The Steel Guitar Forum

By Warren Zanes, LA Times 1-18-04


Late last month, to my amazement and dismay, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta announced that the lonely, eerie, mournful train whistles that have for so long been a part of railroad culture in the United States are, in fact, a nuisance — and that towns across the nation would henceforth be allowed to ban them.
"This rule means a lot less noise for millions of Americans," Mineta said cheerfully.
I find it hard to meet such news without deep ambivalence.
For me, train whistles bring to mind not the disruptive, jarring blasts that might irritate sleepy residents or bring down property values but, instead, a beautiful, melancholy tone (always in the distance, it seems) whose two simultaneous notes create a sound emblematic of longing itself. I'm among those who hear in the train whistle a kind of vernacular poetry.

American popular music is thick with trains and their whistles. This sound sits deep in the collective consciousness of our culture.
In a song like Jimmie Rodgers' "Waiting for a Train," in which the Singing Brakeman emulates the lonely whistle's blow, the train becomes a symbol of longing. The same is true, in different ways, of both "The Woo Woo Train," by the doo-wop group the Valentines, and New Orleans R&B legend Aaron Neville's "I'm Waiting at the Station." All three of these songs, each from a disparate branch of the American musical tree, make the train whistle integral to a music of loss.
On his Columbia debut, a young Bob Dylan sings "Freight Train Blues." His harmonica chugs underneath as he howls out a whistle, reminding us of the train's ensemble sound, the whistle a one-note melody rising above a rhythm beaten out on the tracks by steel wheels. Dylan's lyrics are only slightly changed from the 69-year-old original: "The hummin' of the drivers was my lullaby, and a freight train whistle taught me how to cry."
For musicians in the South and West during the last century, the train whistle came to represent movement. Sometimes, it meant a ticket away from a stifling hometown; sometimes, it meant a ticket back.
For Leadbelly and others in prison, the train and its whistle came to represent freedom beyond the prison walls.
In a version of "Folsom Prison Blues," recorded at the penitentiary in 1968, Johnny Cash sings, "I hear the train a'comin', it's rollin' 'round the bend, and I ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when. I'm stuck in Folsom Prison, and time keeps dragging on, but that train keeps rolling on down to San Antone." In the song, the train whistle becomes the prisoner's only tie to the rhythms of life outside.
The singer of "Waiting for a Train," who describes himself as "a thousand miles from home," finds the same promise in the lonesome cry of the locomotive. "Nobody seems to want me or lend me a helping hand," he declares — but by song's end, the train leads him to possibility: "I'm on my way from 'Frisco. I'm going back to Dixieland."
What made the train whistle seem so sad? Why did Hank Williams sing: "All I do is sit and cry, when the evening train goes by; I hear that lonesome whistle blow"?
John Lair, who wrote "Freight Train Blues" in the mid-1930s, later tried to explain it in an interview: "I just remembered down there in the mountains where I came from that a freight train whistle at night is an awfully lonesome sound. In a quiet country where you don't hear many sounds, if you've ever heard a few trains go through these mountain passes, you never forget them."
The train whistle is about loss, but it's about more than just personal loss. It is the sound of deep upheaval. It is the sound that signaled the end of an agrarian era. It is the sound of the twisted mythic South and the ghost towns of a mythic West. It is, above all, the sound of forced dislocation and wandering.
If the train whistle has a sadness to it, it is the sadness of a nation that has such dislocation as its defining feature. We live in an age when amnesia is a constant threat. Even this forced dislocation that is at the center of our national story can too easily be forgotten. That's why I remain unconvinced that this federal ruling against the use of train whistles is advantageous to anyone.
It's true that I've lived the last few years in Brooklyn, not in some sleepy Southern town by the railroad tracks. But that's not the point. I've never lived next to a Gothic cathedral in the Ile-de-France region, suffering the persistent ringing of the bells — but I'm quite sure I don't want them banned either.

I think that just as we landmark buildings, it's time to consider landmarking sounds. The train whistle should be a sonic landmark. Landmarks provide a framework for collective memory, a framework that allows people to remember as a community and, in remembering, come together — and to ensure that the story of the past is not left exclusively to tourism's interests or to the Disney corporation.

Amnesia is the condition of a troubled nation, content to forget whence it comes. For years the poor have been left to wander, have been lifted from their homes and forced into new ones, jostled about by depressions and dust storms, by police and bosses, by discrimination, by war. In the train whistle is the hidden possibility of a memory that can perhaps challenge the amnesia that allows us to forget this history.
Maybe it is naive to think that the stories of violent uprooting and loss in those whistles will be told, but American music suggests otherwise.
And as Johnny Cash and Jimmie Rodgers both have suggested in their own ways, the promise of return can only come when you recognize the losses that got you there in the first place.
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chas: Up to your old tricks again, eh ?? Letting us read and feel the sounds of the past (or present...) and longing for them. I am ever amazed at your ability to find these things and bring them to our attention. Personally, I would have used the Hank Williams line:

<I>That midnite train is whinning low...
I'm so lonesome I could cry...</I>

Thanks for the memories !!!

