Trains + Tornados sound the same? - Trains Magazine

zardoz

Would it not then be as accurate to say that freight trains sound like tornados?

Certainly, in the minds of a couple who had just moved to Wesson, Miss., in 1962. Their house was south of the first public crossing, and the first evening they were in the house, they heard what they believed to be a tornado approaching, and they dove under their bed. When they heard the engineer of the Panama Limited blowing for the first crossing, they realized that it was train, and not a tornado (their house was just across the street from the track). When a passenger train goes through your town at 79 mph, it makes quite a noise. They did become accustomed to its passage, as well as that of #'s 1, 2, 4, and 6. #3 stopped occasionally, and #'s 25 and 8 were scheduled to stop. The freights did not run quite as fast, with a speed limit of 59 mph.

My house was also just across the street from the track, but I knew the track was there.

Johnny