Posted on 02/25/2012 7:04:02 AM PST by Beowulf9
At night I hear a train whistle where I live, only occasionally and actually rarely. Have heard it about 3 or 4 times in about 7 years.
Thing is I live about 7 miles from a train track. Is it possible to hear a train whistle that far away?
and it does sound kind of ghostly, echoey, resonates.
I wondered if anyone else hear knows how far a train whistle can be heard.
I live in Phoenix Az, by Camelback Mountain.
I’m in Phoenix too and sometimes I hear the train going through Tempe. Some days it sounds like it’s right outside my door... most times I can’t hear it at all. Same with the airport traffic.
If I call them to come out, I'm sure it would not run at the time they are here.
Long ago there was someone that liked to play practical jokes. One was getting his own park bench built. He took it to the park, set it up, laid down and pretended to sleep. When a cop rousted him, he got up, picked up the bench and started walking off. The cop was a bit consternated. Fortunately the guy had a bill of sale for the bench.
One of his other tricks was driving to a town with no railroad anywhere close and playing the sound of a train going through town in the middle of the night. That always got lights turned on.
He also had a trash can made out of an elephant’s foot that he used to make tracks around water supply reservoirs. Then he called the water company and complained about the taste of the water.
If I call them to come out, I'm sure it would not run at the time they are here.
Your train saw your face, which made it take a dirt road.
Unplug it and plug it back in when they arrive.
In the morning, my cousins and I walked to the end of the road...to the zoo.
We live about 5 miles from Miami International Airport. Usually (warm.hot summer weather) we don’t hear planes on the runway. But in the winter, after a cold front (well, in Miami “cool” would be a better term) passes through, they can actually be heard quite clearly. Radiational cooling after the front passes through and the sky is clear causes an inversion near the ground, and the sound is trapped there.. In this case I think it is more temperature than wind since the wind after the front is from the north and northeast, while the airport is well to the west-northwest of us.
wow. spooky idea. just got called into work, darn, these answers are fascinating!
I’m more or less, maybe less than 7 miles but more than 4, and not as the crow flies, but still over 4 miles away.
ghost train...hmmm, it is awfully spooky. Heard it at midnight, why would a train whistle blow at midnight? I read that in Tempe they actually made a law they can’t blow the whistle because of complaints.
Tempe is run by Democrats, of course;)
We lived about eight miles from the closest train when I was a kid and heard trains on a regular basis. A buddy of mine got and air compressor, a train horn and mounted them under his hood. That made people move over!
There are some guys in Mesa that have a fully functioning train air horn mounted under their car with a large compressor system in the trunk.
We live in the hilly foothills of California and sounds bounce all over the place here. We’ve heard roofers pounding on nails from blocks away that sounded like they were in our backyard. I not only hear trains and the clak-clak of the rails from a few miles away, I hear simis downshifting on a grade miles and miles away.
My grandparents lived a block from a major freight crossing, as a child I was deathly terrified at night because I could hear the trains and SEE the lights from my bed. I thought the trains were coming through the house.
Grandparents are long gone but the sounds of trains at night at strangely comforting now.
Wind has a remarkable effect on the propagation of sound. I didn’t understand the phenomenon until a few years ago; before that time I was skeptical.
When wind blows, it creates a “wind shear,” which means that the air closer to the ground moves slower than the air above it. There is a continuous increase as you go up from the ground. Of course, it is disturbed by turbulence, particularly when there are obstructions.
So when the wind is blowing from a sound source towards you, the waves are travelling faster towards you at the higher altitudes than near or at the ground. This causes the sound energy that would otherwise dissipate into the sky to ‘bend’ towards the ground and be concentrated there.
Under these conditions, the inverse-square effect that would otherwise diminish the sound at distance is partially negated, so you can hear sources of sound at longer distances than under the condition of still air.
It could be a Ghost Train. We had one near our house about 20 years ago.
When I was just a baby
My Mama told me “Son
Never eat green hamburger
Or you will get the runs”
But I took a bite in Reno
Just to give it a try
Now when I hear that whistle blowing
I hope my underwear’s dry.
She was drunk.
I'd say.
Oh the stories. Normally that drive home takes an hour and a half. She did it in forty-five minutes. Needless to say she no longer parties that hard. Anymore.
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