Hear that Lonesome Whistle.....or not?

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The Federal Railroad Administration is bending to pressure from city dwellers to replace train whistles at railroad crossings with gates, bells and whistles.

Once remote railroad tracks now run through urban and suburban sprawl and railroad whistles are declasse in bedroom communities.

Personally, I adore railroad whistles--and I remember the full bodied hoots from coal fired engines. I grew up knowing that the night trains came through town at just after eight, just before eleven, sometime between two and three and at 5:30.

Obviously a cuckoo clock is easier for telling time in the dark (unless the clock is noting a half hour) but a train whistle in the night was both lonesome and comfortable--as well as being a promise of far away places.

Do you have an opinion? Do you have memories?

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I am nostalgic re the sound. I have lived near freeway noise, big city traffic, garbage trucks early in the morning, cars racing on apparent gangland getaways, helicopters over Venice at 2 a.m., and sirens. A train whistle sounds wonderful in my mind right now.

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I see them as a safety feature so I'll vote for gates, bells AND whistles.
My sleep is not more important than someone's life being saved.

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Oh, you're right, ehbeth, absolutely.

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Ossobuco, eBeth--

Unfortunately, most deaths on the railway tracks result from playing "Beat the Train" which is usually played after the bars close.

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Should train whistles
......blowing 'cross the trestle....

The whistle of an approaching train is the great melancholy sound of America. It's nostalgic, exciting, romantic, and more.

I miss it! Sad

I was brought up on long-distance train travel and still think it's the only way to go.

It's interesting - when they first put diesel engines on the tracks, people kept getting into accidents because they didn't recognize the sound as a train. So they changed the sound. And where I live the trains still use some of the old whistle signals. And when I hear them, I get the blues in the night... Sad

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Tomkitten--

Even if a man is a two-face, a worrysome thing... you're a man after my own heart.

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I can hear the train whistles where I live. I can hear the trains coming in from Eastern Canada, as well as the train that heads for northern Ontario. It seems right to me to hear the whistles. I feel safe, and in my place when I hear them.

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I know Noddy, Beat the Train is a sad sad game.

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I know Noddy, Beat the Train is a sad sad game.

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When I was 5 and 6 years old there was a switch yard behind our neighborhood. We could look across a field and see the steam engines hard at work. Often we would get near enough to wave at the engineer and he would wave at us. One day an ugly box shaped engine came to work in the switch yard. "That's a diesel, " my brother informed me. It didn't take too long and those wonderful steam engines quit coming there to work. I was and still am sorely disappointed that they are gone.

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my friend's best friend died because he crossed the railroad tracks and got hit by a train because the train didnt blow its whistle...

its a safety issue, definitly think they should keep blowing the whistles. ESPECIALLY in populated areas.

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EB, my grandmother never swore in her life, except when the coal-fired steam engines came into town. (My grandfather was station master and telegrapher, and we lived right beside the tracks, a block from the station.) All the engineers knew our family, and they would come to a halt outside of town (if the situation permitted) while she got her laudry off the clothes line. She was angry because of what the soot would do to her laundry.

I have that fond nostalgia for the "lonesome whistle." It has it's place in our national memory, as well, as Noddy's title points out . . .

The midnight train is windin' low
And i'm so lonsome i could cry . . .

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Innie, I am sorry to hear that.

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ehBeth wrote:

I can hear the train whistles where I live....It seems right to me to hear the whistles. I feel safe, and in my place when I hear them.

Yep, I feel the same way. When the wind is right, we can hear the train whistles as they travel along the Tacoma Narrows. The train runs right alongside the water. It does make me feel that all's right with the world... except for one evening when we heard the whistle blow and blow and blow. It sounded different, as though they were trying to warn someone off the tracks. I don't know what happened, but I was alarmed.

Definitely a good idea to keep bells, whistles & gates in the populated areas. If people don't like it, then why did they move so near?

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I'm not against progress. But I do miss the colorful old engines.

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there used to be a track that ran right through town. we lived only about a block away but a fairly large stretch of trees cut out almost all sound. I remember lying in my bed and hearing the wistles and fresh air comeing through the screen window. and when i lived in a small town last year my ears would pick up the often faint sound of the trains going by. It is a really wonderful sound, something which would really be sad if the younger generation knew nothing about.

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There must be dozens of evocative songs which mention the sound of "that lonesome whistle".

And why should it sound lonesome? The train might be carrying something good...probably is. Why not "That welcome whistle"?

The chord is funny. You try and pick out these notes on a piano, it's not easy.

(I'm the man who lost the lonesome chord.)

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I live near RR tracks, hear whistle all of the time, if I pay attention to it...otherwise I do not hear it in my consciousness. It never wakes me up...I do hate those whistles that sound like a recording or something...fake sound.

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We hear it on occasion here. Lovely sound, as long as you're not too close.

At the ancestral summer home, it's a bit more annoying. Prolly because 1) it's closer and 2) the train is full of garbage because the land fills are full.

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