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Remembering sounds

R

Roger Tomfohrde

Member
Reading Oldtankers post below got me to remembering the sounds of some of the neighbors tractors in the field. There was a pair of brothers who would plow with a D John Deere on a long field in the valley below our farm . Early in the morning you could here it clear as a bell up on the hill we farmed. They would have three jugs at the end. Water, Gas and either distillate or diesel. They would be in their undershirt even when it was 40 degrees out. Pulling 4-16 if I remember correctly. The closer neighbor had a 930 gas gas with a leaking manifold that you could tell a 1/4 mile away when he went past. Or the neighbor with the 555 Versatile when he was tilling. We had a pair of Unis , one with straight pipes on the V6, sure could tell where it was working. I still can tell the difference between a 460 and a 560 just by the sound. How about you, what sounds do you remember?
Roger
 
Twenty five I was helping a neighbor clean out his hay mow, we could hear a tractor coming up the road, said "it sounds like Moline" looked out the door sure enough I was right. Pete
 
Airplane sounds are also very distinct. At least the smaller prop jobs are. At one point in my life I was a bush pilot in Canada. Our toddler daughter could ID my airplane as soon as she heard the engine. Quite cute. "Daddy's on the way home".
 
Neighbors had a Lorain loader that they used to load manure and feed. Had a 2 cycle GM in it. You could hear that thing roar no matter which farm they were on within a mile and a half.
 
When I was a kid, I could identify about any tractor that went by the house And most were JD. Several different models, all had a distinctive sound.
 
well you did say tractor so how about a truck tractor -- My Wife worked in a bank that was a half block of the highway and she could tell when I went by with my truck --1971 IH cabover with a 238 Detroit -- always got me home but a lot headaches -- noisy dumb thing -- Roy from northwest Iowa
 
Our dog has a fascination with wife's car. Spends hours camped out guarding it. When she returns from going someplace, he'll be right out in the driveway wsiting for it, any other car and he could care less. Even daughters car, same make, model, engine.
 
Yep, lots of sounds have memories for me. Like dad's 37 JD A starting up in the shed on a frosty December morning to go grind feed, or my Super M pulling hard on 3 16's about midnight. Or the same SM chopping corn, and the old Allis chopper howling like a banshee. Or the neighbors 830 case with a straight pipe screaming bloody murder pulling his brush mower up the steep hill across the road. What about the sound a hammermill makes when Pops tries to over load it? The old A would sure bark then. My favorite is the sound of the old surcingle milkers make, though not tractor-related. Or maybe its the way my 300 barks fire pulling 6 round bales up the hill by the house to the hay yard. Wife can always tell when that old girl goes by, even in the house. One last one, that I do miss some days, is the gentle tick over my old 9n made when idling by the house. It was strangely calming. I could go on and on, I'm afraid, but I'll leave you with those.
Mac
 
Grew up on the side hills with the farm site sitting in the valley next to a 350 acre lake. I often think of the sounds. The pounding of 2-cylinders on the plow. The purr of the Allis's on the hill. The hum of the Oliver 6. The scream of a new straight piped diesel. In the valley when the wind was right we could hear for some distance. As well as tractors we heard the bells of church 3 miles away. The growl of the SOO as she pulled western wheat to the Duluth docks long before it cut through our farm. The bark of the neighborhood milker pumps always sticks on my mind because there are but few left. The clanging of feeders. The squeal of hogs. The bark of neighboring dogs. The groan of the UPS truck with its sliding door. If it's groan got louder from the neighbor we might be in for a surprise. The slamming of doors and the beller of the wives at meal time. The honk of geese. The chatter of the swallows. The coo of the dove. The song of the meadow lark.

Thinking about this now and I realize we were wireless before our time!
 
Years ago 2 brothers 2 mile from where I grew up had 2 I think 1955 ollies with factory FWA with 2 cycle detroits. new who was in the field.Can still hear those tractors.
 
I remember the sound of Dads Zetor 4911 starting,the Ford 4610,the sound of the old Surge milker pails as someone else mentioned. The sound of the onl stable cleaner running all kinds of them. Sometimes I listen to some similar to the old tractors we had to on YouTube,always makes me smile!
 
