Train Whistle - UK Usage

UK Usage

In the United Kingdom, it is normal for diesel and electric multiple-units and locomotives to have two horns, of different pitches (rather like two-tone emergency road vehicles—police cars, etc.). This has given rise to drivers "playing" unofficial combinations of low and high notes. When passing through the local station in the Yorkshire town of Ilkley, drivers soon began to play the first line of the folk song, "On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at" on their horns, using a series of short blasts: low, h-i-g-h high high, low, high, until the practice was stopped by authorities.

The first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony—played during World War II as the Morse code V (for Victory)—can be sounded on a train horn as three short notes and a longer one, often the last note on the lower-tone horn.

Early railways, before continuous brakes, had the communication chain or cord from the carriages connected to a "brake whistle" on the engine. This was usually of a lower note than the normal whistle used by the driver.

Engines of Britain's Great Western Railway carried two whistles, one low- and one high-pitched. The high-pitched whistle was for warning of the trains approach and for giving shunting signals. The low-pitched whistle was for sending braking instructions to the crew on the train before the advent of continuous brakes and was retained for the same purpose for goods operations. Some whistle-signals required use of both whistles. Some Great Western "autocoaches"—from where the driver operated the steam engine's regulator and brakes, when the engine was propelling one or more autocoaches—still had a whistle connection with the engine's brake whistle, although a gong (much like a tram gong) was fitted at the front of each autocoach and was operated by the driver using a foot treadle.

Back in the days of steam, when assisting engines pushed long goods trains up steep gradients (or "banks"), the train would come to a halt at the bottom of the bank. The assisting engine—or "banker"—would either be attached to the rear of the train, or just come up against the guard's brake van's buffers. Then the banker's driver would whistle—using a series of long blasts and shorts. This told both the signalman and the driver of the train engine that he was ready. The train engine's driver would reply in similar fashion and, with signals at clear, they would set off in unison. If the banker was coupled to the train, when it reached the top of the bank, the train would stop or come to a crawl for the banker to be uncoupled; if not, the banker's driver would just ease off the regulator, allowing the train to continue on its way, with, of course, a whistled "goodbye".