Quest for Fire: Recording the Locomotives of Strasburg and Cass
Posted on 18. November 2009
Sunrise over Strasburg #475 an ex N&W 4-8-0
QSI Solutions recording technicians Josh Shedaker and Lee Wheelbarger recently took an extended trip to record new steam sounds. The trip took them to the famous Strasburg Rail road in Pennsylvania, as well as MD Whistles and the gorgeous Cass scenic railroad both located in the heart of West Virginia. This trip was unique because not only did they go to railroads themselves but also to a machine shop that is still actively making steam whistles!
Day 1: Strasburg
The trip started in Philadelphia, after a rainy trip west the clouds parted as we started into Lancaster county. After a couple delays from the Amish traffic in that region we arrived late Sunday night October 4th. The next morning we were awakened by the blast of a steam whistle just outside the camper, and sunlight pouring in the windows. We knew we were in for a great day!
Bill Bentz Engineer of #89
We quickly went out to meet the Vice President of Operations Jim Rice who introduced us to the engineers we’d be working with for the day and showed us the two locos they had hot for us. We were to be working with #89 a beautiful former Grand Trunk 2-6-0 and #475 a hulking ex Norfolk & Western 4-8-0.
#89 was set to run the first excursion of the day so we recorded it first. Bill Bentz was the operator we worked with for this locomotive and he was as helpful as anyone could have been allowing us to tell him what we needed to hear the loco do and then moving it appropriately. It was no easy task as Strasburg is located on top of a big hill and the wind was fighting us hard. Nothing can kill a recording quite the way wind can! Fortunately a little patience was all that was required as the wind did eventually die off and enabled us to get beautiful recordings of the chuff, air compressors, steam generator, whistle and bell.
Our unique method of setting up the microphones captured the feeling of being on the locomotive unlike anything we’ve heard before! Once this was complete we moved onto #475, with Scott Lefever (a model railroader himself) at the helm. We did things backwards this time, recording the whistles and bell first. The whistle is a re-production of the classic N&W “hooter” single chime which has a downright scary tone when blasted off right next to you.
Josh with Scott Lefever Engineer #475
The big 4-8-0 had a meaty chuff that I could feel in my chest while I sat in the fireman’s seat. Again, our methods proved sound (no pun intended) as you get the same kind of feeling from the recorded sounds; this was getting really exciting! After some more mixing and level editing we were about done for the day. We got a copy great photo ops with the engineers so we decided we had to share them.
We had a great time at the Strasburg Railroad and all of their employees were absolutely first rate. We hope to return next summer so we can get even more great material!
Day 2: MD Whistles
From Strasburg we headed west and then south to West Virginia. Our eventual destination was MD Whistles where Mike Daugherty was to show us what goes into manufacturing a steam whistle, and where Josh was to buy his brand new Pennsylvania Banshee.
We parked at a Wal-Mart just outside Fairmont West Virginia. The next morning Mike came to meet us and had us follow him to the Appalachian & Ohio yard in Buchannon West Virginia for a very unique test. It would seem that the A&O is looking to replace some of their Air Horns with Whistles as the whistles have no moving parts and therefore require less maintenance.
We arrived at the yard to find a GP38 sitting on a siding waiting for the whistle to be hooked up. Mike had crafted a custom whistle which played the same chord as the Nathan K5La air horn for this project. They initially hooked the whistle up to one of the brake lines, but the initial test proved that this wouldn’t work because the moment the whistle was sounded it depleted so much air that the locomotive went into emergency shutdown mode! They refitted it to a different air supply on the locomotive and tested it very successfully, so successfully in fact that traffic was stopping on the main road despite the raised crossing gates!
From here it was back to the shop to see how these whistles were made. I didn’t get any photos from the shop itself but we did get the whole process on HD video. We’ll post links once that video is available.
MD Whistles started in 2004 as a sub division of D&M Machines which was started by Mikes father Leonard (Bud) Daughtery back in 1976. Initially Mike’s plan was to build about 50 whistles total but after the first year he had sold more than 100 to various collectors. When he first started with whistles he admits that his methods were primitive compared to what he’s doing now, everything used to be fabricated with no castings at all. As the company grew he invested in patterns to have the bowls cast and things really began to take off. Eventually he had to turn all the Whistle manufacturing and ordering over to D&M allowing him full 8 hours days on whistle production.
Now they use castings for bowls, bowls with 2 inch valves, 3 chime, 5 chime and 6 chime bells and a bunch of new patterns planned for spring release. In addition to furnishing whistles to collectors worldwide he also now supplies them for use with emergency systems at large manufacturing facilities like Garlock Packing, Hartsell Lumber and the United States Coast Guard to name a few.
Days 3-5: Cass
We packed the camper and headed for Cass Scenic Railroad after battling the hills on the way there we pulled in late in the evening. Mike from the whistle was coming along with a truck load of whistles for us to blast off while we were there. We headed down to the back shop and commandeered Shay #4 for our own private whistle blow.
Cass Shay #4 stands ready to our whistle test.
The order of the day was to get 7 new whistle recordings. They are as follows:
- Canadian National 4 chime
- Greenbrier Cheat & Elk River 5 chime (which is identical to a Canadian National 5 chime)
- Louisville & Nashville 3 chime
- Custom MD Whistles Bronze 3 chime
- Pennsylvania Banshee
- Cass Custom K4
- Lunkenheimer 3 Chime
As an added bonus one of the mechanics spied my small Khallenberg single chime. I had brought this previously unidentified whistle along with me so Mike could help me figure out what I had. The mechanics insisted we hook it up on the Shay. The ridiculous picture on the right is what resulted. Notice the pop valve which is actually larger than the whistle itself! At the end of the day we actually walked away with 8 new whistle recordings.
Josh’s Khallenberg Single Chime on Cass Shay #4
The next day started with some filming for an upcoming DVD entitled Cass: In Color! As we were filming at the near peak of fall foliage in West Virginia. You can check out some previews of the DVD online at these links:
As you can tell, this was a beautiful time of year to be on the mountain. After taking some video and allowing the railroad to get through it’s morning routine it was time to head back to the shop and get some more sound recordings.
We again were to be using Shay #4 for chuff and appliance recordings. Today the mission was to get air compressor, chuff and steam generator recordings. We set about hanging microphones and getting the equipment ready to go while the engineers discussed how we were to get the best loaded sound on the chuff. The answer seemed obvious as Shay #5 sat behind us on the same track and wasn’t scheduled to go anywhere for awhile.
Once things were in place we pushed back against Shay #5 causing #4 to bark loudly and give us exactly the sound we were looking for. The next couple hours was spent moving back and forth in the yard, shoving Shay #4 around. The pictures here are of Lee and I at work. I apologize for the low resolution on the photo of Lee, I had to pull the image out of a video and there was a little degradation.
By the end of the day we had hours of both footage and audio to mix down so I shipped home to embark on the long process of chopping up the recordings and editing them for use with the decoders.
This was a fantastic trip and we’re looking to do the same thing again in the spring. Mike from MD Whistles has indicated that he wants to bring a new batch of whistles down with him so there will be even more new sounds coming within a few months.
Western Maryland Shay #6 heads back into town from Bald Knob
We’d like to thank everyone at the Cass Scenic railroad as well as everyone at Strasburg. Mike and Leonard Daughtery of D&M Machines and MD Whistles and everyone else who helped with our successful outing!