Super jetstar 3 Moline pulling the governor open on every stroke of a 275 nh baler, or a turboed g1000 lugging a sled
 
WD 45 in road gear going down a long hill. Throw the throttle back all the way, and listen to the "jake" sound. Also liked the neighbors Olivers, 66 and 77. Love to hear em sing.
 
When I was a kid riding in my grandpa's 4240, I always liked the sound the shifters made on the quad range.
 
Hog feeder lids!

I remember my brother and his family visiting from Buffalo, NY. At breakfast, they were all red eyed, and asked how in the H*** we ever got any sleep around there with all that racket. Wife and I couldn't figure out what they were talking about until they got into the details. I told them that every time they heard a lid bang, it was another nickel profit, and it made me sleep very well. That was in the 70's of course. When we got into the eighties, every lid bang was a nickel loss, ha.

During my young years, you could step outside on a clear quiet night and hear feeder lids banging from every direction. I don't think there's a hog within 20 miles of here now.

I'm an old JD fan, but I always enjoyed hearing my neighbor plowing with his IH M. It was a sweet sounding tractor. And my other neighbor to the west - a mile away - I remember the evening his 730 JD diesel developed a loose flywheel. I could hear it knocking at that distance. That old 730 is still sitting in his shed.

Nowadays, my wife will say, "What was that noise?" It kinda aggravates me, altho I don't let her know. "What noise - I didn't hear anything." I wish I had worn those ear plugs that they gave us when I was young.
 
From my youth- our 300ih utility pulling hard,the 55t baler on every plunger stroke,our 8n Ford when shifted into 'step up'(Sherman auxiliary tranny)and 4th and going full rpm down the road.
In early adulthood-small block v-8s w/4bbl carb floored,2 stroke bikes,and quads.Mark
 
IH truck, I was at a feed store the one day and a customer went out to move his one ton with a livestock rack on it. I started to talk to the gal who ran the store and all of a sudden there was a starter noise and then the windows were rattling from the resonance of straight piped V8 IH-- WOW.
 
A Massey Super 92 combine with a full thresh. That Chrysler 265 would have the most destinctive beller. You had to be behind the machine and to the left so you didn't get much threshing noise. There's a YouTube video that captures it exactly. It even looks like us at harvest - Super 92 and an early model red Ford 600 truck. That's how I spent my summers.

My 58 GMC grain truck has a perfect engine/transmission combination growl just before you split shift from high third to low fourth. She's just pumping away and the straight shaft fan is pulling just as much air as it ever could.
2:55 and 3:50 are the old Massey sound I remember.
 
I'm just old enough to remember the twilight of steam before the B & O dropped the fires west of Cincinnati in 1957.

Our small farm nearly bordered the railroad, the house about 1/4 mile from the tracks. About 1/4 mile to the east as the crow flies was a switch tower, water tower, coal bunker and Y for a helper engine that was stationed just across the creek. The helper engine did local switching and pushed the freight trains up the nearly 15 mile hill out of the Ohio River valley west to Milan, IN (home of the 1954 miracle Indians), where it would uncouple.

The double-headed freight trains would cruise slowly past and stop with the caboose about 1/2 mile beyond our house, just out of sight. I well remember lying in bed with the windows open on a hot summer's night listing to the helper engine effortlessly chuff past to couple to the caboose. Once coupled, the engineer in the helper engine would whistle, signaling that he was ready, followed a few seconds later by the much more faint reply signal from the head end locomotive. Occasionally, I would hear a relief valve open as all locomotives would have a full head of steam in preparation for the hard pull up the hill.

Steam engines produce maximum torque at stall, and usually slip when starting a heavy train. Consequently, starting a heavy consist from standstill was a bit of an art, requiring skilled hands on the throttle and sander.

Usually, after one or two barks from the exhaust, the drivers would slip, the side arms flailing wildly, before the engineer could pull back on the throttle and pour on the sand. If conditions were right, it sometimes sounded as if the locomotive was just outside my window. I was fascinated.

