So we have had some discussion on playing music at your railroad and or museum. I am working on a interesting project along those lines. I have set up a Bluetooth speaker that also can play music off a USB drive in our caboose playing old (public domaine) train and trolley music how ever John D brings up a good point so how do I add ambience without offending the purest? I managed to find a vintage broken transistor radio at an antique store and got an idea. What if instead of an inappropriate Bluetooth speaker I set up the 1950s era Zenith royal 500 E transistor radio to play the train music and set it up like a radio station with somebody interjecting every so often "You're listening too KNHX AM" and throw in some vintage radio ads. This simple project is trying to be more difficult than I thought it would be but I've been making progress. I am using a mp3 tf mini being run off a 18650 (I might go with a bigger battery) attached to a USB charging/protection circuit with the output being routed through the original on/off switch and then to a DCDC converter to boost the voltage to 5 volts. To charge the apparatus I will make use of the original headphone port. Hopefully this will satisfy the purest while adding a cool touch to the experience.

I am not a purist, but I still don’t want to hear endless music that is NOT my taste forced upon me. The “ambiance” should be the natural sounds made by the train and crew going about their business.

Period appropriate music at the depot helps set the scene and era. When you recreate things - you often want to have extra layers to remind people of time and place. Period music helps do that.

It’s “hyper-realism.”

Personally, I like it. Just keep the volume low, below conversation decibel level.

I've always been of the opinion that we give the general public too much credit understanding the era of our preservation; i.e. if it's 1915 then we might get that, but the presence of that era music reinforces it.

I've been on excursion railroads that have tried it, mixed in with narration.

The other thing that really conveys time era to the general public is automobiles, never forget it. People may not understand the era of a factory-fresh F7A, but put a '49 Ford beside it and it makes the point.

If you watch any Ken Burns PBS special on anything, LISTEN to the background music, the guy is an absolute genius of communicating sense of era with music and not overwhelming the story.

Your vintage radio idea has merit, I must admit.

However, may I suggest a live musician if you want to be old fashioned ?? A fiddler, strolling violinist, or somebody who can sing and play guitar, could move around and would take up very little space. The better they can take requests, the more likely they are to please a variety of tastes as well. This has worked for some dinner trains, and private car charters.

I agree with CZ & Randy. Period appropriate is fine by me and adds ambiance. It’s got to be at a very low level, though. It’s something to be noticed, or not, that makes it a pleasant feature. It’s not the main event. If the volume is too high, it’ll get annoying after a while.

I like Sammy’s idea as an occasional special treat to bring in more visitors. Use good, paid local talent who’ll bring some folks in.

Took me long enough and I changed a few things, I went listen 1946 Motorola lunch box radio instead of the original transistor radio but I got everything put together and running. https://youtu.be/1UQ5WB_zbpY?feature=shared