Who are your favorite public speakers? No, I’m not asking about your favorite politician or philosopher or literary, scientific or ferroequinological historian or restoration artist. But rather who has the best voice? By voice I mean whistle, horn or other steam, air or electrically actuated warning and communication device heard regularly at grade crossings.
My top 5 in no particular order:
- Union Pacific 4-8-4 #844
- N&W Class J #611
- Nickel Plate Berkshire #765
- SP Daylight #4449
- Norfolk and Western “hooter” as installed on class Y, A and others.
Who gets your heart racing every time you hear her cry out when she’s coming through?
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In this order
Class 55 'Deltic’s by a country mile.
Class 52 Western’s way behind, but I still love them
LNER A4s
LMS ‘Coronation’ Class
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Great hard-to-beat choices Becky! Having heard it first-hand I’ve got to say my favorite is the “steamboat” whistle of N&W’s “Mighty 611.”
Although, and I’m sure I’ve said this before, old-timers here in Virginia who remember say the “hooter” whistle on the Class A’s and Y’s had a spine-chilling otherworldly effect when it echoed through snow-covered hills on a moonlit night. Once you heard it you never forgot it, ever.
Wayne
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That’s just about word-for-word a 1933 description of the Rebel Yell.
No wonder, though: both were voices from the same place.
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Oh yeah, I’ve heard the Rebel Yell. The Southern boys used to cut loose with it during the final assault phase of field exercises when I was in the Marines. And you bet, once you hear it you never forget it!
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Set 1, recording #5 by the man himself, O. Winston Link:
https://www.columbusrailroads.com/new/?menu=05Steam_Railroads&submenu=14Norfolk_%26_Western&submenu4=13Sounds_of_the_N%26W#gsc.tab=0
Shelby Foote described the rebel yell as “the peculiar corkscrew sensation that went up your backside when you hear it”. I think the banshee scream of a Y6 is pretty close to what that would be. 
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I just listened to recording #5, I got the corkscrew feelin’ all right! Wow!
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Frisco 1522… that engine’s stack talk was LOUD. (Not a whistle, but it was noise made by the engine)
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Stack talk counts! As does the gutteral rumblings of an Alco RS.
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I submit, then, the most honorary steam locomotive of all diesels, the EL/NJT U34CH, and its unlikely-looking but aurally outstanding successor the PL42AC.
For a different voice: the last place I heard five EMD 567s idling together was on the Midsouth at the west end of what became the Meridian Speedway.
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Wish they wouldn’t whack the layshaft like that!
I remember as a boy, on a trip to Hoboken with Karl R. Zimmermann, being shown the precise starting sequence and engagement of HEP for that locomotive.
I was wondering just a day or two ago where the jade E8 had gone. I would NOT have expected New Jersey to be the answer to that question!
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And that’s the actual jade E8 from 1961 restored to the test paint scheme!
I know – that’s what makes it so great!
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I’ll tell you what, if you haven’t done so already you should check out the URHS website. You’ll be amazed at what they’ve got in the collection!
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LOL.
I must admit, in all my years, and all my reading about the Civil War, I never once heard the Rebel Yell, I always imagined it but never actually heard it.
So, after reading through this thread, I watched a Library of Congress video from the early 1900s in which veterans of the Civil War did their renditions of the Rebel Yell. Blood curdling. I may not sleep tonight.
Rich
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I’ve also heard that you can’t do it on a full stomach because you have to be running like a mad man 
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It does remind me of movies about Native American tribes on the warpath and the Japanese infantry night attacks on the Pacific Islands in WWII.
Not fun being on the receiving end of such attacks and such blood curdling noises.
Rich
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