(erielack) The sounds of F-Units.

["Sam Weibel" <weeb_@_centurytel.net>]

Been thinking a lot about this and now that I am older and losing some of my
hearing, it becomes more of a topic, when I first started railfanning at
about the age 0f 13 I would use footbridge on Myrtle street as my
observation deck. My Grandmothers house was the last house on Myrtle street,
before the DLRR put the crossing in there was a concrete (what else)
footbridge for the employees of the Petersburg Silk Mill to get safely
across, a nice gesture on the Lackawanna's part. But I can tell you hardly
no one used it as there was a well worn foot path across the tracks. Anyway
you could hear a train climbing the grade even before it entered the Nay Aug
Tunnel and since most freights rarely got above 25 MPH you had plenty of
time to get on top of the foot bridge. Most trains of the late DL&W and even
the early E-L days would have four f units on the head end and two FT
pushers on the rear. Sometimes the front F's were F3' and F7's but the
pushers unless they were broke down were almost always the AA Ft sets. Of
course if they had more than two  sets on the mountain then anything else
could show up on the rear. Here in lies my topic. The FT's to my critical
ear could always be distinguished by their sound as they approached from the
Nay Aug tunnel, I don't know if it was the 4 stack manifolds, as opposed to
the two stack manifolds on later F's but the FT's had a sound of their own
much like a more gutty hot rod sound where the two stackers were a little
more subdued. Then the world was turned on end when they started putting two
or even three Train Masters on the head end. What a sound they made and they
could literally shake the pinnings of the footbridge. E-8's also had a
distinctive sound and could be told right away as they left the tunnel. But
I guess the signature noisemaker of the entire E-L era was the SD45 series
which would announce to all that the king of all diesels was taking the
Pocono grade by storm. Like to hear from others out there on their
experiences. Also for the opposite side of the coin coming down the grade
you could always tell if F-units were in the lead by the dynamic brake whine
they had. The Geeps were just a little quieter, but again when the SD45's
arrived their dynamics would be right up their.



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