As the restoration of the M&StL 457 began it was with profound sadness that so many important attachments had been vandalized or stolen. Anything brass or copper had been striped off, and gauges gone. One bright spot of discovery was the solid brass Nathan 6-chime whistle. It was still there! Painted black by some previous painting crews, vandals had overlooked it. We think. As we attempted to remove it from the small steam dome it became apparent that years of heat, age, paint, etc made it nearly impossible to remove. Finally it detached, and with many hours of labor ahead of them, Terry Harrison and others took on the onerous task of removing layers of paint, crud and corrosion. The whistle was remounted, and as the project progressed, the Friends attempted to blow the whistle using industrial size compressed air. It blew, but disappointingly. The following year it was taken to a steam tractor show in Forest City where it was mounted on a tractor and we attempted to record the sound. The weather was on the cool and damp side. Again it blew, better, but not impressive. Somewhat disappointed we packed up the audio gear and started out of the field. We couldn't detach the whistle because the tractor was up to full steam for the show. As we started to drive away and the tractor headed to the field they pulled the chord again and the whistle blew load and clear! The metal had warmed up enough to resonate with the steam and it sounded pretty sweet. We quickly broke out the sound gear and got a quick recording as the tractor moved to the show. Exhilarated, we headed back home with the recording that you can hear at the train. Some years later we again took a road trip with it to Boone, where it was mounted on their locomotive and used on excursions for a weekend. That recording is also in our presentations.
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