Usually, upon the second attempt, there was enough slack in the consist that the drivers would hold and the engines could accelerate the train. I would listen mesmerized as the sound from the exhaust grew both faster and more faint as the train accelerated away to the hill, starting about 3 or 4 miles away and becoming serious in about 7 or 8 miles. Conditions needed to be nearly perfect for me to hear the heavy freight engines at the head end a mile or more away.

If still awake 40 or 50 minutes later, I would hear the helper engine glide past backward, the side arms and valve gear clanking in effortless cadence, as it returned to its post to await the next freight, perhaps taking on water in the interim.

Would that I had had a tape recorder and the skill to use it at the time.

Dean
 
I like the sound we no longer hear. The sound of the ratchet dogs on a iron wheel horse drawn mower and the sound of a young rooster learning to crow
 
I remember the neighbors V4 Wisconsin on the silo no muffler and it "galloped" a little. My dads sawmill, remember starting the UD-18 power unit on gas switching to diesel (two straight pipes) and oh boy, that big sawdust blower and the zing of the slab saw as we cut up the slabs and edgings. He also had an old Ottawa dragsaw engine to run a pump to wash logs that was quite distinctive (I still have it). Dad also used JD 40 crawlers and we used to shut them off and wait until they almost stopped and turn them back on with a bang (maybe we choked them too)-could hear it quite a ways.
 
i remember many sounds as a kid, grandpa's ih tractors, the neighbors john deere, cattle wanting to be fed, chickens, later on when i moved to this valley it was the trucks, at night you could hear them working the upgrade for awhile, 220, 262, and supercharged 275 cummins with a straight pipe and 2 stick transmissions, 2 stroke detroits, they were even louder and took the longest from when you heard them, to when they got past the place and out of range,the old macks were more rare out here, mostly they ran east of the Mississippi river, the few that did run out here seemed to be quietest, but still had their own sound, more recently i could tell weather a truck was cummins, cat or detroit powered just by its sound, now not so much, of course my hearing isnt so good anymore either, now my dog, he knows each of my 7 farm trucks by their sound, as well as 4 different tractors, and about takes the door of the house down trying to greet me
 
The lid banging being a nickel profit - then a nickel loss made me laugh.

Sad it's gone that way, but I still think it was a great explanation to the kids.
 
the whine of the gears telling me Dad was coming home with the 77 Oliver, dairy vacuum pumps, a train whistle in the distance, the neighbors 715 IH combine a mile away doing corn,the banging of hog feeder lids, the howl of silage cutters, the rumbling of an approaching storm and of course someone's old jd 2cyl. banging away
 
back in the late 50's and the early 60's you could tell the make of the vehicle from the sound of the exhaust before you could see it. All the different makes had a different sound now they all sound alike. My favorite sound was a y block or a flathead ford with glasspacks and dual exhausts at full throttle!
Elmo
 
I remember the sound of the hitch pin jingling in the drawbar of my neighbor's SC Case when he was coming down the road to our place to help pick corn.
 
Thanks, Jerry.

The sights and sounds of railroading so close to home when I was small made me a railroad buff and I remain so to this day.

I consider myself lucky to have experienced the sights, sounds and smells of mainline steam railroading.

I consider the steam locomotive, perhaps, the most fascinating machine that mankind has yet created.

Dean
 
Can still remember the sound of the '65 706 diesel starting up on my uncles dairy farm. His 460 gas also had a distinct sound. I grew up where they where building new homes and all summer long heard the ear splitting drone of GM 2 cycles drilling wells. I'll bet some of those operators went deaf from it. Nobody wore ear protection in those days.
 
I did that to my mother in laws car.Did a service on it. Got a call a day later. What did you do to my car. She was getting on the highway when it started making this loud noise. Told her I would check it out.
 
New Holland 717 harvester. They had a particular howl/whine to that model, different than any other New Holland
 
The deep throated exhaust sound of my grandpa's F20 with straight pipe elbow-dad's M on the threshing machine. Two john deere 2cyl tractors plowing together--would fire in time and out of time with each other.The sound of the township's D6 cat 3 cylinder on the snow plow ( Dad plowed snow and did dozer work with it for many years ).My WD9 on a heavy pull plowing on a still fall night. Owls with treir mating call early spring and the first wren singing in the spring.
 
