The two longs and two shorts were a pretty common grade crossing signal into about the 1920's. The exact date, I cannot find, but I have rulebooks, from the L&N, NC&STL and the Southern dating into the 20's and they all were still using that signal pattern. I also have one of the NC&STL whistle boards that uses the pattern.
Hope this helps a bit.
Bruce Pierce

On a more serious note, I also have a few rule books from the first quarter of the 20th century that specify 2 long, 2 short.

And, on a related note, I am a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the magazine they put out for members (Preservation) did a nice article on EBT. Just got it last night.

I have done a few web searches this AM TRYING to find SOME date as to when the NOW standard grade crossing signal was adopted.......without any firm date found.
I have searched for an AAR, ICC and General Code of Rules date, but found nothing.
Does anyone else know what I could look for?

Bruce Pierce

The problem you run into in this kind of search is that it's HIGHLY unlikely that the information you seek has actually been ever entered in any form on the Internet. White's Law ("Scholarship is inversely proportional to Importance") aside, you're only likely to find such information buried DEEP in the archives (sometimes best described jocularly as "archives" and literally meaning some water-logged basement) of the likes of the AAR or ICC, and best found within such references as employee timetable collections at such places as the RR Museum of Pa., the California State RR Museum, the PRRT&HS at Lewistown, Pa., and elsewhere.

True. I tried to find a brake linkage diagram for a railroad car, and search engines totally let me down. Ultimately I had to create it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Brake_Diagram.png

I am also unable to find a precise date for the implementation of standardized grade crossing whistle signals. However, it appears to have taken place between 1939 or 1940 and July 1948 based on available evidence.

As to the latest date, according to a 1948 newspaper account, “There’s a message in that locomotive whistle, whether it’s a mournful wail on a still night in the country, or a few sharp toots in a railroad yard, and its words may mean safety to hundreds of passengers. They are words in a language of railroad signals now known and understood on every line from the Bangor and Aroostook to the San Diego and Arizona-Eastern.” The author further notes, “The most familiar of the whistle signals in the “tooo—tooo—to—toooo” [two long, one short, one long] is given on approaching an unguarded country road crossing.”(1)

Before that time, grade crossing signals were apparently a matter of state law and railroad policy. For example, in 1937, the Boston & Maine utilized two long and two short sounds approaching a grade crossing but admonished, “Each state has a different sound language due to state laws.”(2) The Maine Central also used the same two long and two short whistle blasts in 1939. However, a veteran railroader of that line “offered to wager that a blindfolded railroadman could tell what New England state he was in by simply listening to any locomotive’s crossing whistling. . . . In New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, and New York . . . whistling is to be ‘prolonged or repeated’ (commencing at a marker set a place prescribed by law) ‘until the crossing is reached. In case of fast-moving trains the whistle signal shall be prolonged until the engine is on the crossing; in case of slow moving trains the crossing signal shall be repeated the last blast of which is to be as the engine goes on the crossing.’ Now that wouldn’t do in Massachusetts, where the law prescribes: ‘engine bell to be rung from the whistling post to the crossing, and in addition two long and two short whistles sounded just before reaching crossing, the duration of the whistle to consume approximately 10 seconds.’”(3)

The Nevada Northern Railway used two long followed by two short blasts approaching public grade crossings as early as 1909 noting, “The sound of the whistle should be distinct, with intensity and duration proportionate to the distance signal is to be conveyed.”(4) In 1921, the Wabash adopted the so-called nine-second whistle. “The signal was to be two long blasts occupying two seconds each and two short ones of one second each and to be given eighty rods from the crossing.”(5)

The earliest adoption of the now familiar two long, one short, and a one long signal that I’ve been able to document was by the Chesapeake & Ohio, which used it to replace their previous two long and two short blasts, effective 1 July 1930.(6) The Missouri-Kansas-Texas line adopted the same system in 1933, previously also using the long-long-short-short signal.(7)

Out West, the Southern Pacific employed the long-long-short-short signal in 1925.(8) However, it was abandoned on 1 April 1928, replaced with a long, two short and a long blast.(9) By 1940, the SP had adopted the two longs, one short, and one long format.(10)
____________________

(1) John McCutcheon, Jr., “Each Railroad Train Whistle Gives Message,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 20 July 1948, B14, http://www.proquest.com (accessed 27 Feb. 2008).

(2) Lima (Ohio) News, “Trainmen Keep Whistle Code,” 26 Mar. 1937, 19, http://www.newspaperarchive.com (accessed 27 Feb. 2008).

(3) (Augusta, Maine) Daily Kennebec Journal, “Tootology, Science of Whistling, Varies Over Nation’s Steel Lines,” 8 Feb. 1939, C3, http://www.newspaperarchive.com (accessed 27 Feb. 2008).

(4) Nevada Northern Railway Company, Rules and Regulations of the Transportation Department, rev. ed., 1 July 1909, 16–17.

(5) Decatur (Illinois) Daily Review, “Decatur Day By Day: Ten Years Ago,” 3 Feb. 1931, 6, http://www.newspaperarchive.com (accessed 27 Feb. 2008).

