I found this website a while ago, then lost it, now found it again! This is fantastic for those into steam locomotive recordings. There are some classics recorded on here: NYC Hudsons, Mohawks, PRR K-4s and a bunch of others. It all started with my quest to find a recording of a K-4 whistle. Mission accomplished and then some!

Jim Montague

http://www.buffalohistoryworks.com/sounds/Welcome.html

The recordings were made by John M. Prophet who also shot fabulous 16mm film beginning in the mid to late 1930's. His favorite subject was PRR but he also shot great footage of NYC and, to a lesser extent LV and perhaps other Buffalo area railroads. His PRR and NYC recordings were released by Semaphore Records years ago and have since been re-mastered for CD's.

Mr. Prophet allowed us to use his 16mm footage in two videos. "Pennsylvania Glory Vol 3" has scenes he shot from the 1930's to the 1950's. Locations were the Buffalo area, Oil City, PA; Altoona, Horseshoe Curve and other locations in Pennsylvania. In cooperation with Mr. Prophet and Semaphore Records, we applied his recordings to the film wherever possible.

In "Reflections of the New York Central" we used his fabulous water scooping scenes of Niagara's, Hudsons, Mohawks and early diesels on the NYC main line. He also shot a great pacing sequence with a Niagara on the Empire State Express in 1946 which we used, too. Again, his recordings were applied to the NYC footage.

Over the years, these two videos have been among our best selling titles and continue today. We've converted both to DVD-R so they are now available that way, too.

Of all the film we've had over the years, John Prophets' is among the highest quality. And, he even had color 16mm dating from 1937, the earliest I've ever seen.

-Jim Herron

http://www.herronrail.com
hrvideo@mindspring.com