Regards, Paul

A person, who considers a train whistle a nuisance, should seriously consider volunteering for the first occupied flight to Mars!!!

Anyone foolish enough to live at or either side of a crossing gets the sound they deserve.

But on the other hand anyone who has heard that sound and
NOT crossed that non-signaled track crossing just in time,
will NEVER think anything but good thoughts about a train whistle.

Another ear of americana falls by the wayside of PC.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 19 January 2004 at 01:29 AM.]</p></FONT>

The train 'whistle' disappeared with the steam locomotive. What we hear today are horns, not whistles. Unfortunately, I never had the pleasure of hearing a steam whistle. I was born after the last steam locomotives were taken out of service.

Where I grew up, in Massachusetts, the tracks were about 1/4 mile down the hill. The sound of the trains was always the sound of somewhere else, that I wanted to see.

One of the "passages" was on the trestle over the river and we would work our way out over the water and hang on when the train went by.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by chas smith on 19 January 2004 at 03:10 PM.]</p></FONT>

Thank you Charles for the memories. One of my best memories is when at about 8-9 years old my parents let me "ride the train" from Willow, to Mangum, Oklahoma, a distance of 12 miles...and of course they were there to meet me in their 1938 Chevrolet.

I never rode a train again until I entered the Army in 1950 when the Korean War began, and rode a troop train from Amarillo, Texas to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.

In retrospect, the things you remember from childhood is strange.....it makes you cognizant of the things you should be doing for (and with) your own children or grand-children!
www.genejones.com

I have been fortunate to have riden on several steams trains, and heard that wonderful sound echoing off the hills and sometimes cranbury bogs. Even one of those miniature trains where you are bigger than the train.

The last time was climbing Mount Washington on the steam cog railway in NH. They shoveled a 1/2 ton of coal to get up there.

And the classic groove of the train's engine with the click of the track joints, has been inspiration for so many musical pieces, it's staggerimg to think both are rarely ever to be heard again.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 19 January 2004 at 02:56 PM.]</p></FONT>

<SMALL>they were there to meet me in their 1938 Chevrolet</SMALL>

In 1952, my mother had a 39 Chevy and my father had a 52 Mercury, but I was too young to appreciate them as cars, at the moment, other than the times when the Chevy spun around on the snowy roads. I could never understand why she seemed so upset after spinning around a few times going downhill.

<SMALL>The last time was climbing Mount Washington on the steam cog railway in NH. They shoveled a 1/2 ton of coal to get up there.</SMALL>

Rode up once, climbed up once. I preferred the ride.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by chas smith on 19 January 2004 at 09:08 PM.]</p></FONT>

My uncle Gilbert was a railroad engineer/driver in the 40s and crossed the country many many times. By the time I was about 6 years old,he had slowed down but was still driving switch engines around the Denver railroad yards and I would regularly ride with him in the cab as he would push boxcars around.I even got to blow the horn a few times.That and crossing the western states on "Streamliners" a few times in the early 50s are memories I wouldn't trade for a triple neck Stringmaster. -MJ-

When I went to Korea I made up fast for my inexperience riding trains. I was assigned to Co B, 728th MP Bn, whose mission was guarding supply trains, and sometimes we were on a train for a week at a time. We had diesel engines from Puson to Seoul, and from there on north the diesel engine was switched out for a steam engine.

Sometimes I can still hear the "clickety-clack" of the rails.

www.genejones.com

Cool memories guys - Michael, did you ride the California Zephyr? Man, I was born a tad too late for the glory days of passenger rail.

I worked for Canadian National (as did my Dad, his Dad, and his Father-in-law so you get the drift... and was a Switchman, Yard Foreman, Brakeman, Conductor, but my one regret was not becoming an Engineer as I took a buyout when they eliminated the caboose...now I "ride" a computer but it's days with weekends off

<font size=-1> yeah, back then the cabooses were made of wood and the men made of steel, then the cabooses were made of steel and the men of wood, now they don't even have cabooses, just a strobe light and a computer chip...</font>

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Greg Simmons
Custodian of the Official Sho~Bud Pedal Steel Guitar Website

I have been an engineer for the former Santa
Fe railroad for 27 years It has been a great job. It sure beats working for a living. I run from Amarillo to Wellington,Ks. just south of Wichita. The only regret I have about my job is I am not able to play as regular as I would like. I am lucky enough to have an ace in the hole to get my playing fix and people still call and I play when I can. I often wonder where I would have wound uphad the railroad
not come along. In the "big time" or playing for the door at some beer joint. I love playing steel now more than I ever have, even if it is at home with tapes and tracks.
As far as not hearing the train whisle, there are too many conditions that have to be met before the government gives the OK to not whistle at certain crossings.
True the whistles are really horns but old terminoligy will never change.
I could go on and on but better quit rambling.

