, after 1927 all the major advances in sound recording came from Hollywood, and not the record business. Isn't that something?
This morphed from smoke deflectors to music.
It's only a matter of time until we get to classic warplanes strafing concerts.
As I have learned, there has never been a train that left Pennsylvania station at 3:45 to Chattanooga. But that's fine. Great music and that's a fact!
But is that really Glen Miller in that film? He sure does look like Brigadier General Stewart, USAF. I mention that because I used to work with a guy who was inspected by General Stewart in Viet Nam when he was a sergeant in the air force. Talk about second-hand bragging!
daveklepper Flintlock, Chattanooga Choochoo is truly one of my very favorite songs. I've sung it for my fellow Yeshiva students on several occasions (July 4th being typical). Of course I replace "ham-an'-eggs" with "eggs-an'-gritts to calm some sensibilities. and occasionally track 29 gets replaced with track Number 9. since 29 was strictly an LIRR track, but otherwise all words preserved. Cannot do anything about rerouting the train via Carolina. Guess that route would have taken it throuigh Atlanta and even possibly Birmingham before turning north. But that Glenn Miller version is truly a masterpiece. I'm sure to have repeat hearings-viewings again and again. You really made my day!
Flintlock, Chattanooga Choochoo is truly one of my very favorite songs. I've sung it for my fellow Yeshiva students on several occasions (July 4th being typical). Of course I replace "ham-an'-eggs" with "eggs-an'-gritts to calm some sensibilities. and occasionally track 29 gets replaced with track Number 9. since 29 was strictly an LIRR track, but otherwise all words preserved. Cannot do anything about rerouting the train via Carolina. Guess that route would have taken it throuigh Atlanta and even possibly Birmingham before turning north.
But that Glenn Miller version is truly a masterpiece. I'm sure to have repeat hearings-viewings again and again. You really made my day!
Dave, such would have been possible by going west from Salisbury through Asheville and over to Morristown and then down to Knoxville and Chattanooga. Going this way would have made it possible, as was seen in the movie, to cross into Tennessee in open country. Had the train followed the established route to Chattanooga, it would have crossed into Tennessee in downtown Bristol.
However, songwriters take license.
Johnny
daveklepperBut that Glenn Miller version is truly a masterpiece. I'm sure to have repeat hearings-viewings again and again. You really made my day!
You're very welcome David! Your posts over the years have been so informative it was a pleasure to return the favor in some small way!
And honestly, I don't see how we could have won the war without swing music, it was probably just as powerful a weapon in it's own right as an M-1 Garand, a Sherman tank or a P-51 Mustang.
RIP Major Glenn Miller, USAAF. What a loss.
1941, but as high fidelity as the latest CD. Good restoration work from must have been acetate transcription disks.
In the alternate world of my childhood I remember the title being printed with hyphens, which made the distinction between type code and 'road number' clearer. There was also at least one explanation by Honegger about the name, where he took pains to explain that the piece was not 'inspired' by train sounds but was a theoretical investigation into how progressively slower tempo could create the impression of higher speed in musical appreciation. (I confess that I did not entirely believe then, and still do not entirely believe today, that that was 'the whole of the story' though. )
Most of what you need to know about popular music is in between what Johnny B. Goode was strumming to the rhythm of and what Bukka Whiten captured as anticipation in so many of his pieces -- yes, the trains running were not the only evocative musical things...
In 8th grade music class, the teacher played Pacific 231. He said it as "Pacific twothirtyone. it was a kind of a train." My friend George, a fellow train guy looked at me and I looked at him. We gave each other the one raised eyebrow.
But, give a listen to this- Wasn't Boogie Woogie inspired by the railroads? I have a book by Axel Zwingenberger; it's of photographs taken at night of the last steam locomotives to run in East Germany in about 1999. The book came with a CD of his music, a CD of various locomotive sounds and sheet music. Too bad I can't play the piano! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icwPw-XylAg
"Chattanooga Choo-Choo" is great.
So is "Sentimental Journey". I used that tune of that very railroady song for the best lyric of several I wrote for the retirement party of a certain high school administrator in the 1980's, for "New Career Direction". Other tunes I used on that occasion including "Jalousie" (for his wife, who also retired), "Sixteen Tons", "Margie", I think "The Mademoiselle from Armentiers" and probably some others I've forgotten.
As to classical orchestra dress, I remember when everyone wore black, including the women, few though they were at the time. The proportion of female musicians has changed, with the Wiener Philharmoniker apparently considerably trailing behind the trend. Anyway, at Oberlin in the 1960's black prevailed, and some of the female players were able to use their dresses as witch costumes during a (very unusual) open house in their dorms on Halloween.
