Posted 3 years ago
K45389
(63 items)
Many Sherburne Whistles were made over the years. They were used as a whistle on cabooses to signal the locomotive crew. They were also able to dump the air from the brake lines in case the need of an emergency stop. On the right is the very common version. Seems like there were thousands upon thousands made. On the left is a very very extremely rare version. I'm not sure of which railroad(s) specified the use of a trumpet design. In all my years of collecting this is the only one I had seen in person with the trumpet, so I had to acquire it. Since owning it I have only seen an online photo of one other.
I will be on the look out for one of these. Big train fan.
K45389, Cool. :-)
I can't quite read the embossed information on the side of the trumpet-style one, but here is a 1932 patent for a Sherburne whistle:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US1890212A/en
Added a few more photos. Embossing is exactly the same on both Whistles. The trumpet version has additional embossing on the trumpet.
K45389, thanks.
So it's the same patent, which doesn't really address the trumpet. Oh, well.
Yep, that's the wall I ran into since acquiring it and researching it. Just nothing out there that I can find in regards to the trumpet part.
It could have been a tribute to the original steam trumpet:
*snip*
The first whistle was a steam trumpet placed by George Stephenson on the Samson, a freight engine for the Leicester and Swannington Railway, in May, 1833.
*snip*
http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/absa1.Html
No joy yet on finding a listing of the patent for that 1833 device. :-(
New Castle, PA?
*snip*
He also says that he witnessed the "first experiment of applying steam to a trumpet. This was between 1831 and 1833," and that it was his impression "that this preceded the introduction of the locomotive steam whistle."
*snip*
http://www.museum.state.il.us/RiverWeb/landings/Ambot/Archives/History/ts2.html
Well, I found a drawing of the steam trumpet on page 69 of this PDF (page 52 of the original document):
http://www.survivorlibrary.com/library/the_locomotive_engine_and_its_development-1893.pdf
I'll stop pelting you with tidbits now. };-)