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Keep pickin', Larry

One very clear memory of my childhood: My father and I were out in the garden and he paused and said, "Listen to that." It was a steam train whistle. He explained that it was maybe the last time I'd hear that sound because the steam engines were all being replaced with diesel. This was in about 1955 I'd say. I was probably 3 years old but that memory stuck. Pity the new generations of toddlers won't have that to remember.
BD

Great. Look for even more deaths and accidents at unprotected crossings (no gates).

Enforceable? RR's, like phone companies and others, might just pay the fines as the price of doing business.

Drew

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newslinkassociates.com
drewhoward.com

Always remember, any time is train time

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Greg Simmons
Custodian of the Official Sho~Bud Pedal Steel Guitar Website

there's a Band tune that i have'nt heard in a long time that i find appropriate for this sad news.
unfortunatly i can't listen to my lps cause i don't have a turntable
"just in a whistle stop" ,
or ""where do we go from here" ?
how do you get to sleep when the whistle don't blow ?

Do any of you guys live near a freakin' train line, I grew up in the country right near one and I admit there was an appeal, but not one indicated in the songs you guys mention.

There is nothing romantic about a horn blaring, no whistles, I'm 32 and I've only ever heard a whistle once a year when "Puffing Billy" a steam train was brought out of mothballs for a run through the country.
I recall my freinds in it waving while I was working on my parents house at the time.
(when we moved house, we built it)

Most of the songs you guys mention were already looking back back nostalgically at a period long gone, or passing.

On the safety side, I'd prefer that they had them for reasons already stated here.

I don't know about the authenticity of the songs mentioned, but when I was four years old we lived in a rural area with a railroad track crossing our ranch. The passenger traffic was already almost gone by then (1935), but the supplies were still being moved by train rather than trucks, because the government had not yet started building the Interstate System.

I still remember those lonesome train whistles, especially during the night. And yes, that was still the days when people were expected to exhibit some personal responsibility for their own safety and not cross railroad tracks without "stopping, looking, and listening".

...but of course today, the attorneys will respresent the "survivors".....and in our current permissive society...will win!
www.genejones.com

As fate would have it, I live in the San Fernando Valley, (the northern part of Los Angeles, for those of you who can't imagine why anyone would want to live here). The tracks are about a mile away from the house and there are trains going by, at night, blowing their horns to keep the drunks from driving out in front of them at the crossings. It's pretty romantic.

Hey Chas, we had (and I'm sure they still do)really long freight trains going through on the line near my place. At times the empty flat beds give an illusion that there was nothing there after dozens had gone by, a friend and my good self nearly walked straight into them one night. Keeping in mind that there were no street lights in the area where I lived, and at the time it was sparsely populated spot on the edge of town.

Another night soe local drunks crashed into the train, sheered off the front of the car and two semi-concussed guys were still strapped into their seats.
I missed it, but a friend of mine was first on the scene. The driver lifted his bloddy face and asked my friend, "who was driving?"

Very charming.

Gene, I'd have to say that in defence of the modern human being, people have remained remarkably and regularly dumb since creation or evolution (choose your own preference), it's just that the law has gotten so much goofier.

On a regular basis, the Metro rail is doing its part to help keep the population down. There was a fascinating article on how the size of the moving object changes our perception of how fast its going. Like watching 747's and Lear jets land, the 747 is going faster. Even though the train is going 70mph, it appears to be going slower and the drivers who drive around the crossing guards get to empirically prove that point.

Charles the same principle is used for describing Harley's. Even though they are slower, their bulk and sound gives a feeling of speed and accomplishment without the faster speed of the crotch-rockets!
www.genejones.com

Gene, I've got a '72 Moto Guzzi Eldorado that's as slow as it looks, but doesn't have the Harley sound.

While we're on the dangerous large things topic, how about this news item that appeared in the BBC:

Elephants have been raiding villages in search of beer

Four wild elephants drunk on rice beer have been electrocuted in the north-east Indian state of Meghalaya, wildlife officials report.

The elephants are known to have a taste for rice beer brewed by tribal communities across north-east India.

But this is the first time some of them have died after consuming the drink.

A herd of about 20 to 25 elephants went on the rampage in a remote area in the West Garo Hills district earlier this week after getting high on the beer.

As panicky villagers fled for cover, leaving behind their freshly brewed beverage, the elephants drank to their heart's content.

The inebriated elephants then struck an electric pole and brought it down.

But their trunks took the brunt of the shock from the high-tension wire.

Four of the elephants were killed instantly.

Assam's elephant expert Kushal Konwar Sharma, a lecturer, said these elephants frequently consume rice beer and cause devastation when they become intoxicated.

Wildlife officials say in the last two years elephants have killed at least 180 people in Assam and Meghalaya.

And more than 200 elephants have been killed by angry villagers during the last six years in the two states, in what is developing into a fierce conflict between man and beast.

Charles, that's probably fewer elephants lost than there were GI's lost after consuming "Rok Ju" in Korea, (It's made from the sediment at the bottom of the rice brewing vats)!

www.genejones.com