NYC Electric Sounds

If you had ever heard one in real life, you would not want realistic P motor sounds.  Whenever it was in motion under power there was a loud high pitched fan noise.  I rode the cab of one from GCT to Harmon and my ears were ringing when I got off.

The bells were not used much in electric territory and the whistles rarely, only if there was someone on the track.

Are you interested in hearing the whistle and bell sounds of my MTH Premier model of NYC P-2b electric motor #223 and my Lionel Legacy model of NYC S-2 #3207? If so, I will make videos and post.

MELGAR

When the P’s were brought  from CUT, they were converted to 600 volt 3rd rail operation.....grandad was a mechanic at Harmon...the P’s were horrible noisy as I remember grandad explaining...and can back up what MLAUGHLINNYC said .....I’d guess it’d depend on how you plan to run it...from the CUT or in eastern territory.....not sure if it was the conversion that made them so noisy or not, but they were moved sometime in the 50’s and were all scrapped by the 70’s ...S & T’s outlived them.....grandad said when servicing P’s, they would roll up cigarette butts and stick them in their ears....I know that’s not much help, but you might be better off finding a sound file you just happen to like......Pat

Hi, Team!

Thank you all for responses, all good information!  I love hearing stories like these; I was talking to a friend yesterday that said he had a buddy that ran them in Cleveland and died last year at 89.  He mentioned that the engineer spoke fondly of them. 

I have an MTH PS1 P2b that I'm converting to TMCC using an UCUB board and keeping the stock QSI sounds, which the motors aren't too bad sounding and I like the whistle and bell.  I was just wondering how close they were.

If you're interested in the progress, there's more details here: https://ogrforum.com/...ng-mr-p-motor-in-nyc

Thanks!

- Mario

I'm pretty sure those fans were added when the P motors were rebuilt for the Hudson division.  I never saw one on the Harlem.  There was fairly dense housing in nice areas within 100 feet of the tracks, and that noise would have generated a political firestorm.  Their power wasn't needed on the Harlem where 10 cars was a long train.  Between GCT and Harmon you could often see an 18 car train.

I was tempted to suggest that they might sound like a GG-1 but for the fact that the gearing must have been very different.  The "Electric Zone" through CUT had a 60 mph speed limit.  The GG-1's were capable of over 100.  One of my NYC colleagues rode a GG-1 from Philadelphia to New York on a Florida train that was running late and saw the speedometer get up to 112.  

The CUT motors might have sounded like New Haven's similar EP-3, but in those days any railfans doing sound recording were chasing steam.  I'd think it a minor miracle if there exists a recording of main line electrics in the U.S.

All good stuff, thanks!