Thanks for the steam railroading experience Dean. Here in Canada mainline steam held on until about 1960, I was born in 1961(!)
We lived next to the tracks for about a month when I was about 3 or so, my sisters said there was not a train go by that I didn't see. Today I live about 200 yds from the tracks, 8 VIA (passenger) trains and 2 freights a day go by. Yes I watch as many as I can.
 
Waukesha 145 GKZ,779 cubic inch overhead valve gasoline six in a 1949 Peter Pirsch firetruck in full hue and cry. By comparison, makes a NASCAR sound like a sick Wal*Mart chainsaw. White 2-85 with the 6-354 Perkins has an amaxzingly pleasing sound for a relatively small displacement engine.
 
Dean, that was very well written! You are a talented writer!

I remember the steam engines on the ICRR. They were phasing them out when I was a child. My dad worked during the week as a janitor at Washington University in St. Louis. We'd go into town on Friday evenings to pick him up, and I was terrified of the steam engines. They'd invariably blow a big noisy cloud of steam out just as we were walking by.

We could hear them whistle the crossing at Boskeydell, Illinois, and dad would pull out his watch and say, "There goes the City of New Orleans". Those old steam whistles were musical. Dad claimed that he could sometimes identify the engineer by the sound of the whistle. I was always skeptical, but it was a good story, ha.

The diesel horns are just loud.
 
I remember laying in bed at night and hearing one or the other of the Carlisle Brothers running their 1950 Oliver Detroit from across Big Creek about 5 miles south of us or Stahl Specialty trucks running through the gears heading up Mo. 58 Hwy toward Kingsville. I think I best remember the banging of the lids on the big round self feeders our fat hogs snacked out of seemingly all night. An occasional moo,,,,,,, the "yoties" talking to each other,,,,,,,,,,,, gm
 
Thanks, PJ.

My Ex's father was a life-time railroad (office) man. He told me that the real railroad men could tell you the number of the locomotive and the name of the man in the cabin from a mile away from the sound of the whistle.

Dean
 
Always liked to hear the neighbor chopping corn. Also there was a gravel pit down the road could always hear the beep of the loader and the sound of the crusher when it hooked into something extra heavy. Then there was the constant line of triaxle trucks up and down the hill in front of my parents house. It was early 80s and the trucks were all different brands GMC Fords IH Mack a few White's Kenworth. Didn't see too many Peterbilts then. They w ere all owner operator type trucks and had cool looking paint and names on them.
 
A couple come to mind for me. Loved the sound of starting our John Deere R, I can still hear in my mind the sounds of the electric start on the pony motor then the pony starting the two cyl. diesel. Hadn't witnessed that sound since 1973, stood next to one starting at a tractor show last year and got all teary eyed. Also the sound of Dad's IHC McCormick 151 combine, late in the day, I'd be in the truck listening to the combine going after dark, the sound when dew fell and the cylinder would howl, meant quiting time, go unload the truck and the sound of the B/S motor on the auger.
 
Mainline steam power in the US enjoyed, perhaps, a 10 year lease on life due to WWII, though, with few exceptions, steam locomotive development ended in the mid 1930s.

During WWII, the government controlled production, assuring that most manufacturing resources were applied toward the war effort. Though, industry was gearing up for dieselization of America's railroads in the late 1930s, the limited production capacity of diesel engines suitable for use in locomotives was diverted to the war effort, e.g., LSTs, etc. Consequently, the government specified that US railroads could order only steam locomotives, and only such designs as the government deemed appropriate until such regulations were lifted after the war.

As a result, many steam locomotives were built during the war years to move the record tonnage resulting from the war effort.

Sadly, the rapid dieselization of America's railroads after WWII resulted in the premature scrapping of many steam locomotives with estimated service lifetimes of 50 years or more when they were 10 years old or less.

Dean
 
A John Deere running up against the governor baling tough hay, bang click of a AC round baler tying bales, the sound of a 500hp big block Chevy taking off while you are flagging the guys. the first pop of an engine you just spent many hours overhauling. The sound of the guys in the rail yard switching cars while I looked out the 8th grade history open class window. The last train going down the line before they tore it out. And then there are the sounds and smells of SE Asia -- that are sometimes louder than all other sounds.
 
