Dumb question 101

@CALNNC posted:

From a person that has never been around a real electric train, or even heard one in person, do they make any sound when they are not moving?

Yes.

  Guessing there can be blowers to cool rectifiers, maybe a running air compressor,

Yes, all of those.

but what piqued my interest was watching a video on the Lionel Acela, and it made all the same noises while at rest, as those when moving.

And there you have it.

They make plenty of sound, but no motive power engine sounds.  On board in a real electric train, you will hear brakes, compressors, and traction motors, and wheel squeals.

I did not take this video but it shows some trains in action.  Maybe in the spring I will take a trip into the City and do some filming here (125th Street) at Rush Hour.  May have to explain myself though to NYC Police.  Hopefully they will be cool with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbkaNHyS_vc

Acela does not run here!  These lines serve Grand Central, not Penn Station.

@CALNNC posted:

From a person that has never been around a real electric train, or even heard one in person, do they make any sound when they are not moving?  Guessing there can be blowers to cool rectifiers, maybe a running air compressor, but what piqued my interest was watching a video on the Lionel Acela, and it made all the same noises while at rest, as those when moving.

You have heard from the passengers now let me tell you what you hear in the cab. First and my experience is on a GG-1 or similar. You have the heavy smell of ozone. You will here the relays open and close, as well as the heavy hum as the current is pulled down into the motors. The sounds of the compressor and that nature are common to all locomotives. In a GG-1 you will also hear the diesel pony motor that would run for hotel power. When at speed it had a heavy sound I just can’t describe but the engine did charge down the track and it had a distinctive pounding to it. When you would notch out a G the deep hum and sound of all those amps under foot and overhead was amazing.

I did also run the metroliner motors, the sound they made was a very heavy hum on full acceleration and some of them had a nasty tendency to buck at the phase jump. Not all of them just a few train sets. They also rattled in the cab fairly loudly. No sound of a pony motor but the main blower on a hot day could be noisy

Thanks for the input.  Guessing then that the Lionel Acela with its stationary sounds are pretty much what you would hear at speed, minus traction motors.  I appreciate the info from 'That Guy'.  Wonder if all the noise you heard in a GG-1 are really the same things that are noisy in a diesel loco, but coverup up by the diesel engine.  When I was a kid, my dad worked at Mayport Navy Base, and in the 50's, early 60's, they had an old 'B' unit that was used at the destroyer basin to provide shore power.  Several ships would be berthed side by side, all fed from that genset and I remember being in there when it was turned up and there was no way you would hear a contactor or relay open or close in that thing.  My dad was an marine engineman  from 1926 onward, and the reason he had a hard time moderating his 'engine room' voice.