The LNER Encyclopedia

Good evening gentlemen,

I'm a semi-regular engineer (excuse me, driver) on a 16" locomotive here in the states and have been thinking about trying to get a new whistle for her. Always been taken by the A4 chimes and thought that might make a nice touch. A friend of mine builds whistles, I just need to find the drawings.

On NRM's site I've been looking through the Doncaster drawings for everything related to whistles and have found a few that look promising - primarily " 310- 24/5/6/7 W: Regulators and general purpose brasswork: Whistle details" from 1936 which I'm hoping might be what I'm looking for. However before I go spend the money on getting the drawings scanned I thought I'd ask here if anyone on the forum either has these drawings or knows if I'm even barking up the right tree.


Thanks,
Joe

Hello Joe,

Welcome to the forum.

The whistles fitted to most of the A4s were from the United States and were called Crosby Tri-note Whistles they are featured HERE.

As you will see on the attached address there are contact details for a gentleman in the US though the given date is 2001 so I am not sure if it is still current.

Most of the original whistles were taken off the locomotives at the start of WW2 and unfortunately were scrapped in the drive to recycle metal for the war effort. After the war replacements were made in the UK to the same design but from different thickness metal so the tone was slightly different.

The other ones used were a Canadian Pacific, New Zealand Railways and South African Railways whistles.

There is an earlier thread on the forum which gives more detail - viewtopic.php?t=8897

Alan

Thanks Alan, some valuable stuff there. Looks like NRM has the Doncaster drawings so I might try to get ahold of those.

Re view topic. viewtopic.php?f=11&t=8897&start=15. and my contribution, the last one. If the initial poster would like to p.m. me, I could get some drawing copies done for him.

What, you're allowed to customise your locomotives like that, adding your own whistles and everything? That's pretty cool, I thought these were corprorate property and that you shouldn't mess with them too much. Is it a standard practice in other countries and companies as well?

If you own the locomotive, you can do what you want with it.

I think one of the original A4 chime whistles ended up on a Ffestiniog locomotive (~2ft gauge) although it might have made itself back to standard gauge (?)