In this episode of Living with Steam, you’ll hear the recording John Prophet made in Cove, Pennsylvania; a small town located between Duncannon and Marysville. In John’s mind, the Cove recordings were an absolute disaster due to the ever-present truck traffic that, at times, seemed louder than the train activity. But were the Cove recordings really that bad? Listen and find out for yourself.

On July 26, 1951, John spent the entire day recording the non-stop activity of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s busy commuter line that ran through Palmyra, New Jersey. In my opinion, the recorded material John captured in Palmyra is some of his finest work.

This episode of Living with Steam features recordings John made at the Pennsylvania Railroad Passenger station while visiting friends in Trenton, NJ on July 27, 1951. As a bonus, the episode also features recordings John made during the last week Pennsylvania Railroad steam engines were used to pull passenger trains in and out of Buffalo.

This episode of LwS EXTRA introduces the railroad sound recordings John made after 1955 using magnetic tape rather than his wire recorder. The recordings featured are from a tape John called “PRR Diesels, 1970.”