Is there a convenient datebase of steam loco sound files to help identify the various sounds available on sound decoders??? The Soundtraxx website has a nice selection of the overall sound files of each Tsunami decoder, but not individual sounds.
Not being very familiar with steam locos (I was very small when they stopped going by on my mainline) I don’t know actually what the following sound like: air pump, injector, blower, blower draft, glad hand, snifter, pop valve. [*-)] (The rest on the decoder I know)
I am just guessing when I enter the CVs for each trying to adjust the volume of several I think are out of wack with reality…trial and error. I don’t need to know the typical volumes so much as what is exactly the sound I am hearing.
Thanks
Air pumps - anything from a light click-click to a thoom-shhick-thoom-shhhick. The variation often comes from the venting of the steam driving the pistons, but also where and how they are mounted. If on a bracket on the side of the loco, they’ll boom more on the one stroke. For example, a K27 on the D&RGW’s pumps were more the second variety above, while the K4s on the Pennsy was a pant-pant, pant-pant.
Injector-barely audible next to a steamer with its pumps running and turbo-generator screaming, but otherwise you can hear something like water running in a large diameter copper pipe in your basment.
Blower - an air rushing sound, also not very audible standing next to a steamer. Maybe a quite roar is more like the sound, but the smoke issuing from the stack, and the vapours, tend to muffle it.
Snifter - just before the cylinder cocks open and the steamer begins to move, you get a not-very loud and quite short mechanical sound much like “spit”.
Blow down- great gobs of steam issuing horizontally from near the grates under the boiler with a loud roar.
Safety valves (pop off) - another roar, but this time the vapours issue upward from the top of the boiler where the steam collects and where the safeties can vent it (preferable to, and more economical than, venting water, which the blow down does, but the blow-down is a necessary evil to remove sludge from the bottom of the boiler).
Crandell
Google is your friend. Just type in “steam locomotive sound file” and you’ll get quite a few hits.
HOWEVER, quite a few of them are British locos.
There are some video clips that might help
The most obvious sounds, of course are exhaust and whistle sounds. However, cold starting a steam locomotive also involves opening up cylinder cocks to make sure any condensate from hot steam hitting cold cylinders gets blown out until the cylinders warm up… This makes a distiinctive alternating hissing sound which can often be louder from the ground than the exhaust out the stack. Some of that can be heard in this clip of an NZGR Wab 4-6-4T departing on an excursion. Fortunately, the whistle is a chime whistle, so it does sound a bit like a North American steam loco: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y0ck6Tgxrk It’ll be kind of obvious both visibly and audibly when the engineer closes the cylinder cocks.
There’s also the sound of a boiler being blown down (i.e. removing sludge from around the mud ring of the firebox) a few seconds into this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y0ck6Tgxrk . Also note the escape of steam from the safety valves before the engine is blown down. With the engine sitting idle, the blower’s also in operation to maintain sufficient draft for the fire, which is audible when the engine’s not being blown down.
Note the siderod clank of this engine on arrival. You can hear the whine of the turbogenerator about 45 seconds into the clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVzO4TGgjr8 as well as the steam from open cylinder cocks on starting (it also obscures the locomotive with large clouds of steam).
Cross compound air compressors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTSS4rrDEys I believe the
“A steam locomotive sounds alive, even at rest.”
Boy you have that right, But don’t you just love it… Otto
This is extremely interesting as I do enjoy Steam, but have no knowledge of it’s operation.
Thank you Crandell for some examples & explanations, it helps me greatly in my efforts!
I do appreciate it, & enjoy the aspects of different attitudes of different systems on various locomotives.
Thank you for sharing & please continue with your help!
Thank you!!
You are welcome, Chad. Listen @ the 40 second mark to about 58 seconds on this video. Hear the pumps clearly, and then hear the snifter valve behind them, atop the cylinders, make their brief phhht sound as they close in preparation to admit steam to the cylinders.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5zOCNNw6t0
Crandell
Scroll down near the bottom of the page below and you’ll find a sound file for the water pumps. It sounds a lot like the one in the video that Crandell linked to.
http://www.audiosparx.com/sa/display/sounds.cfm/sound_group_iid.3789
Steve S
Hey thanks, for the tips, gentlemen. Yes, I can find videos on google, but those tips you are giving as to what is being heard at various points is valuable.
Appreciate your effort and links.