This short film combines a few of the sounds I’ve been posting about in my Music of the Rails thread – Bells, doppler effects and train noises all together. It’s not really music yet, but it could be…
This is an end-of-the-line turning loop where the Paris express rejoins the main line. Not sure why it needs to do this. It’s a huge train on a small track, and with a level crossing. Usually, these things are kept separate.
Here is a clip from a 1950s safety film from America. The clip shows the danger of being too close to the railway.
In very many parts of the world the railway track is the easiest route to follow across difficult terrain. That’s because it is maintained, kept clear and because the engineering of the track bed gives a regular and even path – people walk on the track sleepers between the rails and think they will hear the train coming, and be safe.
In fact, the doppler effect compresses the sound waves of the train as it approaches, so that you don’t hear the train it until it’s really close. It’s too late by then. Nowadays, the trains are moving so fast that the danger is even greater.
If you are on the track and you can hear the train or see it; it’s is too late…
In India, many people walk on the railway track and they have a large number of accidents. The Indian authorities have begun to produce posters addressing this important safety issue.
The telegraph poles at the side of the track were a distinctive feature if the information superhighway in its analogue form. The shorter poles, in the image above, are characteristic of the USA. Nowadays, the fibre optics are in a box-trough along the track.
It turns out that the very first scientific experiment to show the doppler effect was carried out by trumpet players on a train…The sliding brass sound of the doppler is lovely.
Get Carter (1971) by Mike Hodges is one of the classic British films of the 1970s. The film begins with a great railway sequence, filmed on the train from London to Newcastle. The East Coast mainline…
Wolfgang Suschitzky was director of photography for this film.
