Although I am a "bit" musical I do know that the 5 chime horns that Amtrak
uses is something like an AbMinor7th. So play Eb F# Ab B & Eb on your
favorite keyboard or better yet on a trumpet rank of your local Wurlitzer
pipe organ!
I am not a sound engineer but remember that the "Doppler Effect" also plays a
large part. This is where a moving object makes the sound waves compress as
it comes toward you thereby raising the pitch and then as it passes the sound
waves actually come at you it a slower rate making the pitch drop. Without
doing a .wav file it kind of is the "NNNNEEEEEEEOOOwwwwwwwwwww" sound. So
that is your "urgent" sound.
I am fond of hearing horns that reflect of of buildings as the train passes
so you not only hear the lower pitch of the notes but also the reflective
higher pitches as it bounces off buildings. Try standing someplace ahead of
a series of crossing in a town with grain elevators. I used to really like
some of those little towns between Pacific Junction an Red Oak when Amtrak
would blast thru and get the echo from every elevator kind of a "whoomp
whoomp whoomp" effect as the locomotive would pass 3 of the vertical grain
storage bins.
As a further note (no pun intended) there was a nice series of articles some
years back in NMRA Bull. . . that was on horns. I would send a copy if
interested. It talked about all kinds of horns and showed what the notes
were.
Darren Ferreter
Cedar Rapids Iowa
GEU30CG@a...
In a message dated 4/6/00 3:01:25 AM Central Daylight Time,
BRHSlist@egroups.com writes:
<< Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2000 21:50:02 -0500
From: "John A. Swearingen" <jas@s...>
Subject: Amtrak horns, and storing models
Several musings.
Have you ever noticed how urgent and fast the horns on Amtrak locomotives
sound? Hearing them, one gets the impression that the train is very near and
coming very fast even though, in fact, it may not be. I am not knowledgeable
of music but would like to know what note those horns sound. Would anyone on
the list share that information?
The notes sounded by Amtrak locomotive horns are quite different from the
more droning blares of the average freight locomotive. Has there ever been
any studies done on what warning noises from a locomotive a motorist or
pedestrian is most likely to heed? If so, would anyone on the list share that
with us?
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