# Historical Locos



## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

_Or should it be 'hysterical'/DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/blush.gif_


You may remember the pic of the Lehigh Inspection saloon that I put in the BigDude's thread:










I finally took the frame apart to clean the glass, and discovered it was from a 1981 calendar, and this cover pic was behind it:










Incidentally, the same 'friends of the library' store had a bunch of railroad LPs which were almost new, from the same collection, and they sold me 4 of them for $0.25 each.  Anybody want a 1952 recording of an SP 2-10-0 in mp3 form?


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## Torby (Jan 2, 2008)

Cool! What a find!

How 'bout a mallet?


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

ANY recording of steam locos would be MOST appreciated!!!!!!!!


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## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

ANY recording of steam locos would be MOST appreciated

Looks like I should forget the pretty red locos and start a new thread. 

I picked up 4 LPs of sound recordings. One is 'nostalgic sound effects' - trains passing, whistles, switching, etc. (Seems to have a lot of Shays and a couple of dismals!) Another is pure D&RGW freights recorded in 1952. The third is "2nd Pigeon and the Mocking Bird", a Winston Link recording on the N&W with #2190, a Y6 articulated (?) The final LP is "Sounds of Steam Locomotives" and was mostly recorded in CO in the '50s. No Malletts,Torby - were there any on the mainline in the US? But plenty of Big Boys and Challengers, mountains and even a 4-12-2 which apparently has 3 cylinders with conjugated valve gear. 

I've digitized two LPs so far - I'll see if I can upload one or two tracks as mp3s or wmv files.


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Straight .wav files would work too.


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## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Semper Vaporo on 01/09/2008 3:28 PM
Straight .wav files would work too.


_Hmmm... and you thought 60KB pictures are too big. /DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/sad.gif

_Chuck - .wav files will be enormous.  I'm seeing 62MB for a small file.


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Depends on the bit rate, number of bits (8 or 16) and mono- or stereo. Right now I can't remember the bandwidth of "Hi-Fi", but double that (the Nyquist frequency), and select the next higher rate from the rates that .wav files USUALLY use (11025, 22050, or 44100 Hz). 16-bit is nice, but most records have such lousy scratches and such that 8-bit is often as good. A 44100Hz 16-bit Stereo file is 16 times bigger than a 11025, 8-bit Mono file. Most compression techniques add audio artifacts (just like .jpg adds visual artifacts). Unless the records are stereo, use mono. Even if they are stereo, if the scenario does not benefit from the Stereo sensation, use mono anyway. 

If you plan to "clean" any of the files (remove pop, click and needle hiss or wow and flutter) START with .wav files, and maybe share (or publish) the files in some sort of compressed format. Personally, I would want .wav so I can do the cleaning myself... I've done a lot of it.


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## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Semper Vaporo on 01/09/2008 4:19 PM
...

If you plan to "clean" any of the files (remove pop, click and needle hiss or wow and flutter) START with .wav files, and maybe share (or publish) the files in some sort of compressed format. Personally, I would want .wav so I can do the cleaning myself... I've done a lot of it.




I start with .wav files at 44100hz, so I can write audio CDs from them.  I do 'process' them to segment into tracks and remove the scratches, if possible (my LP collection went through a flood, so there's a lot of crud on them, plus they are old.  Not these train LPs though!)  Then I export them as .mp3 files to save on my PC.  (The Roku Soundbridge upstairs plays them in the living room.)


If there is anything you want, I can email the .wav file, or mail a CD.  I wasn't planning to offer them in general - and there is the copyright issue.


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

I spent 100's of hours cleaning a (78RPM) recording of my Dad singing with the church choir (when I was less than 1 year old). I learned an awful lot about removing clicks, pops and hiss from "records". If you would like some help with clean up, feel free to send to me what ever files you feel comfortable sharing and I will be happy to spend some time doing some manual cleaning of the audio and return the results. I have some Steam Locomotive sound records of my own that I would like to copy to .wav files, but I no longer have a turntable. 

We can confabulate on this via PMs if you wish.


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