Great Western Coffee Shop

I was fortunate to visit Swindon Panel before it closed. Although the panel itself has been preserved at Didcot, I was more fascinated by the relay interlocking contained in the large room below the panel. Those clattering relays had more charm than modern electronics, and, although heard by relatively few people, relay interlockings produce one of the gradually disappearing railway sounds. (pedants may query whether or not a sound can disappear, what is the audio equivalent word?)

Not Swindon, but a representative example:
http://www.soundsofchanges.eu/sound/relay-based-interlocking-for-railway-operation/ (http://www.soundsofchanges.eu/sound/relay-based-interlocking-for-railway-operation/)

How many evocative sounds are there on the railway, long-gone or going fast?

Jointed track
Loose-coupled freights having the coupling slack taken up one-wagon-at-a-time.
Unsecured handbrake levers jumping up and down
The creaking and groaning of the wagon-wheel interface during low-speed movements
Block bells
The movement of semaphore signals and the associated wire runs
Solari drop-flap departure indicators
A line of BRUTES being towed by an electric tug
DC traction motors on an accelerating EMU

What stirs your memory?

Goodness ... many of those.  I so fancy a poll with those options ... yet just a poll for fun with no particular outcome.  Anyone with me?

The growling noise of a Quad-zig-zag transformer rectifier unit under load.  Quad-zig-zag's originally had mercury arc rectifiers, another sound and sight long gone from the railway, these were (for the electonerds) half wave rectification usually 6 pulse but could be 12; there were retrofitted with silicon rectifiers and are gradually being replaced with new poly phase  transformers 12 pulse bridge rectifiers ………….. they just don't make the same noise

And soon to be lost ... that re-assuring crulunk as the door of an HST is closed, together with the demi-crulunk of a door being incompletely closed and the sound of the bolt going in as the train manager locks the doors.

The resistors cutting out as various tube stock accelerates.
Pretty much everything on 'heritage' DMUs.

The faveroute ghing about the HST is the sound of it arriving and departing the platform and the rattling when it hits some speed.

Valenta engines on HSTs

The ‘grumble’ of first generation DMUs (okay, 143s still have a bit of this)

The clank-clank of 08 shunters

The throaty exhausts of 60s-built locos

The clatter of those old large rectangular station clocks

Stations are very ‘calm’ nowadays but I do miss the goings-on of the past

“The Express Cafe is now open for hot and cold snacks and licensed bar. Located between First and Standard class”

This one has already disappeared - When the old Metropolitan Line trains were stationery, you would often hear some machinery starting up underneath lasting maybe a minute or so then shutting down. I also remember it on the old Central Line trains.

A Google search suggests the noise came from a compressor.

"This train will now call at Trowbridge, Melksham, Chippenham and Swindon."

Sunday announcements at Swindon to Cheltenham.

The clanking of unbraked freight wagons being started and stopped - a sound of my childhood growing up alongside the mainline west of Reading when they were laying the first continuously welded track

The sound of a first generation DMU going up and down through the gears as it worked between stations (still available on heritage lines).

The unmistakable note of an ex-GWR steam whistle.

The incredible combined noise of everything on a slam-door high density (ie - doors by every row of seats) EMU stock rattling combined with the rythmic noise of it hunting from side to side when they ran at speed. Who needs a diesel engine to make noise?

A real person at Paddington reading out the list of stations on the Cotswold line or in Cornwall when announcing trains. Pure poetry!

The irregular thump thump thump of slam doors being closed down a train by platform staff prior to departure.

The noise of old-fashioned level crossing gates opening and closing.

Mechanical destination boards turning over (are these the solari boards Trowres refers to?)

and for those of us for whom Pacers are only a very rare experience when we are travelling by rail away from home, the incredibly loud "detonation" noises when they travel at speed over jointed track, although I can perfectly understand why regular users will not miss them. 



 

Standing at the country end of platform 5 at Reading late in the afternoon in summer and then hearing the clunk-crash of the Up Main Home and the Distant for the Up Main Starter clearing followed a few minutes later by the shriek of the whistle of a Landore Castle as it ducked and rolled over the Westbury Line Junction pointwork and passed at speed on the Up evening South Wales Pullman...

Then the smell of hot oil and coal drifting on the summer airs...

...followed by the crash and thud as the signals were set back to Danger, the cantilevered post shaking.

The clank of the motion of a 61XX as it braked to a stand on the Down Relief with one of the Paddington Residentials.

The school-mistressy announcer saying 'Reading, Reading, this is Reading...'

The scrape-y sound of the fireman's shovel as he added a few shovelfuls around the back of the firebox and the clang as he lifted the deflector plate back into place.

The roar of the big ejector as the driver lifted the brakes...


...oh dear! I could go on, and on and on...

The doppler effect of a train sounding its horn as it passes at speed.

Well, that is a disappearing sound!

Yes, as made by Solari, Udine, Italy. There's an interesting thread with a description of how the Waterloo example was operated here:
]https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/split-flap-display-destination-boards.67619] (https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/split-flap-display-destination-boards.67619)

And you can hear the sound...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8azGTsslNc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8azGTsslNc)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXM3odR4GoM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXM3odR4GoM)

The sound of a Thumper (which I grew up with living near the North Downs Line).

Intercity 125s departing Reading, with Concorde departing for New York overhead.

I remember these at Heathrow T1. Quite often I'd walk past and they'd be covered by a blind due to some sort of fault. The blinds had a message printed on them saying something along the lines of "use the monitors for flight info"

I do miss the clickety clack sound.

I think this thread could go on for ever.

Living on Hayling Island, obviously the various sounds of this long-lost branch, railways at there most basic.

The announcement at Havant of all the stations on the Portsmouth - Waterloo slow, which seemed more important to remember than a lot of school work. The staff had a rythm a bit like the shipping forecast used to so it flowed.

Similarly to the Underground, the sound of a motor-generator (?) rumbling somewhere underneath an EMU, still can be heard now and again at Guildford.

Locally we used to call EMUs Electric Centipedes, and the sight of them silently moving across the landscape the night.

And, non-aural heresy, beautiful landscape before it was disfigured by OLE (before you ask, I don't live in Goring).

One which is making a bit of a comeback is the use of two-tone horns on trains - thanks to the noise police.  I am always concerned about the use of a single tone approaching a crossing as this could be mistaken for a nearby car horn