Eli5 My three year old boy wants to know why do trains whistle? And different times in there journey? We hear train whistles from our house.
In: Other
And just as a TIL, each whistle (horn) is the engineer’s, and each engineer has his own pattern of blowing it. Over time, you will start to recognize the patterns and will know when “bob” or “Joe” is passing through.
*edited
[Train horn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_horn) operation varies from country to country.
Edit: [here’s a video suitable for a kid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI6xSjkcXTY). (US)
Here in the US, trains blow horn at grade crossings [long-long-short-long], entering rail yards, backing up, going forward, and bunches more.
The one that squeezes the sphincter is collision warning…
An old man told me about this at one of my previous jobs. They use it for all kinds of things like track changes, when to apply breaks, and when they’re coming up on a crossing (which I believe is two long whistles, a short whistle, and a long whistle). It’s pretty neat.
If you’re wondering “why a whistle” and not something more pleasing like a nice guitar riff or hurdy-gurdy: early trains ran on steam. It’s very simple (a valve, some string, a piece of pipe, and a hacksaw) to add a driver-controlled whistle to a steam engine. You just plumb the whistle into a steam line with a small valve, and stick on a pipe with a cut-out, and you get a whistle. They are simple and cheap, robust, loud, and require pretty much no maintenance.
Before crossing intersections or areas the conductor thinks may have traffic. Unfortunately even tho we have cross gaurds and warnings and signs people will still try to cross over the tracks. The extra horn acts as a more prominent alarm.
Probably party for the conductors who don’t want to kill people, lose there job and party for insurance companies to say that the company did everything they could to prevent an accident.
They usually whistle when entering populated areas and go over level crossings. It’s an added security measure because many times trains are not very loud and can « sneak up » on you. The whistling makes it very clear they are coming.
[https://trn.trains.com/railroads/abcs-of-railroading/2006/05/whistle-signals](https://trn.trains.com/railroads/abcs-of-railroading/2006/05/whistle-signals)
I thought this article about the meaning of different whistle signals was interesting and informative. Most of it is historical, a lot of the traditional whistle signals have been replaced with radio communication. The remaining signals you’re likely to hear are 2 short blasts for about to move forward, 3 short blasts for about to move backward, and long-long-short-long for a crossing warning.
Whistles or horns are meant to alert the surrounding area and also traffic, civilian traffic or main-line locomotive traffic.
To a kid, it’s the way the train communicates with the people close enough to hear it. Some people may understand the trains language, but for the most part, it’s a stay off the tracks, I’m coming, is usually the message.
For 5 year olds and up, it’s various things. 3 whistles, I’m reversing, 2 whistles, I’m going forward. One long, exacerbated whistle for a tourist/excursion train taking passengers, I’ve stopped, and I wanna show off my new whistle we installed last week.
Each operating rail road company/excursion may have their own whistle system/signals, but there are some that share common signals.
2 longs, a short, and a long, locomotive is going through a crossing.
Can confirm. I was a conductor and it’s for crossings and such as a warning because a train can come up on you without making a sound. It is eerie how quiet something that big and metal can be
Latest Answers