Steam Crews whistle message

olgentdc · Mar 7, 2018

We had a funeral monday for a 2nd cousin , Ralph Bischoff,Bardstown KY,.We usually do a nice dinner at the church, which usually turns into a wake family reunion . The Question arose about Steam engine and gas tractor Exhaust whistles,and the intended message . Although the gas exhaust whistle were problematic on either tractor .the Ol Case L or the w-6 IHC was great on a thresher ,. I think the Steam Engines whistle was the Best working thing on them ,however ,. Taking good care of a Steam Engine with all the upkeep and things to watch out for had to be a royal PIA... The Consensus that i Collected from conversation with my older cousins , My Great uncles Threshed for over 30 yrs. with a many a good man on their crew. They never felt the need for a bunch of hollering back and forth , as messaging went sorta like this:
4 moderate Toots ,. All HANDS Clear,everything is about to be in motion.
2 Toots ,Shutting down Disengaging Power.
1 Long Blast followed by more blasts depending on the urgency of the emergency , Emergency !, Full Alert , LOOKOUT ! Fire ! , . Someones Hurt, or perhaps about to be hurt by a runaway wagon..
3 Toots,from Great Uncle Joe, meant Dinners Over boys Come on out of the shade and get to work ,finish your smoke ,and or You can Kiss Your gal Later ,
Lol..I dont think they had a toot system for annouceing lunch time or Break time
3 longer toots,.C'mon With the Wagon,boys!, Whats keeping Ya ?, We are running low of wheat shocks , or I NEED the WATER wagon for the steamer .
At any rate we had a good time visiting.
Ohh , and the best one ..Quitting Time , or When the steamer was coming around the last turn to the lane that headed to the homeplace , Uncle Joe Would lean on the whistle like he was a Rail Engineer approaching a town , with 2 short chips on the end.

Olliejunkie · Mar 7, 2018

(quoted from post at 21:02:29 03/07/18) We had a funeral monday for a 2nd cousin , Ralph Bischoff,Bardstown KY,.We usually do a nice dinner at the church, which usually turns into a wake family reunion . The Question arose about Steam engine and gas tractor Exhaust whistles,and the intended message . Although the gas exhaust whistle were problematic on either tractor .the Ol Case L or the w-6 IHC was great on a thresher ,. I think the Steam Engines whistle was the Best working thing on them ,however ,. Taking good care of a Steam Engine with all the upkeep and things to watch out for had to be a royal PIA... The Consensus that i Collected from conversation with my older cousins , My Great uncles Threshed for over 30 yrs. with a many a good man on their crew. They never felt the need for a bunch of hollering back and forth , as messaging went sorta like this:
4 moderate Toots ,. All HANDS Clear,everything is about to be in motion.
2 Toots ,Shutting down Disengaging Power.
1 Long Blast followed by more blasts depending on the urgency of the emergency , Emergency !, Full Alert , LOOKOUT ! Fire ! , . Someones Hurt, or perhaps about to be hurt by a runaway wagon..
3 Toots,from Great Uncle Joe, meant Dinners Over boys Come on out of the shade and get to work ,finish your smoke ,and or You can Kiss Your gal Later ,
Lol..I dont think they had a toot system for annouceing lunch time or Break time
3 longer toots,.C'mon With the Wagon,boys!, Whats keeping Ya ?, We are running low of wheat shocks , or I NEED the WATER wagon for the steamer .
At any rate we had a good time visiting.
Ohh , and the best one ..Quitting Time , or When the steamer was coming around the last turn to the lane that headed to the homeplace , Uncle Joe Would lean on the whistle like he was a Rail Engineer approaching a town , with 2 short chips on the end.

Thank you for sharing. That's interesting and about the closest thing to tractor talk I have read in awhile.

gtractorfan · Mar 8, 2018

Interesting, kind of reminds me of Indians and smoke signals lol! BTW I don't see how smoke signals could be this precise.

Larry EC-OH · Mar 8, 2018

Wow, thanks for sharing.

I wish there was a way to memorialize "gems from the past" like this.
Sadly, this information will soon be lost forever.

I can still remember the steam trains rumbling past and their lonely whistles.

Thanks for the memories.

Larry

John Achmann · Mar 8, 2018

At the Albany show, the beginning of the parade they bring the steamer up to the announcer and do the demonstration of the whistle blasts and their meaning.

teddy52food · Mar 8, 2018

Albany Mn. Pioneer days has the steam whistle calls each day.

rrlund · Mar 8, 2018

These days the whistles at the shows are more of an individual thing among operators. Of course they all blow the whistle before they start anything up,but they all seem to have their own signature sound too.

in-too-deep · Mar 8, 2018

Same thing at Rollag. Really neat.

olgentdc · Mar 8, 2018

Well ,In Your Times , You Just Have not burned Enough DIFFERENT types of wood and Swampt it out with a wet buffalo robe, to see the smoke results, LOL .. I Have no Doubt That communication skills were easily interpreted well enuf to where ,Big Chief , would sense trouble and send Running Bear over the Mountain or up the Holler to make sure everything was fine at Little White Doves camp .,Now White Dove probably had her own message stating that all was well , Running Bear was staying for Dinner and will come back in the morning... . that's why There Were so Many Indians !. These Whistle messages ,. are all over the place as far as what means what..What we all Laughed about at Ralph's funeral dinner was the Bischoff Family never seemed to have a whistle note for dinnertime ?,, YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO Know! ,. LOL,. But ,I do believe 4 moderate toots for mechanical starting and a long blast for Emergency is nearly universal, even on steamboats.

TimV · Mar 8, 2018

Interesting stuff--as the age of steam predated the telegraph (and of course later the telephone, radio, etc. etc.) it was important to have some form of communication between the engine and its crew, be they threshers or whomever, and the whistle evolved to serve this purpose. Link below is a list of railroad whistle signals, and in the woods as steam engines began to replace horses for skidding logs there were other signals to let the crew know what was going on. Traditionally these were sounded by the "whistle punk"--a junior job as it didn't take much strength to pull the whistle cord and so it was often by done by a young man as an entry-level position.
Train whistle codes

Donald in MN · Mar 8, 2018

if you can go to the Western Minnesota Steam Threshers Reunion in Rollag Mn. they have a big boiler there that powers many different sream engines and the print shop has cards for sale with all the whistle codes.

Steam Crews whistle message

olgentdc

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Olliejunkie

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gtractorfan

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Larry EC-OH

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John Achmann

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teddy52food

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rrlund

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in-too-deep

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olgentdc

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TimV

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Donald in MN

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