The old addage it true–the more things change the more they stay the same. I was watching this weeks installment of RFDTV’s Trains and Locomitives series. I had turned away for a moment and I heard the narrator mention that the scene was a series of EMD F units pulling a long freight across a grade crossing in 1957. The bells on the crossing gate, the horns, all of the sounds recorded sounded exactly like what I hear every day in my own home town today. I suppose things really don’t change all THAT much.
I’ve noticed that some of the sounds on the TV shows you’re referring to have been doctored and are not the true sounds made at the time. For instance, some of the steam engine sequences have 9 or 10 chuffs per wheel revolution instead of 4, because the original films may have been silent and the editors added sound for the series that is being shown on TV, and the sounds are not right or even close to being right.
I was raised in the vicinity of two fairly large steam engine servicing and roundhouse facilities belonging to the Illinois Central and Missouri Pacific in Southern Illinois, and can tell that many of the sounds on these TV shows have been added to what were originally silent movies.