Long ago there was someone that liked to play practical jokes. One was getting his own park bench built. He took it to the park, set it up, laid down and pretended to sleep. When a cop rousted him, he got up, picked up the bench and started walking off. The cop was a bit consternated. Fortunately the guy had a bill of sale for the bench.
One of his other tricks was driving to a town with no railroad anywhere close and playing the sound of a train going through town in the middle of the night. That always got lights turned on.
He also had a trash can made out of an elephant’s foot that he used to make tracks around water supply reservoirs. Then he called the water company and complained about the taste of the water.
If I call them to come out, I'm sure it would not run at the time they are here.
We lived about eight miles from the closest train when I was a kid and heard trains on a regular basis. A buddy of mine got and air compressor, a train horn and mounted them under his hood. That made people move over!
There are some guys in Mesa that have a fully functioning train air horn mounted under their car with a large compressor system in the trunk.
We live in the hilly foothills of California and sounds bounce all over the place here. We’ve heard roofers pounding on nails from blocks away that sounded like they were in our backyard. I not only hear trains and the clak-clak of the rails from a few miles away, I hear simis downshifting on a grade miles and miles away.
My grandparents lived a block from a major freight crossing, as a child I was deathly terrified at night because I could hear the trains and SEE the lights from my bed. I thought the trains were coming through the house.
Grandparents are long gone but the sounds of trains at night at strangely comforting now.
It could be a Ghost Train. We had one near our house about 20 years ago.
When I was just a baby
My Mama told me “Son
Never eat green hamburger
Or you will get the runs”
But I took a bite in Reno
Just to give it a try
Now when I hear that whistle blowing
I hope my underwear’s dry.
She was drunk.
By the way, was it a whistle, as in a steam engine, or a horn, as in a diesel?
Don’t forget that there’s a narrow gauge steam railroad at Scottsdale and Indian Bend in the McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park.
We have some idiot locally who equipped his pickup truck with a horn that sounds like a train whistle. Scares the carp out of you if you hear it close by in traffic. Perhaps he is driving in your neighborhood too.
When I was a kid, my parents had a record of train sounds; one side steam, the other side diesel-electric.
Maybe one of your neighbors has a copy of it.
Travel
The railroad track is miles away,
And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn’t a train goes by all day
But I hear its whistle shrieking.
All night there isn’t a train goes by,
Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming,
But I see its cinders red on the sky,
And hear its engine steaming.
My heart is warm with friends I make,
And better friends I’ll not be knowing;
Yet there isn’t a train I wouldn’t take,
No matter where it’s going.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Something about train whistles in the night. It can carry for miles. We lived about as far from the train tracks in the Almaden area of San Jose, and could hear the train way in the distance in the still of the night - at least 7 or 8 miles miles away.
Yes it is possible to hear a train whistle for long distances.
It is also possible you have a neighbor similar to ourselves out here in the sticks that has a trucking service, and has mounted a train air horn on his truck. Sounds just like a locomotive when he passes his friends ranch up the valley about a half mile from here as he honks, and waves.
Yup, I can hear one from about 8 or 9 miles away at night sometimes.
That’s not a train, it’s a snowbird lost on Squaw Peak.
Barometric pressure...
When the pressure is low, (potential rain), it's like a lid was put on the atmosphere and pressed down...Everything goes sideways instead of up, including sound, and smoke...
Coyote hunters. Coyotes respond to train whistles