Blowing the horn
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Those of you who know me, or have been to my place, know that I'm close, really close, to the train station in my town. I live along the "Burlington Raceway" - a triple track route to downtown Chicago. There is a commuter stop in my town, and being only about 3 miles west of the BNSF freight yards, we get a lot of freight traffic through town.
For the non-railroad geeks (that's all of you, I assume), the standard horn signal when a train approaches a crossing of a street is four blasts of the horn.
Long-Long-Short-Long (with the last "Long" occurring as the train actually crosses the road).
Having lived here for 11 years now, it's become background noise. I never pay attention to it, unless something's a bit different. For example (getting geekier here), the new Amtrak locomotives have a distinctly different timbre than the old ones. Freight locomotives sound different than passenger or heavy rail locomotives. Hell, even the rumble of the locomotive sounds different for each type.
But...I digress.
About 5 minutes ago, a train came through town, and it didn't sound the "crossing" pattern.
It was "Shave and a haircut, two bits."
I laughed out loud.
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That's awesome.
There's a guy who lives nearby here. Every day, and I mean every damn day, at more or less the same time, he drives by slowly in his pickup with his passenger window down so that his beagle can stick its head out and bark at basically nothing.
Snowstorms, heat waves, downpours, doesn't matter, he's around. Every freaking day.
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Love both of those stories.
Thank you, guys.We have horses that go by on the street pulling various passenger wagons to give rides around town. I think the BnB near us might be providing this for their guests.
I love the clip clip of the hooves, and one of the horses usually whinnies quite loudly about every 200 feet. It's quite a talker.
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Personally, I think this may be an attention-getter when installed on a Chicago BMW...
Link to video -
@catseye3 said in Blowing the horn:
Do you know why the engineer gave "shave and a haircut"?
In this particular case, no.
However, it's unusually an acknowledgment, by the engineer, of a real fan standing nearby with a camera in hand, or simply asking for a "toot". When Mrs. George goes to the nearby park with D4 and G2, they are within eyeshot of the rails, and G2 waves. The engineer will frequently respond with a quick blast of the horns.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace. – Mike Ditka
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@george-k said in Blowing the horn:
@catseye3 said in Blowing the horn:
Do you know why the engineer gave "shave and a haircut"?
In this particular case, no.
However, it's unusually an acknowledgment, by the engineer, of a real fan standing nearby with a camera in hand, or simply asking for a "toot". When Mrs. George goes to the nearby park with D4 and G2, they are within eyeshot of the rails, and G2 waves. The engineer will frequently respond with a quick blast of the horns.
I remember doing that with trucks when I was little. We would wait for trucks to come by the village and try and make them horn at us.
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@taiwan_girl said in Blowing the horn:
@george-k said in Blowing the horn:
@catseye3 said in Blowing the horn:
Do you know why the engineer gave "shave and a haircut"?
In this particular case, no.
However, it's unusually an acknowledgment, by the engineer, of a real fan standing nearby with a camera in hand, or simply asking for a "toot". When Mrs. George goes to the nearby park with D4 and G2, they are within eyeshot of the rails, and G2 waves. The engineer will frequently respond with a quick blast of the horns.
I remember doing that with trucks when I was little. We would wait for trucks to come by the village and try and make them horn at us.
Nothing like a horny truckdriver...
