Contemporary Railroad Recordings

The first hours of daylight are sonically the most beautiful hours of the day. Waking from their night’s slumber, songbirds give it their all. Going into some of the more remote areas a busy railroad passes through in our region, these recordings are intended to present the sounds of the railroad in the context of the natural environment during these vibrant hours. Some sounds are recorded close to the tracks, while others are recorded from some distance.

The sounds of a summer night mixed with the sounds of passing trains is the focus of this recording. These recordings are more than just whistles and passing trains. These recordings present a complete soundscape of trains in the outdoor environment, from small towns to wooded areas, to swamps and even a thunderstorm.

Fall evenings offer a distinctive sonic environment; more subtle perhaps than the sounds of summer. Gone are many of the night insects of the summer months, and the frogs largely slow down as the nighttime temperatures drop. Crickets make up much of the sounds of the evening, along with a few hardy cicadas that haven’t given up for the year. The recordings were all made in southern Illinois, with trains of the Illinois Central and Union Pacific.

Completing our series of recordings of railroads made during the different seasons, we head trackside during the winter months. During the winter months, the sounds of nature largely fade and leave man made sounds front and center, unless you really seek out exceptions (we did, of course). Heard are the sounds of passenger and freight trains during both the day and overnight hours. We hear trains passing at speed on the mainline, passing through junctions, and working upgrade.

We start with the microphones aboard a shortline freight train, riding on the end platform of a Center-Flow covered hopper on the Crab Orchard & Egyptian Railroad, with an SW1200 pulling us along on jointed rail. From there, we hit the mainline. The majority of the recordings were made along the Union Pacific’s Chester Subdivision, which south of Gorham, Illinois, is the mainline from St. Louis and Chicago to Texas and the Gulf Coast.

Southern Illinois is not the first place that probably comes to mind when it comes to manned helper districts, but one of the last such districts on the BNSF was the short hill between Neilson and Goreville, south of Marion. This is a jointly operated line, as the tracks between Neilson and West Vienna are part of the Union Pacific’s Marion Subdivision. BNSF trains enter U.P. tracks at Neilson. BNSF stationed a helper at Neilson until widespread use of distributed power units rendered the practice unnecessary.

We released our CD titled “Sounds Of Todays Railroads” in mid-2003. Time has a habit of passing by, and the sounds on that disc is not so much “today” these days. This CD takes the mantle of presenting the sounds of railroads as they are today, in 2016. Here are the current sounds of railroading today, recorded in the first half of 2016. With the new Tier-4 locomotives just beginning to arrive in quantity, perhaps a new volume will be in order in another few years!

These are the sounds of Amtrak, recorded trackside and aboard the trains. Sounds were recorded along the railroad on the mainline and on secondary tracks, with both welded and jointed rail. Sounds on board the trains were recorded inside baggage cars, vestibule doors and sleeping car rooms for a wide variety of sounds.

This CD features the sounds of Amtrak's City of New Orleans, both on board and alongside the former Illinois Central mainline in deep southern Illinois. Some tracks are recorded mere feet from the rails. Others find the microphones further away from the tracks to capture the sounds of the passing trains as part of the overall scene, such as with a very vocal mocking bird singing away next to a nearby farm house or as fish jump in a lake near the track.

Countless small towns throughout America are located along the mainline of a railroad. Elkville, Illinois, is such a town. For several years the town was also the home of Diverging Clear Productions, with our studios a block and a half from the track. Not long after moving into the location, we set up a pair of microphones in our studios, with the left channel facing south and the right channel facing north. Over the course of several days, we recorded the sounds as freight and passenger trains charged through town.