Forgotten railway sounds.

[The Decapod]

Over the years there have been various experimental locomotives of which photos remain. Because of their technical features, some of these will have made very strange sounds that we can probably only guess at.

For instance, the Kitson-Still steam / diesel hybrid loco, which used steam in the cylinders to move off but switched over to igniting diesel oil in them once the train was rolling.
http://www.lner.info/locos/IC/kitson.shtml

Or the Fell diesel-mechanical main-line loco, which had 6 engines: 4 Paxman V12 to provide the traction and 2 AEC 6-cylinder to drive mechanical superchargers to vary the charge pressure to the main engines - which drove via fluid couplings and multiple differentials. The engines varied their revs in relation to each other as the loco accelerated.
http://www.paxmanhistory.org.uk/paxfell.htm

What did the gas-turbine / mechanical locomotive GT3 sound like - that's probably not too difficult to imagine.
http://www.enuii.org/vulcan_foundry/oddities/gt3.htm

Or GWR broad-gauge 'single' with 9ft diameter driving wheels - a very slow 'chuff-chuff-chuff', I'd guess.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HLB_Lok_1.jpg

 

[12CSVT]

The DVD 'Diesel & Electric Before Tops' (by Visions International) has footage of EE prototype 10000 departing Euston and it sounds very much like a class 37.

 

[Sun Chariot]

The DVD 'Diesel & Electric Before Tops' (by Visions International) has footage of EE prototype 10000 departing Euston and it sounds very much like a class 37.

Indeed it did - if you lay your hands on a copy of the excellent audio CD "Diesels through the decades", track 1 is of the EE pair 10000+10001 storming past.

 

[whitworth37]

I was told that 10000 sounded like a class 50? guess i'll just have to watch it and find out eh?

or infact they had a variation of the engine the 50s had in them?

 

[The Decapod]

One that would have sounded like a Class 50 would have been DP2 since it had the same engine. Deltic body structure, English Electric V16 engine, Class 50 testbed, wrecked in accident.

http://www.davidheyscollectionextra.com/userimages/001-gec-alstom-007.jpg

 

[Sun Chariot]

I was told that 10000 sounded like a class 50...or in fact they had a variation of the engine the 50s had in them?

The Ivatt twins had 1600bhp rated 12-cylinder engines; so were mechanically closer to the power plant in 37's. Certainly, in Peter Hanford's recording I mentioned earlier, I found their sound very similar to a 37's. Not as 'chuggy' as the 16-cylinder power unit found in a 50.