Getting Real Column - 2
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Location
Sound Track
Sheffield steel mill
Wilson Avenue *
East yard throat
Kansas City Downtown
Kansas City Union Station
Powerhouse*
Coach yard
Turntable
various turntable sounds
SW7
Peterson feed mill
Decatur/Gravette AK
Night time*
created form free internet sound files
Farm
Bandstand
Merle Evans circus music cd
Creek
Personal recording; Yosemite CA
Sugar mill
Steam powered sugar mill St. Kitts
Trolly
Trolley bell and Trolley starting
Shreveport
Downtown and yard sounds combined
Frye machine
Louisiana swamp
Walthers commercial steel mill
cassette tape
created form free internet sound
files
personal recording; Super Chief
San Bernardino CA
commercial downtown sounds tape
1
personal recording; Grand Lobby
while station was still active
created form free internet sound
files by son Nick
Childhood railroad sound effects
record
switcher idle, run-up, idle. Sound
synced to switcher for power plant
Personal recording; Peterson feed mill
located in Decatur AK
Commercial small town sounds
cassette tape
Commercial farm sounds cassette
tape
Commercial machine shop sounds
cassette tape
Walt Disney Pirates of the Caribbean
sound track down loaded from
internet (free)
Originally my plan was to use endless-loop cassette tapes (a
real headache), and automobile cassette players. Fortunately
for me, with the passage of time and the advent of MP3 play-
ers, installing 20 separate sound tracks became much easier.
The MP3 players need an amplifier and speakers in order to
use them on the layout, instead of the headphones that they
were originally designed for.
Searching the Internet, I found cheap computer speaker sets
available online. The sets include a small right speaker with the
on-off switch and volume control. The left speaker is attached
by a cable to the right one. The sets come with a wall outlet
adapter, so no batteries are required. Also, the sets include a
small sub-woofer approximately 3 inches in diameter.
For most applications I chose not to install the sub-woofer
because of space requirements and the additional wir-
ing required. Exceptions are the steel mill, coach yard, and
2: Here are the components that come with each set.
2
MRH-Jun 2013
