The Fading Giant: Sounds Of Steam Railroading Vol. 2

 THE FADING GIANT (Sounds of Steam Railroading Vol. 2)

Not one in a million Americans ever again will ride a scheduled mainline

passenger train behind a live and breathing steam locomotive. That time is gone.

Remembrance of the unique, indefinable glow in such trips fades and dis-

appears. It was a singular thriil, that steam train riding, a sense of high adven-

ture wrapped in warm well-being: The start from the pulsing terminal, the

yards with their clickings and bangings, chuffings and quick glimpses of other

travellers on other trains, the open country where whistles made no distinction

between thronged highways and farmers’ lanes, the solid roar of bridges be-

neath, and the always unexpected smash of tunnels with darkness all around

and echoes banging upon echoes. And the little stations: A long wailing

engine call and the hiss of slowing to the local agent’s platform domain. The

start with its first uncertain puff, then the thythmic power growing heavier

and heavier, quicker and quicker until the car wheels ticked the rail joints

into new, strange lands.

That time is gone. But “The Fading Giant” will bring you back the memory

strong and clear. For half this record was made on a train in the last days of

passenger steam on the mountainous Norfolk & Western. Few such recordings

have been made successfully. They are usually distorted. On train sounds — as

car wheels or the locomotive’s roar dominates the ear. The feeling of actually

riding the train simply isn’t there, But after long expetimentation Link and his

assistants found the proper place for the microphone and added their knowl-

edge of techniques to create a-balanced image.

‘When you close your eyes and listen to Side A of “The Fading Giant” you

are the locomotive screeching steel around New River curves, feeling the tug of

10 cars up Bluefield Mountain, plunging through the sharp tunnels of the high

Alleghanies. Your voice touches the coal tipples in Keystone, Welch and

Kimball and rebounds from Big Four Tunnel and Antler and Hemphill

Number Two. It is an experience in sound.

“Fading Giant's” Side B takes you to a roundhouse, to the 3% grades of the

N&W’s renowned Abingdon Branch and to a Virginia flag stop on Christmas

Eve. The engine facility sequence brings some seldom-heard rail sounds as a

Mountain type locomotive shuffles from stall to turntable to coal wharf and

back again. The two transcripts from the twisting line into the clouds are

superb renderings of a half-century-old steamer as it struggles up the Carolina

and Virginia sides of 5520 foot-high White Top Mountain. There are frequent

solos by the only whistle of its kind anywhere, a sound described by one rail-fan

as “the most goose-bumpy I ever heard!”

With Christmas chimes as a backdrop, the New Orleans-Washington train

comes to Rural Retreat (an actual town with real chimes — no name inventing

or dubbing) as a fitting close to “The Fading Giant.”

It was said that Link's previous record “Sounds of Steam Railroading,” was

“a collectors item which can never be reproduced.” Volume Two goes further,

deeper into the recording of an era of sound, now gone forever from the

American scene.

Sipe A Volume 2

‘This is an entire mainline steam passenger run condensed to

27 minutes. Actually it comprises five excerpts from the recording

of a complete 401-mile roundtrip of N&W Trains 15 and 16,

“The Cavaliers” between Roanoke, Va. and Williamson, W. Va.

But it holds together tightly as a rounded sound picture of a

passenger operation through river valleys and over rough moun-

tains. You can close your eyes, relax and let nostalgia take over.

You're on a steam train again!

The recording was made on a bright Sunday in the late spring

of 1958, just a few weeks before “the finest passenger engine

ever made” — the Class J, streamlined 600s — were placed on a

standby basis, Most of the sound comes from a microphone im-

mediately back of the tender, shielded from the wind and guarded

so boiler and wheel noises assume their proper proportion.

The record opens with Train 15, Engine 611, westbound,

wheeling and whistling happily along New River in extreme

western Virginia. The baggageman pulls the air three times for

a flag stop at Pembroke. Engineer acknowledges with three shorts,

then recognizes another flag from the Pembroke agent with two

shorts. She pulls to the platform and compressors pant. There is

a five-blast call to the flagman, brakes are released and Fifteen

chuffs away. Sequence fades with the train running smartly west

of Pembroke.

Returning Train 16, Engine 605,

has reached a point west of Davy,

W. Va. in late afternoon. It is truly

rugged country and the locomotive

fights up Tug Fork of the Big Sandy

over bridges and through tunnels.

There is frequent whistling because

rails lie through an almost continu-

ous sprawling line of coal-mining

communities. We hear those whis-

tes, then Twin Branch Tunnel, then

a whistle i a tunnel. Cylinders spit

nicely as she comes out coasting. There is a cacaphony of whistles as 16 stops at Davy. There

is skidding shortly after the start and the horn of a westbound freight can be heard faintly —

the only diesel sound in the entire record. The train then whistles for and passes through

Antler Tunnel.

Now comes a fine recording of a train entering and leaving a small station. Train 16,

slowing, blows and enters West Vivian Tunnel, then eases out to make a fine stop at Kimball,

As she leaves the exhaust echoes from a string of hoppers on a siding. A crossing whistle

ends the sequence.

