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A lot of train guys seem to either really like or dislike a steam engine they purchase or see run depending on what whistle they have. There seems to be a need for a happy medium of a whistle being prototypically accurate while also being pleasant to the ear - including myself. In my experience so far with running O gauge trains and hearing many sound systems, I have thought of which engines have the overall best sounding whistles:

 

1) Lionel 2012 Legacy Southern Crescent

2) Lionel 1999 Union Pacific Big Boy

3) Lionel 1999 Chesapeake & Ohio Allegheny

4) Lionel 2000 Century Club 773 Hudson

5) MTH's 2002 ProtoSound 2.0 Berkshires

6) MTH's 2001 ProtoSound 2.0 RailKing 0-8-0 Switchers

7) Lionel 2008 Legacy Pere Marquette Berkshire 1225

8) Lionel 2010 Vision Line 700E Hudson

9) Lionel 1999 Denver & Rio Grande Mikado

10) ALL of Lionel's Commodore Vanderbilts

 

BUT I must know if anyone else has personal favorite hooters~

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Whistle and horn sounds aren't that important to me, and I don't care at all if the whistle or horn sounds are prototypical at all - really - how would I know since I have not heard them in real life.  All my locos have a good-enough whistle and horn, and only two stand out.

 

Second best favorite: I like the whistle on my Legacy Blue Comet - I have one of the early ones and it has not been sent back to be "fixed," so it sounds more like a big Mississippi steamboat or a small ocean liner than a locomotive.  Interesting sound and not like

 

Favorite by far: The only loco I take down and run just to hear the whistle - and I do so frequently: MTH's European series EST Era II 241.A.  It has a perfectly pitched version of that very shrill, high European locomotive whistle - absolutely wonderful (but otherwise, even though it's PS3, the sound is unremarkable).

 

I have only one loco that stands What I do care about is how it MTH European

TrueBlast II

After I finally found a replacement chassis for my Milwaukee Special, Mighty Sound of Steam Tender in the form of a Williams undecorated S-2 Tender equipped with True Blast II digital sound. I was pleasantly surprised with the whistle in the new Tender.

I love the sound as the whistle blows for several seconds during the time it takes for the train to cover half the distance of an O36 oval.

My Dad used to tell us stories that seemed to always include a train in some way and hearing “the train whistle in the distance” was often part of them. One of his favorite sounds was a train whistle. Even in his last days he would enjoy the sound of Florida East Coast a block away sounding the horn for the crossings during the night and early mornings as he lay in bed.

The true Blast II steam whistle will always remind me of Dad. I’m sure he would have liked it too.

You have to add these to the list of Lionel engines:

The NYC F12e ten wheeler

The vision line 2-10-10-2 sante fe

The vision line 4-6-6-4 challenger

The vision line 0-8-8-0 Pennsy CC2

The legacy 765 Berkshire

The legacy PRR M1b, just sings to ya

The legacy atlantics - 4-4-2 sante fe

The Y6b - 2-8-8-2

The older EM-1 2-8-8-4

The first release of the PRR J1a

The Class A and Allegheny1601 first release

The older TMCC GS2 and GS64 from 2004

any 2004 and above 0-8-0 with TMCC

and last but not least:

is the older TMCC shay locomotives!

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