Another little Q from downunder - those bells on the U.S. steam locos.....

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

I remember reading some time ago, that when heritage steam locos from the UK visited the States, they had to be fitted with a bell.

Was that a country-wide practice, and was it a safety back-up if there wasn’t enough steam pressure to give warning whistles? [;)]

Cheers [:)]

Dave
(Kozzie)

2

Dave,

My experience is that the bell is used in station yards, both for shunting movements and departing trains, as Mark indicated, to warn of a moving train or locomotive.

In Australia, the NR class all have bells, and National Rail also fitted bells to their 81 class locomotives, so if you go to Acacia Ridge or to Fisherman Islands you might hear the bells used during train or locomotive movements. I don’t know if the merged Pacific National are going to continue to fit bells, since the majority of their locomotives from Freightcorp don’t have bells.

The Westbound Indian Pacific ex Sydney on Wednesday had NR 8, just repainted blue and yellow, and 8111. Being a 28 car train, the first class section had to move out and push back on to the sitting cars and second class lounge, dining and sleeping cars. Although both locos would have had bells, they weren’t used, possibly because none of the other trains were fitted with bells and it wouldn’t be expected, or perhaps the crew didn’t know they had bells on the locos.

I have heard the bells used in the locomotive depot at Dynon in Melbourne, but not all the time.

Mark, where did you go and did you see the F units?

Peter

3

The bell had a couple of differences from the whistle. A whistle was audible for miles around and might not be quickly locatable in a yard. A bell would only be audible for a couple of tracks and warn the crew that needed to be warned.
In more recent times, the bell was on a switch while the horn was on a rope. The bell could be turned on and left.

4

Thanks everyone. [:)]

I think of all those scenes in “wild west” type movies, with the earlier class steam locos coming slowly through/beside the towns, approaching the depot, pulling a few coaches and a couple of boxcars, with the bell going steadily.

Can you picture it? I can hear the bell now…[:)]

Dave

5

IIRC the bell is required when pulling into a station too, at least it is up here on the E&N Railway. It’s neat listening to the bell on the RDC’s. Because there is such a long air line,30 to 40 feet, from the valve in the cab to the bell in the dome, when the engineer closes the valve to shut off the bell, the bell fades out slowly.

6

Dave:
Metra’s cab cars are fitted with bells mounted just ahead of the lead truck and they are always rung when approaching station platforms. Unfortunately, the low mounting means that they tend to fill with snow during the winter which mutes the sound.

Old steam locomotive bells also got recycled. PRR equipped its E44 electric locomotives purchased in the early 1960’s with old steam locomotive bells. A more common practice was to attach them to the watchman’s tower at grade (level) crossings equipped with manually operated crossing gates.

Paul