Two tone horns

[ikcdab]

Hi all I am building a 7.25" gauge diesel for my garden line.
I want it to have a two tone horn as per mainline locomotive.
So... Are the two tones a standard harmonic or tone and if so, what are the specs?
Or where can I buy an ex-BR horn I can use?

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Or where can I buy an ex-BR horn I can use?

I'm not sure if you could get one, but if you do - I would strongly advise reducing the maximum volume unless you live in the middle of nowhere and your nearest neighbour is about a mile away...

 

[WirralLine]

Horns removed from trains do appear on ebay from time to time, a friend of mine has a pair off a class 313 - as suggested above if you do find some, they're very very loud!

 

[CarltonA]

I'm not sure if you could get one, but if you do - I would strongly advise reducing the maximum volume unless you live in the middle of nowhere and your nearest neighbour is about a mile away...

And nowhere near a level crossing or it's new trousers needed for some innocent motorist who happens to be crossing over at the time.

 

[norbitonflyer]

Historically a perfect 4th I think - our local DMU drivers used to play "Ilkley Moor Bah't 'at" on them. Don't know the absolute pitch, but I think they vary a lot.

But more recent ones seem to be a major or minor 3rd

 

[Narrowgauge725]

Buy a sound card, record your chosen horns and press one button. That is what we did for a Dash9 American diesel hydraulic we built.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Dec 2024 ==

Sound card

 

[ikcdab]

Thank you for the replies.
Does anyone know the tones in MHz for the two horns?

 

[John Webb]

Thank you for the replies.
Does anyone know the tones in MHz for the two horns?

I think the tones may be 'A' , 440Hz and 'D' whose frequency I've forgotten - sorry! ('MHz' are radio frequencies, by the way.)

 

[norbitonflyer]

I think the tones may be 'A' , 440Hz and 'D' whose frequency I've forgotten - sorry! ('MHz' are radio frequencies, by the way.)

D is a perfect 4th above A. In a "just-tempered" scale it is (4/3)x 440= 586.67Hz. In an "even-tempered" scale that is 2^(5/12) x 440 = 587.33 Hz.

Just tempered - all intervals are simple ratios of whole numbers - eg a perfect fourth is 4/3
Even tempered - the octave is divided into twelve intervals all of the same ratio - 2^(1/12): a perfect fourth is five semitones so is (2^(1/12))^5

 

[3141]

I think the tones may be 'A' , 440Hz and 'D' whose frequency I've forgotten - sorry! ('MHz' are radio frequencies, by the way.)

My recollection is that train horn tones in the 1950s were D (the note that's a tone up from middle C) and G.

 

[John Webb]

Gentlemen, thanks for your comments.

 

[WarrenTManager]

455s have E flat and G flat.

KS Horn Range - Trent Instruments

www.trentinstruments.co.uk

 

[Krokodil]

I'm not sure if you could get one, but if you do - I would strongly advise reducing the maximum volume unless you live in the middle of nowhere and your nearest neighbour is about a mile away...

Though something from the sixties will be far less bad than a modern horn.

I visited the 7¼ inch gauge Moors Valley Railway this year. One steam loco had a pair of GWR whistles, another (a single Fairlie in lines maroon) had a Ffestiniog one, and one had a South African chime.

 

[WarrenTManager]

Thank you for the replies.
Does anyone know the tones in MHz for the two horns?

The weblink has the frequencies