I do wonder why two railroaders would allow themselves to be in that situation.
It never ends well.
Ed
I think read the same article, it was a C&O locomotive right?
Edit: Here is the article: http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=77784
It is a copy of the ICC report on the incident. It states that the low water alarm sounded like a whistle.
The current issue of Classic Trains (Summer 2015) has a story starting on page 32 told by an NYC (MC) railroader that experienced the sound of the low water alarm as the result of a brass coupling on a water pump that had come undone. It was outside the cab and he climbed while the train was moving and put it back together with a wrench. He described the lower water alarm as “screeching”.
I had read that article when i got my issue. I guess “screetching” is as close as an answer as we are gonna get.
I wrote both SRI and NKPHS not long after i posted this originally. Niether have responded. Now that i am settled (i just moved), i may contact them again and see if they can be of any help.
Douglasl
Hello Railfans! I have good news, please read on…
After discussing the low water alarm here, I finally decided to ask someone in the know. I chose the two foremost institutions which have direct, first hand knowledge of the info we seek. To wit: the owners/operators of PM 1225 (SRI) and NKP 765 (FWRHS). I recieved an answer from FWRHS, SRI has no info officer or direct public relation department.
With permission recieved, I would like to quote to you the reply I recieved…
From: Kelly Lynch
Communications Director
Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society
“Doug, It sounds like pigs being murdered. It’s a shrill, gravely whistle that is extremely loud. We test it once each day, but I don’t have a recording on hand at the moment.”
There you have it folks. This is as close as we get aside from standing next to one when its going off. Which I hope never happens unless its a safety test.
I would like to publically thank K. Lynch of FWRHS for providing us this information.
Douglas
There is a story of one going off (i think) in a issue of the classic train magizine.
http://postimg.org/image/ddwx3iwwf/
Thats all I got (The story was too much to take pictures of or type!) and its great to see another PM railfann out there.
http://postimg.org/image/k023sbbr9/
http://postimg.org/image/w37ffvmth/
I did the X-mas expedition.
A little belatedly, but I thought I’d add a little history about the Nathan low water alarm. It was originally based on patents of (largely) my grandfather who worked at the time as a design engineer in Roanoke, VA for the Norfolk & Western Railway, circa 1915. It went through several stages of development as the first model was subject to ‘false alarming’ due to boiler sloshing. When the siphon tube became uncovered (low water), cold water trapped in the slanted pipe fell into the boiler by gravity and hot steam took its place. The slanted pipe then expanded and with lever action, opened a valve to the engine’s whistle. In the first model, there were no baffles in the slanted pipe so if the tube in the boiler ever became uncovered as happens with sloshing, the whistle would blow. Later the addition of baffles in the slanted pipe, kept the water in the pipe unless the siphon tube was uncovered for an extended time. Eventually this invention and its patents were sold to Nathan Co. Unfortunately for my grandfather, he was working for a manager who required, his name on all patents. So, all the young men of his design department had to share patent royalties with him. Curiously his name was Pilcher, no kidding. Later my grandfather struck out on his own as a railway consulting engineer. He died having a total of 440 (railroad) patents to his name.
I realized, reading this, that I actually have never heard any of the various low-water alarms, and have asked over on RyPN if anyone has an ‘audio source’ or can produce one from equipment they have. It is possible that one of the ‘whistie enthusiasts’ has one of these that can be blown on a manifold during a scheduled ‘whistle blow’ event, once we start having those again.
There is an amusing aspect to the design of a safety whistle or alarm for a critical system. It should be very distinctive, cut through any ambient noise, and continue sounding until the problem has been completely solved (note how the Nathan design in particular does this, notably unlike the Ohio one-shot. But steam locomotives are not the only place that low-water alarms are important: I know of at least one Alco 244 owner looking for a new engine block after someone ignored the low water alarm on their RS2 … and they put them in some automobiles. Some of which are far more … insistent … than others.
One good example was the 1976 Eldorado (with the 502). This was a car designed for a segment of the population not too concerned with maintenance or failures. What, then, does the low-water alarm for the big engine do that will make little old ladies late for bridge luncheons PULL OVER AND STOP in those pre-cell-phone days? I can almost see the design engineering group considering alternatives. What they picked certainly succeeded…
I was in the control room at Three Mile Island the week after the accident, when they simulated the alarm-sound conditions in the control room. I can tell you now that none of those were as alarming as the low-water alarm on the Eldorado. It is almost the poster-child sound for an I’ll-do-anything-necessary-to-get-that-sound-turned-off situation. It would be interesting to see a higher-volume version made to operate on air diaphragm, or steam – shouldn’t be that difficult in principle
I must say that I am surprised to hear that a steam crew would not have heard the low water alarm! Being as this is a safety issue, this would have been a required test before taking the engine off of the ready track.
The steam engineers that I worked with said that it was an ear piercing sound.
And, on a similar note, the first crew alerters on N&W diesels were small air whistles in the cab (later under the floor to prevent bypassing). These could be a very ear piercing sound too!
As an aside, I have read in several places that the pitch and tone of British air raid sirens was calculated to generate terror in the bravest heart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9Xs1wJgRlw
Not to be outdone we Americans had
https://www.autoweek.com/car-life/a1921896/chryslers-cold-warrior/
Suprised to see this ole post top up on the list again. But, more info the better!
And belated howdy to CBT - yep, a PM Railfan here for sure. What gave it away? [(-D]
Green Lights!
PMR