A Christmas Yuleblog

From time to time this upcoming Christmas season, I'll be posting some amazing videos that have been rescued by people like us and posted at the mecca of all things wonderful and obscure - YouTube . I invite you to add a fun comment, witticism, clever remark, or observation in the comments section provided. Any comments deemed worthy of repeating will be included into this entry where all the world will see it. Here are more videos of the York, PA steam whistle Christmas concert of 2006 as referred to in my previous post from Marlin L. Ryan. "White Christmas" "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" "Silent Night" "God Bless America" Pity the person who moved into the house across the street... What do you think? Capt

Here's a record that I found at Amazon.com amongst its Christmas LPs for sale. Who knew that you could make Christmas music from a factory steam whistle? Apparently, Marlin L. Ryan, the whistlemaster for the New York Wire Company in York, PA has did just that from 1955 to 1990. The cylindrical, variable pitch whistle is 15 inches long and 5 1/8 inches in diameter. The exact age of the whistle is not known nor was it intended to be a musical instrument. The factory whistle was used to signal the start and end of the workers' shifts and breaks and was part of York's World War II civilian defense alert system. In addition to being an unusual instrument, the Guinness Book of World Records issued a certificate in 2002 stating that the steam whistle produced a peak reading of 134.1dBA during a recording. This qualifies the whistle's songs as the world's loudest music without amplification from a non-­musical instrument. This is a recording of those caro...