Give it a break
A recent link to a Youtube site showing a clip of Nickel Plate 765 and Pere Marquette 1225 made me want to see more than just the tempting trailer. They recreated the bygone days of a freight train with the relevant era vehicles. Also staged was the placement of old road vehicles at level crossings and around trackside structures.
A chance mention of this clip to a work collegue revealed he had the full dvd and brought it in for me to watch. So I got the chance to view it this morning.He did happen to warn me that there was a bit of whistle blowing. Boy was he not wrong. Amongst some brilliant filming was this incessant need for the driver (and assuming his mate on the other side of the cab) to hang off the whistle cord. I can accept it is mandatory to do this approaching level crossings but not every bloody time the cab crew got the film crew in their sites.
This whistle blowing issue is not just restricted to this dvd. Most others I have viewed suffer the same problem.
Out of the many run pasts, maybe three had no whistle. Maybe the filmcrew were up a tree and remained unspotted. Maybe the safety valves weren't working and the crew were told to reduce pressure this way.
A cab crew member may of had a part time job of a bell ringer at the local church and found the need to play out a tune with the whistle. Just imagine if this dvd had been made in late December, they might have tried to whistle out ' Jingle bells'.
One of the options when commencing the dvd was 'Narration on/Narration off" I went with narration on so as to maybe learn a bit about what I was about to see. I think I should send an email to the producers and suggest that also add a "Whistle off" option.
Anyone else out there noticed this irritation in US productions?