Can You Hear That Lonesome Whistle?

I have always loved the sound of a train’s horn and my favourite has long been the howl of Amtrak as it pulls into or out of town in the mornings and evenings. I always check my watch when I hear the sound to see if they are running on time or running late. Amtrak Cascades pulls out of Eugene promptly at 9:00 AM and is supposed to return home at 9:00 PM at night. “The Cascades is running late” is a common comment on any given evening. Then there is the Coast Starlight that is supposed to go through about noon and 5:00 PM each day.

Turns out I am not the only one who loves that Amtrak “whistle”. Fred W. Frailey in a Trains Magazine online article entitled “Blues in the night: The whistle to end all whistles” recounts his love for the “beauty of an Amtrak whistle”. More accuratly today the “whistle” is an air horn but the train whistle designation remains from the days of steam railroading. From coast to coast there are those sharing their love of the horn on YouTube.

In Florida there is “Great Horn Salutes By Amtrak” and from California there is “Why Do We Love Amtrak w/​Awesome K5LA Horn Action”.

Dee Brown’s epic history of the building of the transcontinental railroad, “Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow (1977)” reminds us of a long American love affair with train whistles. Hank Williams sang about the lure of the whistle in his song “I Heard That Lonesome Whistle Blow”. Johnny Cash liked it enough to do a cover of the song in 1957. Bobby Darin performed a great version of it in 1973 and more recently Beck has covered the song as well. (Lyrics)Back to Amtrak’s horn. Over the course of the last year Amtrak’s 40^th Anniversary Exhibit Train has been crossing the continent. Part of the exhibit displays the different horns used by Amtrak over the past four decades. It seemed to be the kids favorites portion of the exhibit, pushing the button to hear the different horn sounds again and again. The current horn, as noted above, is the AirChime K5LA. There appears to be a basis for liking the sound of this horn. The “whistle” is an actual musical cord: D# (sharp), F#, G#, B, and D#, a B Major 6^th. When I learned this I couldn’t wait to have the wife pick it out on her piano just to hear how it sounds.