Overmod The essence of American steam railroading is cooler. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZYGPEBx72I
The essence of American steam railroading is cooler.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZYGPEBx72I
Um, I don't know about that one either, but that's just me, I'm not really a jazz fan.
Now when I think of a really definative train song this is what first comes to mind, so climb aboard Flintlock's time machine for a trip back.
The definative version, let me add!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2aj0zhXlLA
And I have to disagree with you a bit Mr. Wagner concerning Andre' Rieu. I like the way his female musicians dress! Very classic and feminine, although maybe they think it's a pain? On the other hand, his male musicians dress in the classic male musician fashion as well. Maybe they think that's a pain as well?
By the way, he's got some smashing-looking women in that orchestra! Wow!
P.S. If I ever get to retire and finish some work in and around the house, plus some model railroading and writing projects, I hope to do a translation of Gerhart Hauptmann's expressionist Novelle (short novel or long short story) Bahnwaerter Thiel into English, using railroad terminology American railroaders and railfans can understand. The literal translation of Bahnwaerter is "railroad [or railway] guard"; in American terms he was a "sectionman". One of the most depressing stories anyone could imagine, but beautifully written and unforgetable.
Flintlock76, thanks! The German-language reaction to Eduard Strauss's "Bahn Frei" would be ausgezeichnet! ("exceptionally good!"). Looking that piece up on line brought me to a very interesting story of how Arthur Fiedler of the Boston Pops changed the piece's theme from the railroad to a horse racing track and why, and Jean Shepherd's adoption of it as the theme song for one of his radio shows.
I'm fond of Andre Rieu's shows on public TV, though I don't fully approve of the way he has the women in his Johann Strauss Orchestra dress. At least he leads the group while playng the violin, as Johann Strauss II ("the Waltz King") did long before our times. Rieu likes to do a medly of waltzes from my favorite operetta, Emerich (Imre in Hungarian) Kalman's "Csardasfuerstin" [proper diacritical marks for the last two words unavailable], usually called "The Gypsy Princess" in English. I used to sing songs from that one and various other tunes of widely various styles in several languages, while waiting to catch commuter trains in the morning; I haven't done that in recent months because of the coronavirus pandemic. I've been working from home since the third week of March, and singing loudly even in the open isn't advisable these days.
I'm extremely fond of the music of the Strauss family, somewhat less so of Richard Strauss. (His Rosenkavalier is full of great waltz bits, but none of them are long enough really to dance to.) My one time outside the U.S. and Canada was the summer of 1966, mostly studying in Vienna. My idea of the best way to spend New Year's Day was, for many years, listening to the entire New Year's Day Concert from Vienna on live radio from 11 a.m. EST, then a couple of hours at the open house pot luck hosted by friendly neighbors until I couldn't stand the crowding, then in the evening the abbreviated TV version of the Vienna concert. Unfortunately, in the past few years the full live radio version hasn't been available on public radio stations in the Boston area.
Honegger's "Pacific 231?" Um, I've heard it, it's all right, but In my opinion THIS captures a steam locomotive SO much better!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv-Z7z3YXQs
And you're welcome BobKat, and '54! Let me tell you a story.
Back in the 80's I worked in a gunshop in New Jersey. One Friday I brought in a book of John Baeder's diner paintings for the gang to look at and enjoy. Friday evenings in the shop were usually pretty busy with guys getting ready for the weekend's activities, but when I put the book on the counter for the guys to see it stopped the action cold!
"Look at that! It looks real! They all look real!"
"Hey! I know that place! We used to go there when I was in high school!"
"Look at the cars! He's even got the dust on the bumpers!"
"Oh man, memories, all the memories!"
"Where'd you get this book? I've gotta get one too!"
I never saw anything like it. Just amazing.
I've enjoyed Charles Sheeler's art for many years. I think he ranks with Edwarde Hopper as a great artist. But there's an almost unearthly calm to his industrial pictures that I doubt that many of the actual scenes shown ever had except when they were closed. In that regard his work reminds me of Caspar David Friedrich's landscapes done many generations earlier. The music that accompanied Overmod's post may possibly fit with the action of a locomotive, though I think Honegger's "Pacific 231" does so better. (I believe the number refers to the 4-6-2 wheel arrangement the way most Continental Europeans do, not to a particular loco's number, and I've tried hard to get the announcers at the local classical music FM radio station to pronounce it as 2-3-1.) I don't think it really fits with the calm of the calm of Sheeler's industrial landscapes. Steve Wagner
Man, that was some good art! Better than "Dogs Playing Poker!"
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