Train footage from vacations past.

[Terry Toenges]

Colorado trains - Union Pacific's yard and facilities at Grand Junction, Colorado and freight trains traveling across Colorado. I screwed up at first and said Grand Island.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYe_WU0-jRU

[Terry Toenges]

Georgetown Loop Railroad and Mining Park in Silver Plume, Colorado.
Ellis Railroad Museum in Ellis, Kansas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyKygrfWq4k

[Trainman203]

I really like the green and wine red paint scheme on the BHC tank engine.  The 5 chime whistle is melodious and beautiful , just wish the hogger knew how to pull the quill.

[Terry Toenges]

Here's a short one from Hannibal, Mo in 1998. Riverboat footage and a train going across the drawbridge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie5KR-CfWSI

[Trainman203]

If you are wondering what quilling the whistle is.....

Prototype:  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0x7xq7z83M

Model:    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DCh4vktKzU4

[Terry Toenges]

I like the chuffing of the loco, but the whistle gets really annoying.  I pity the people living around there who have to listen that constantly. Blow your whistle when you have to and be done with it.

[Trainman203]

Things were different in the South 100 years ago.  Engineers were often assigned their own engines but even if not they often would have their own personal whistle, sometimes several.  I knew a retired L&N head back in the 80's who had at least 6 whistles, including a couple his father had when he also was an engineer.

These hoggers would swap out whistles with the mood of the day .  They were known for personalized styles that were very recognizable.  Some of these heads could play melodies on their whistles.

People looked forward to hearing the music these hogheads made on their whistles.

You can't make music with a push button airhorn like you can with a cord pull steam whistle.  But in the 80's on the SCL on the Gulf Coast, you could hear engineers that the old L&N hogger had trained trying to do it, back when diesels still had whistle cords for their horns.

I miss the music of the trains.

[Terry Toenges]

I wonder which people looked forward to it. Just the other engineers who thought everyone was enjoying it when they really weren't? They were just so caught up in making their whistle sounds to impress other train guys that they didn't think about all the poor folks living a up to a half mile away from the tracks who had to put up with all that racket.
It reminds me of the guys with the big boomer stereos in their cars driving down the street and all you hear is boom boom ba boom boom boom.

[Terry Toenges]

I had already posted the "cream of the crop" from my 2001 West trip so this one is little leftover tidbits from that trip. I see where I messed up one place. It should read "Somewhere WEST of the Carlin Tunnel."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq7-jbo1QZ0

[Trainman203]

Terry, the time I talk of was very long ago and no one is left living to provide an account.  But from everything I've read and heard over the years, trains and by association their whistles once occupied a much more elevated status in every day life.  People I knew used to talk of the lonesome whistles in the night.  Folks talked of whistles that brought dreams of not only travel but escape from isolation and poverty, that promised opportunities somewhere else.  In those days railroads ran on time and people could set their watches by a steam whistle on an on-time train.  Farmers in fields knew what time it was by whistles. People often knew who the engineer was by the whistle tone, the style, or both.  He may have been a neighbor, a friend, or a relative.

The old L&N hogger with the whistles that I knew years ago was far from being a bragadocius loud jerk, but rather one of the most soft spoken and polite southern gentleman I have ever known.  He was from the generation for whom railroading was a calling.  He truly loved his engines, his whistles, and working for the railroad.

Trains and horns today are a different thing entirely and truly are an annoyance.  We live by the old L&N in MS and do get tired of the excessive horn blowing 200 feet from our house.  I do believe that the FRA has set minimal allowable horn blowing times at crossings , but I'll let someone knowledgeable address that.

I enjoy your videos, keep them coming.

[Terry Toenges]

We live a block away from railroad tracks. The train goes by to supply the power plant a couple miles away. There are 3 crossings real close where they have to blow. I'm glad they are short and sweet and the train only goes by maybe once a month so it's not bad.

[Trainman203]

We are 200 feet from the CSX main line.  There can be as many as 12–15 freight trains a day.  

Westbound there are 7 grade crossings one block apart.  At 35 mph, the crossing horn signals merge into one long blare. Eastbound there are only two, so we can tell which way it is going.  I believe the FRA upped the decibel level lately for safety.  There are relatively soft and very well tuned melodic horn clusters on what must be older units.  Then there are the much louder and very raucous ones which must be newer.

The loud new ones really do get to me.  But some of the smoother older ones, at a distance sound a lot like a steam engine way off.  When one of those begins to be faintly audible way off, I put my book down ....... and dream of past glory.

I'm an incurable railroad romantic.  I'm old enough to remember the end of the glory days of steam and grand old fashioned railroading.

[Terry Toenges]

We've been here for a little over 20 years and it's the first time I've lived anywhere close to tracks so it took a little getting used to hearing the trains.

[Trainman203]

More videos please, Terry.

[Terry Toenges]

I'm working on one now from the Northeast. I have some 2000 stuff from Michigan, New Hampshire, Maine, Boston, and Trainlandz in New Jersey. Then another will be Minnesota and North Dakota from 2002.
It takes along time going through these and pulling out the train stuff. Many times that is only a few seconds and I have to "creep" through the video.