So a recent post about playing music at your museum by trainkid456 http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=47514 encouraged me to post about my project. I'm trying to collect public domain recordings of train and trolley songs to play and distribute at the organization I am part of. "Sound recordings made before 1923 entered the public domain on January 1, 2022; recordings made between 1923 and 1946 will be protected for 100 years after …" So according to what's the law seems to say any recording made before 1924 would now be in the public domain. So far I've been searching internet archives and UCSB Cylinder Audio Archive to find these songs. However searching for keywords like train, railroad, railway, trolley, subway, express... Only gets me so far as I know there are some train songs that do not have any of these terms in them such as the wreck of old '97. The other thing is some of the audio is a very poor quality and needs to be enhanced. I've had a friend enhance some of them for me but there is still work to be done. I was hoping that we could help each other out as getting this collection would be beneficial to all of us who work in museum and tourist railroads.

Does a sound album count as music or does it get its own category? I have one sound album on a 78 in my collection.
O.

That’s gonna be a tough one without a digital audio workstation. Most of the audio restoration software that I’m aware of nowadays are VST3 plugins for those workstations. There are a few stand-alone software packages out there but I haven’t used them. Here’s a few:
https://acondigital.com/products/audiolava
https://www.audacityteam.org/

I’ve used highly rated Wave Corrector years ago with decent results. I think it’s shareware now. Windows only. You may need to run it in compatibility mode. https://www.wavecor.co.uk/

There are probably a few others out there. Don’t expect pristine results from those old recordings. It depends on how good the source material is and they’re all pretty bad compared to the last 50 years. Also note that it can be a time consuming process if you’re picky about the results.

Good luck.

It falls under the same copyright category as music.

At over 700 pages Long Steel Rail:The Railroad in American Folksong by Norm Cohen and published by University of Illinois Press will get you a long way in finding some of those obscure songs that aren't showing up with your keyword searches.

Another source would be A Treasury of Railroad Folklore: The stories, tall tales, traditions, ballads and songs of the American railroad (emphasis added), edited by B.A. Botkin and Alvin F. Harlow and published by Bonanza Books.

Wishing you success in your endeavor...

sc 'doc' lewis

I have a railroad employees home brew CD of Mexican railroad songs. Maybe it's copyrighted, but maybe not. I know that my copyrighted material is all over the web, without credit to me in many cases, without asking my permission (except RyPN), and without payment in all cases. If somebody has a bona fide railroad music archive project, and wants to include Mexican railroads, shoot me a PM.