N&W in 1908--Shop whistle

[NW Mailing List]

Don't know about the wax, but some years ago, was doing some work at the Winston Salem ( N&W ) "roundhouse" as they called it then, where my friend the late Clyde Taylor was working, and saw me eyeing the old shop whistle which hadn"t sounded a shift change in years. Some of the older workers recalled when it did blow shift changes you did NOT stand under it if you didn't want a shower!! It was a 6-chime homemade by a shop machinest . The shop was sometimes supplied with steam by tieing on to a Y-6 that wasn"t busy . So to continue, Mr Taylor donated the whistle in my care where I eventially took it to Spencer, tried it on #604 -- of course sounded nothing like Sou. or N&W . It now rests atop the ACL locomotive where it looks somewhat at home. End of story- Ron Hash

--- On Tue, 12/30/08, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:

From: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Subject: N&W in 1908--Shop whistle
To: "2N&W Mailing List" <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Date: Tuesday, December 30, 2008, 11:50 AM





Bluefield Daily Telegraph
December 30, 1908
 
CITY AND COALFIELD
------
Shop Whistle Out of Order
 
    The Bluefield people who have little or no confidence in their timepieces have been in trouble for the past two days.  Setting and resetting watches as well as taking them to the watchmakers for regulation have kept a good many pretty busy.  The trouble is caused by the whistle at the shop which in some way has got out of order and the automatic attachment which connects it with the Western Union regulator at Washington has slipped up in such a way that nearly six minutes have been lost.  Yesterday afternoon at four o'clock when the whistle as usual blew people pulled out their watches and many a man was seen to set his watch up five minutes only to go to the  jewelry store and there set it back again.  The trouble will be remedied as soon as possible by replacing the worn out wax [sic] on the shop clock with new wax which will take the proper impression and blow the whistle on time.
------
[Can any antiquarian horologist among us explain how wax would have been used as mentioned above?]
 
Gordon Hamilton________________________________________
NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org
To change your subscription go to
http://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-mailing-list
Browse the NW-Mailing-List archives at
http://list.nwhs.org/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/


      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20081230/a7edfac8/attachment.htm>