With streaming services like Spotify or Apple Music you can listen to whatever your little heart desires, whether that’s informative podcasts, engaging audiobooks or Arctic Monkeys’ perfect seventh studio album “The Car” for the 900th time. One thing Spotify doesn’t have, however, is an enormous back catalog of vintage recordings of train sounds.
Instead, if you do want to listen to old recordings of steam train sounds you’ll have to trawl eBay or your nearest second-hand store, as this is exactly the kind of thing that was being recorded onto vinyl back in the day. For anyone not in the know, vinyl is a kind of plastic that was shaped into big discs that could play music. Ask your nearest hipster if they have one to show you.
As well as recording iconic albums like “Born To Run,” “Brothers In Arms” and “1989,” vinyl records can also preserve the sound of steam trains, apparently, and there’s a whole catalog of these records out there for you to enjoy.
This is a phenomenon I was alerted to this week after a record of historic train sounds turned up in a second hand store. Now, I’ve discovered that there are dozens of these kinds of LPs out there. You want to listen to the sounds of the Flying Scotsman, you can with this record right here. More interested in the sounds of different trains pulling away from the station, then this one is more for you.
Personally, I’d love to give “The Sounds Of Shunting” a listen, as that sounds like it could be train noises or a deeply moving electronic album. Either way, I’m sure it would be a nice way to pass an hour.
A lot of the records I’ve found in this genre were released back in the 1970s, but there’s actually a long history of this kind of recording being released. In fact, there was even a record label dedicated to such releases that was called ASV Transacord, explained the Science Museum in an entry on its website.
According to the museum, the label pressed a huge range of 10-inch and 12-inch records containing all kinds of railway sound effects. While they might cost around $10 on eBay today, back in the 70s they could be bought via mail order for around ten shillings and sixpence in the UK, which is equivalent to roughly $20 in today’s money.