Fog Horns for Train Horns
- October 30, 2008
- By Michael Kaulkin
- Category Shmategory
- 8 comments
One of the things that I knew I would miss about San Francisco, especially my Richmond District neighborhood, was the fog horns I could hear lowing from the Golden Gate. It’s a narrow path with a lot of shipping traffic in notoriously poor visibility, so there’s a fairly elaborate concert that goes on whenever the weather is foggy (read: always). It seems there’s at least one on the shore, and if there’s more than one ship passing through, you get some very beautiful low brass chords.
Well, as luck would have it, over here in Oakland, from my Lower Hills perch, I can hear the trains at all hours as they run up and down the line along the bay a little more than two miles from here. I love listening to the different train horns, even in the middle of the night, although I imagine they must drive the folks in the flatlands absolutely bananas.
The train horns are tuned to five or six-note chords that are beautiful and sometimes surprising. You have the standard “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” type of configuration…
…as well as another fairly standard pentatonic-based offering.
Sometimes there are beautifully voiced major seventh chords…
My favorite is this more sinister one that seems to have been lifted from Bernard Herrmann’s score for Vertigo.
There’s another even creepier one that I keep hearing, but I can’t quite work out the pitches. Another time, perhaps.
Valerie
Thanks for this, Michael- I always get excited hearing the train horns out here as they’re so different from British trains. Glad I’m not the only one. That ‘Bernard Herrman’ one rocks!
Sounds like you are enjoying Oakland. I’m very tempted to try the Bay Area at some point, so it’s good to know a bit about the different areas. Happy Landings!
Erling Wold
Yes, great stuff. I have some toy train horns which produce not quite so many notes but in the standard choo-choo ballpark. There are places you can buy real ones, advertised by their annoying loudness:
http://www.pbmissions.com/
Nicolai
Great post. Loved hearing a musicians take on them.
I have mostly lived (audibly) near a railway line until this place where I have been for about 18 years. Recently I started hearing train horns like those you have here. I cant quite figure out where from but it must be due to a torn down building or changing winds. Whatever it is I like the sound being back in my life.
train horns
Great sounds of those horns!
donna
loved this post!!!
so wonderful to hear a musician’s take on something that would annoy us (we?) mortals.
train horn kits
I love train horns their sound reminds me of being a kid. Me and my family would go up to durango colorado and ride the durango to silverton narrow gauge railroad and the sound of the horns stay in my head til this day.
Marc
train horn
I’m glad there are others out there that appreciate the sound of a locomotive train horn. Although how did you sleep living so close to ship fog horns being blasted? They are mega loud!
david
The last one sounds like the third chord in “Us and Them” from Dark Side Of The Moon.