(6) New York Times, “Change is Whistles Cuts Rail Mishaps,” 21 Jun. 1931, 44, http://www.proquest.com (accessed 27 Feb. 2008).

(7) John Moore, “Railroad Rounds and Rumblings,” Amarillo Globe, 22 Aug. 1933, 5, http://www.newspaperarchive.com (accessed 27 Feb. 2008).

(8) Huntingdon (Pennsylvania) Daily News, “Coast Railway Explains Significance of Toots,” 21 Feb. 1925, 8, http://www.newspaperarchive.com (accessed 27 Feb. 2008).

(9) Reno Evening Gazette, “Railroad Tooters to Change Toots at Grade Crossing,” 22 Mar. 1928, 2, http://www.newspaperarchive.com (accessed 27 Feb. 2008).

(10) San Mateo (California) Times, “Advertisement,” 18 July 1940, 16, http://www.newspaperarchive.com (accessed 27 Feb. 2008); and Oakland Tribune, “Train Signals,” 25 Nov. 1940, 17, http://www.newspaperarchive.com (accessed 27 Feb. 2008).

Good points, and seeing that the AAR was formed in 1934, this would point us to SOME timeframe to go from. (Assuming the AAR would have been the driving force behind the change)
This is ABOUT the time that my various rulebooks start to mention the "new" grade crossing pattern.

Bruce Pierce

What exactly are we looking for here? The use of _ _ . . and the later change to _ _ . _ for the crossing warning should trace back to the Standard Code of Operating Rules, which has it's roots in the same General Time Convention that was also the forbearer of today's AAR. However, the Standard Code was only a model rulebook that the railroads could adopt and / or modify as they saw fit, so in reality, the date of change is going to be different for each railroad or rules association. There is ample evidence that the change took place over the decade of the thirties, very likely, as I said, at different dates on different roads.

Nowhere in this discussion has anyone offered a comment on what the EBT uses for a rulebook. They DO have a rulebook, don't they? If they adopted an older book and never updated it, and it still shows _ _ . . as the signal to be sounded at a crossing, then that is the answer right there.

Just as an aside, has anyone noticed that the rule that specifies _ _ . . for the signal, and the rule that requires the signal to be "repeated or extended until the crossing is reached" can be mutually conflicting? Extending the last whistle sound of _ _ . . makes it _ _ . _ rule or no rule.

Dennis is correct, and the EBT rulebook takes the "conflict" of a short whistle being prolonged up to the crossing into account. The following rules are taken from the most recent EBT Rules Book that I have, effective Jan. 1, 1995.

Page 12, under "Whistle Signals":
Two long followed by two short blasts of the whistle is the signal for approaching tunnels and highway crossings at grade and must be given one quarter of a mile before reaching tunnels and such crossings,
(continues on p. 13)
Thus _ _ . .
An additional crossing whistle shall be given on the approach to the crossing and the whistle should be blown until the engine ot train arrives on the Crossing, See Rule 33.

NOTE: Rule 33 has nothing to do with whistle signals, so the editor must have missed some changes, however, Rule 30, p. 9 states:
On account of the ever increasing Automobile and Truck traffic on the Highways, it is vital that even greater care be observed in approaching Highway Crossings than has been the custom in the past. To this end the Crossing whistle signal Rule is amplified to provide for whistling UP TO (the Rules Book's emphasis!) the Crossing. The practice of whistling a quarter mile back is to be continued as a preliminary signal and a second whistle is to be sounded on the immediate approach to the crossing. Firemen as well as engineers shall be on the lookout for approaching vehicles and shall inform the Engineer of machines approaching from his side. Extra care must be excercised at all State Highway Crossings and trains shall be under control at all such Crossings.

I believe that answers most of the questions! I also have the feeling that Chris Coleman's comment of a rule dating from August 1, 1937 was an earlier version of these rules.

SIDE NOTE, with no bearing on this discussion: Rule 9, page 6 still requires the conductor of passenger trains leaving Mt. Union to ascertain if overdue passenger trains on the P.R.R. have arrived and to contact the Train Master if so!

We can apparently narrow the timeframe for the adoption of the — — o — standardized grade crossing whistle signals to the period between 1939 and 1942, although the exact date remains elusive thus far.

“The standard code of operating rules, in force throughout the United States, prescribes many engine whistle signals, of which the following are extensively used,” including two long, one short, one long for approaching public grade crossings. [Association of American Railroads, Quiz on Railroads and Railroading: 400 Questions, 400 Answers, 2nd ed., (Association of American Railroads: Washington, D. C., 1942), 6, http://www.railwaystation.com/1942/index.html (accessed 28 Feb. 2008).]

BUT....EBT currently uses the following style

. _ . _ as opposed to _ _ . . or the current standard _ _ . _

So in essence, it's their own adaptation of the "PRR standard" _ _ . .

Again, the original question, when did the EBT adapt the . _ . _ and who started it?

[redacted]

Perhaps I'm missing something here, but that whistle signal sounds to me like — — o —, only the engineer adds a bit of style to it by "feathering in" the two long blasts rather than just laying into the whistle valve.

I think it is just a personal adaption of the prescribed grade crossing signal.

--Jim