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2013 Whistle Blow: sounds of the past
By Sean Barron
YOUNGSTOWN
Some people near downtown Youngstown on Saturday might have thought they were in a time warp.
“The sounds of some are so deep you can feel your chest vibrate,” said David H. Mangold, referring to the low, penetrating sounds of several whistles that were sounded during Saturday morning’s 2013 Whistle Blow gathering at the B&O Station Banquet Center, 530 Mahoning Ave.
Hosting the fundraiser, in its fifth year, was the Mahoning Valley Railroad Heritage Association.
Mangold, an archivist with the Cleveland-based Midwest Railway Preservation Society, kept a list of a few dozen industrial and locomotive whistles that were the main attraction of the event, but which haven’t been heard regularly in the Mahoning Valley since the demise of many of the area’s steel mills more than 30 years ago.
An estimated 100 people of all ages assembled to listen to whistles that produced sounds reminiscent of those that reverberated throughout the Valley during the steel industry’s heyday, especially during shift changes. They included an 8-inch Maddox fire whistle with a sliding pitch similar to a trombone, owned by Dale Cairns of East Sparta.
Cairns’ whistle likely was made in the 1920s and came from a Paducah, Ky., planing mill, he noted. It produced a crescendo of tones as its handle was slowly pulled.
The whistles were hooked to two manifolds attached to an 8-inch line that provided steam, as well as a 4-inch supply line, noted Joe Vasko, an MVRHA trustee.
One of the louder whistles was one that used to be blown to indicate shift changes at the former Republic Rubber plant on Albert Street, Vasko said.
Others heard were a five-chime one from the former Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad, a three-chime Baldwin type, a long-bell Hancock three-chime and a star brass naval siren that produced musicallike pitches.
A sample of train whistles included one off a locomotive that made runs to Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co.’s Campbell Works, a three-note Short Bell from the Western Pacific Railroad that ran between Salt Lake City and Sacramento, Calif., and a replica of one common on the Denver Rio Grande & Western Railroad, which traveled between Denver and Salt Lake City.
“Anything that runs on steam power or at the mills, we will sound today,” said Mike McCleery, an MVRHA trustee.
Hank Marsilio, the association’s vice president and a boilermaker by trade, brought a signal whistle that had been rescued about 10 years ago from a diesel-locomotive shop in Girard.
Afterward, the whistle was donated to the railroad association, said Marsilio, adding that his father was a roll turner and template maker for U.S. Steel Corp.’s McDonald Works and his grandfather worked as a boilermaker for the Sheet & Tube’s Brier Hill Works.
Marsilio, a 1976 Canfield High School graduate, recalled having worked 15 years at a Youngstown boiler shop, beginning in high school, before starting his own company.
Funds raised at Saturday’s gathering are to go toward setting up locomotive and other displays at the Jim Marter Yard, 1340 Poland Ave., Vasko noted. A long-term goal is to build a museum on the property, he said.
Vasko said the MVRHA also hopes to host open houses starting next year for people to view the displays.