There's only one spot in here where the whistle was recorded, but the whole thing's good for some general railfanning. There's a nice track speed shot of R&N 425 at the end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvrjH16eRLIPerhaps some of the volume could be mitigated with some sort of limiter (thinking like a washer, but obviously something more stable) around the stem or taking a slice out of the lower half of the handle like the B&M whistles have?
(From Hansel's photo's in an old topic in the MNG section of the forum)
That might at least take care of any "accidental" overblowing on the whistle, which could happen quite a lot if the whistle is really stiff I would think.
Agreed Wayne.
In my 8 or so years working on a railroad with diesel locomotives I always wore hearing protection in the form of ear plugs- like those that can be found in the machine shop. There are other types available and those types produce an even level of sound reduction across all frequency levels. If I find one, I'll post it here.
Steve
From working on 7470 I can attest that I've thought about wearing earplugs. There's a BIG CNR whistle right outside the fireman's window, and depending on the engineer, you're gonna hear it more than once or twice a trip. Would it hamper crew communication? I'm not so sure. If the engineer wants your attention, you'll know it, and it's not like we can't turn the radio in the cab up on the road, either. I've also worn earplugs running #4 in Portland depending on which whistle we have on there (that B&M 5 chime we had on for the farewell in March is LOUD, even WITH the recessed lever).
