The New Year's Day WHISTLE BLOW

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34540 Sherwood Drive Solon, Ohio 44139

As I stared at the clock, which illuminated the fact it was 5:00 a.m. on January 1, 1995, I knew what I had to do! Slowly and quietly I dressed so not to awaken the host and hostess of the house and walked out into the dark rainy morning and there before me stood my 1923 Farquhar portable steam engine. It was the first of January but temperature was well into the fifties. Back in November my friend Hank Marsilio, a steam whistle collector, approached me with the idea of having a New Year's Day whistle blow. Since I have the engine stored behind his house, I really could not say no, even if the thought ever crossed my mind. After about 45 minutes of struggling with a dying flashlight I finally had all the hand holes in and tightened up. The water hose was stretched out from the house and I started to fill the boiler; while the boiler filled I stripped off the tarps, folded and placed them in Hank's garage. At 9:00 a.m. we started a fire, and by 10:15 a.m. the steam pressure gauge read 20 pounds. Hank and I stuffed the fire box full of wood and went to his business, H.M. Eagle Boiler, Welding, and Machine Shop Service on Steel Street in Youngstown, to get the steam whistle manifold he had completed the night before. When we arrived back to his house at 11:00 a.m., the steam gauge only read 40 pounds!

Feverishly we worked to get de cent pressure for the noon whistle blow. Luckily we can leave pieces long since my firebox is 2 feet wide and 4 feet long; as you might have guessed, my engine is rather large. The engine is 10 inch by 16 inch and turns a four-foot diameter flywheel and a six-foot diameter flywheel with a working pressure of 125 psi. The engine and boiler are in excellent condition and have been used very little since she was built in 1923 and carries a Pennsylvania certificate for 125 psi. Slowly the pressure rose and at noon we had 80 psi and Hank let loose his five inch three chime Powell. That was only the beginning.

Hank being a boilermaker by trade and holding A.S.M.E. 'R' & 'S' stamps, fabricated his own whistle manifold. The manifold was capable of holding 10 whistles connected to ball valves ranging from 2, 1, 1, 1, and inch, so various size whistles can be quickly attached or removed without having to shut down the entire manifold. Hank Marsilio is an avid steam whistle collector and currently his collection is about 30 whistles. He has a five-chime whistle off a locomotive from the Pennsylvania Railroad, which Was re ported to be heard ten miles away when we had a mini whistle blow in November.