Yup, I can still hear those sounds too; was just thinking about all that only a few days ago.
To the West of the farm I could hear the Case LA.
To the North, the John Deere AR.
To the East, the whining of the Cockshutt 30.
To the South, the old fella with his McCormick 15-30.
It was very interesting knowing what all the neighbors were doing.
 
Of course the old 2 cy. Deere's, but I still hear those everyday. A sound I still remember was a old tugboat that had a Ajax engine. It was air start and the engine had to be shut down to change direction of the prop. It had a 8" exhaust and when the throttle opened up, it would blow smoke rings. Low, throaty sound I still remember 40+ yrs. ago.
 
Someone mentioned the hog feeder lids. If I would make a loud noise in the shop all of the feeder lids in the hog lot bounced shut at the same time. One summer night my sis and her city born husband were sleeping in one of our upstairs bedrooms with the windows open. Next morning he asked me "do those pigs ever sleep"?
 
This is one of the best subjects on here in a looong time. I've really enjoyed reading everyone's favorite sounds.
Someone mentioned a SB Chevy with the quadra jet and the filter cover turned over. That would be on my list.
My Dad's 730 Case with a straight pipe when it was pulling a chisel plow at night.
The sound of the BNSF when it crosses the highway near the river during the winter months. The whistle can be heard for miles up the river.
A friend of mine has an old D8 Cat with a straight pipe. He never opens it up and it has a sound that is unmistakable.
The sound of the dogs when the get on the scent of a swamp rabbit on a frosty morning.
The sound of bacon frying in an iron skillet.
The sound of a screen door slamming on a hot summer night.
The sound of my Grandpap calling up the cows.
And most of all the sound of the congregation singing "Just as I Am" when someone decided to change their life.
 
I know lots have added the sounds they remember,
and I just have to add one of my favorites.
A new 1963 Chevy Impala convertible with a 327
three speed. Not a powerglide. Stock dual exhaust.
There was a certain sound taking off
In low, shifting to second, then high, that I will forever
remember and love.
 

Well, a train locomotive is sort of a tractor. Growing up, I would hear the trains as they came and went during the night. There was a hill they had to climb and boy could you hear those giant diesel electrics whining down low and grunting. It was just a melancholy sound late at night and would stir me out of my sleep. I still hear them in my mind sometimes.
 
The ka-boomp, ka-boomp sound of my Grand-dad's big 30-60 S Model Rumely Oil Pull tractor back when I was a kid 65-70 years ago (All tractor sounds were beautiful music).
Then the slam banging sounds of the empty auto hauler trucks speeding on old tilt-slab bed concrete US-12 about a mile from our house back in the 1930's, 1940's, and early 1950's before Interstate 94 was in operation....Commercial Carriers, E and L Auto Transport, United Carriers, etc.......all day, all night Mary Ann.....
 
The jingling of the hitch pin in the draw bar of the neighbor's SC Case when he was coming up the road to our place to haul ear corn from the picker for dad. The whomp, whomp, whomp sound of the ear corn hitting the spout at the top of the elevator when the crib was being filled and the sound of the ears landing on the corn in the crib. Dad didn't run the elevator very fast. The delightful sound of a hand cranked engine starting up, the sound of victory!
 
Sounds as a kid? I was a city boy in NJ. Sirens! As a teen we were in farm county but I have few memories of the sounds. It's kinda sad but the sounds I really remember, and sadly miss:

60 or more pair of boots hitting the ground in unison. Reveille at 6AM! Retreat at 5PM. Barked orders at formations! 58 V12 diesel engines turning over at idle on a frosty morning in the motor pool when an alert had been called waiting for the word to roll! The whine of 58 turbine engine tank at idle later when we got the M1s. The crack of tank cannons and the rattle of machinegun fire. Explosions! The crack of a bullet breaking the sound barrier! The sound of a column of tanks on the move! And sadly the missing man roll call followed by Taps.

Rick
 
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