Robert Swanson

[Ferryman]

Many of you probably don't know who he is, or what he did.
This was the man who invented todays traditional air horns, to replace the steam whistles. His main goal was to create horns that sounded almost like a steam whistle. He started with creating train whistles, which were 5 chime horns. Then he moved on to ships horns. He may sound like some sort of American, but he lived right here in B.C., in Nanaimo. As he got more involved into his horn inventions, he founded the company "Airchime". He also created his own whistle farm, out in the Nanaimo Lakes, far from civilization, so nobody would complain while he blasted his whistles at his "farm"



Bob Swanson was also the one who created the 3 tone horns, on our Ferries, plus all of the other 2 and 1 tones. But his most famous creation, was the "O Canada" horns, located on the BC Hydro Building in Vancouver. This was a 10 tone horn, one horn for each province. Now this was back in the 70s, so Nunavit (sp) was of course not around. Believe it or not, he was a bit of a poet. On the day he placed his horns on the BC Hydro Building, he said, "Of all my rash adventures past, this frantic feat must prove the last!".


But the reason why I made this post, is because a very kind member on this forum sent me an audio clip from a 1975 Train fan meeting. If you're a train fan, listen to this clip. If you're an old Steamship fan, listen to this. If you're a BC Ferry fan, listen to this. Enjoy!

ferrymaniac.sitesled.com/Pics/01%20'Whistle%20talk'.wma

For more info, check out:
www.railfame.ca/sec_ind/technology/en_2004_Airchime.asp

[Airchime]

Hey Chris,

The last part of the link doesn't work, so you have to type the whole tittle in manually to listen to the clip.

The largest steam whistle in Canada........



...is on display at the Chemainus museum. Sometimes the staff will ask if you'd like to hear the whistle. Then they will play the clip right from this recording!

Feels pretty good when you find out you aren't the only one running around collecting whistle sounds, eh??!

[CN2972South]

At CN, the standard horn is the Airchime K3L, a horn developed by Bob Swanson. Since the takeover of the Illinois Central however, some horns developed by Nathan(maker of the Airchime horns in the USA) have shown up on CN locomotives. You can usually tell the Nathan horns, as they sound much, much different.

Some of our older locomotives(built before 1962) have the Airchime M3 horn, which Bob Swanson developed before the K-series. These horns are maintenance headaches and require constant retuning which is why the K-series was developed.

The M3 horns are disappearing; when they are out of tune the shops guys simply replace the horn with a K3L or whatever other horns they have kicking around.

M3 horn
atsf.railfan.net/airhorns/m3.html

K3L Horn
atsf.railfan.net/airhorns/k3l.html

The Horns on the VIA Rail Budd Cars on the E&N are K5L's, another horn developed by Bob Swanson, all former BC Rail units have the K5L horns, some have even started showing up on CN units that go in for work at Prince George.

Interesting note, the VIA Rail Budd Cars that run in Ontario only have the 3-chime horns.

[Skier2]

Is the Queen of Tsawwassen's horn her original horn? I ask this because all of the other dogwood ships built in the 60's had a different type of horn.

[Airchime]

You can't make an outrageous claim like that and run away! You need to provide an audio recording, or produce a receipt, or....something!!

All the ships that were built new still have their orginal horns.


Thanks for those horn links, CN5697South!

Man, those K5's sound awesome!!

[Low Light Mike]

Chemainus Theatre will be doing a play in Spring-2013 called "Good Timber".

Good Timber puts the narrative poetry of Robert E. Swanson to music. Known as the Bard of the Woods, Swanson published four books of Robert Service style bal-lads in the 1940s and '50s about B.C.'s forests and the special breed of men and women who lived off them. Six talented performers sing Swanson's comic stories plus a few of their own, and play more than a dozen instruments.

Province review from an earlier production, here:
www.theprovince.com/entertainment/Musical+Good+Timber+reveals+fading+past/7081275/story.html