Back in the early 60’s I traveled the Illinois Central between Chicago and Champagne, Ill. quite a bit. E units handled almost all of their passenger trains, and I had many opportunies to see…and hear, them come into town, mostly southbound as they approached Champagne Tower just north of the depot. Their horns were very melodic and hypnotising to me, and were very distinctive, as I’ve never heard them on anything else. Does anyone know what horns they were, and did any other railroad else use them?
I cannot help you on the E’s, but the GP7/9’s thru town were a basic horn. Certain horns were really special. Also, it was stated that horns were tuned to a certain musical chord, such as Aminor, etc.
Not sure if this is accurate or not. Further, not sure if I could recognize the chord.
ed
Looking at the photos in Jim Boyd’s “Illinois Central: Monday Morning Rails”, what I’m seeing on most of the E-units and a lot of the other power are Nathan P-5 air horns, which do indeed sound an A-major dominant-7th chord:
http://atsf.railfan.net/airhorns/p5.html (with sound clips)
Major dominate 7ths are sweet sounding.
I listened to the recordings of the Natham P-5, and it’s close but no cigar. I found a site that has has Nathans back to the second generation P-3, and and that P-3 is closer, but still not a high enough pitch. The IC E’s had a very melodious, but very high-pitched sound, all the ones I’ve heard are too low.
See http://trainhorns.net/airchime/p.html and try the 2nd gen p-3.