Sixteen is entering Welch from the west through the two long Hemphill Tunnels and

Welch Tunnel. There is fine whistling both in and out of tunnels and good track sound.

She crosses a trestle over the Tug River, then eases up a main street of the town to the station.

‘Automobile sounds and voices can be heard over the clash of the couplers.

It is twilight now as “The Cavalier” leaves Keystone, W. Va. and whistles frequently as it

makes the mile and a half run to North Fork. Wheels loudly protest the sharp curves and

the train rumbles over short bridges. Voices from children on the platform are picked up as

she eases into North Fork. The start is neat and the 605’s exhaust is echoed from the sharp

cliffs and buildings. The fade-out comes as Train 16 pounds up Bluefield Mountain toward

Elkhorn Tunnel.

Sipe & Volume 2

1. Scene is the Norfolk & Western roundhouse at Bristol, Va.-Tenn. where until January I,

1958 the road’s steam engines still operated to connect with the Southern’s line from Knoxville

and the Deep South. Sequence opens with the roundhouse whistle signalling the end of the

second trick lunch period, Engine 104, a 4-8-2 which 35 years before had been the queen of

che passenger trade is ending her career as custodian of the daily local freight between Bristol

and Radford, She signals, moves from her roundhouse stall to the turntable, The ratchetty,

whirring table creaks and jars her into position to ease off the table and pass the microphone

at a second position. The locomotive chuffs to a switch and backs up on the coal wharf siding

to pass the listener again. After servicing 104 returns to her berth, ready for the next days

chores.

2. On the return trip over the high, inaccessible mountains near the Virginia-lennessee-

North Carolina meeting point, N&W Mixed Train 202 takes a running start’ for the

heavier grades to come as it powers past the battered store-post office at Husk, N. C

(pop. 78). We hear the labored distant exhaust, then the nonesuch whistle of Engine 382

(said to have been made especially for Engineet Nichols). Again the whistle, and again.

Now there is response from Jimbo, the Hound of Husk, who has heard it twice a day for

years but cannot resist his painful obligato. The mighty little 51-year-old twelve-wheele:

with its load of four freight cars, a combine and a coach approaches to crescendo and

passes with never a let-up in its pounding drive. There is no business today at Husk, N. C

("Nella” on the timetable). Engine 382 works harder in the distance as grade increase:

From 1.4 to  2%.The wondrous whistle echoes from the cliffs and she is gone

3. Green Cove is a mountain settlement on one of the two isolated level spots in the solid

17-mile climb of the N&W’s “Virginia Creeper” from Damascus, Va. to White Top Station's

3577-foot level — highest point reached by a passenger train east of the Rockies. Until Decem-

ber 1957, when the diesels came Engine 382 and her train from another century made the

daily-except-Sunday ascent each morning around 10 spouting a volcanic plume of black

and an ear-wracking blast as she inched up the 3% grade. Over the crickets we hear her distant

laborings, the exhaust bouncing from the narrow cuts. There is the whee! of steel on steel

and the little engine slows to a protesting crawl. Then comes the incredible whistle and more

fighting until a station blast announces that the 200-yard stretch of level land is near. With

bell ringing and safety valve open she drifts to a stop. Then the clank of slack and Engine 382

starts slowly and confidently on the last three twisting 39% miles to the top. A long crossing

blast ends the sequence.

4. It is 9:39 P.M. on Christmas Eve, 1957 in Rural Retreat, Va., a farming community

near the highest point on the N&W’s line from Bristol to Radford. Mrs. J. E. Dodson plays

carols on the Lutheran Church chimes, From far to the southwest comes the distinctive

whistle of a Class J locomotive No. 603 powering Train 42, "The Pelican,” eastbound from

New Orleans to Washington. Old heads in southwestern Virginia still call 42 “The

Vestibule,” dating it to the time in the ‘nineties when it was the region's first train with

enclosed platforms. “Silent Night” floats over the village as the rumble grows. Another

whistle and the warning bell on the automatic crossing gate begins its clangor. The bell

ceases as 42 blows and comes with a rush, its 17 cars rumbling across the highway to a

quick flag stop at the wooden station. It pauses with a final squeal but almost immediately

moves again, the 603 sure in its rhythm. There is another whistle as “The Vestibule” fills

the night with power. The chimes continue above a far farewell salute. Seven nights later

the last steam engine ran over the Bristol Line.

Assistance in recording side A Thomas Haskell Garver

Recording Christmas Sequence at Rural Retreat Roy Zider

All Copy: Ben Bane Dulaney N&W Ry.

Design and layout of album cover and liner Salem Tamer and Bob Roche

Mastering by Hydrofeed — Jack Matthews — Components Corp.

Calor Gaveriprinted by Color Grafhan Gaston| Oxcnast—1 Stan fordnGore

All photography: QO. Winston Link

*Color Cover photograph made as Train 202 crossed Bridge 8 North of Alvarado, Va

on the Abingdon Branch.