If portable tape recorders weren't available until around 1955, how did John Prophet capture his railroad sounds beginning in 1948? We'll learn all about the Webster-Chicago wire recorder in this episode and how John was able to work around its limitations in order to make the recordings featured on Living With Steam. This is portable "home recording" in its infancy and we'll explore how it was done.

Before 1948, when portable sound recording devices came on the market, the only way for a Railroad Enthusiast like John Prophet to capture and preserve their love of trains was to use a still camera or a movie camera. What types of cameras were used and how difficult was it to capture a moving train using an old-fashioned 8mm movie camera?  Featured in this episode are recordings from Bay View Tower in Blasdell, NY.

In this episode, we’ll take a look at why archival preservation on film or audio recording device is such a necessity. Since we’re interested in the railroad industry of Buffalo, why was it so important to take pictures or make sound recordings of trains?  Why did people find the need to preserve anything especially if what they were interested in was so common and thought to never go away? If the railroad industry was such an important part of American lives, why did most of it seem to disappear so quickly?

Welcome to Living With Steam. This bi-weekly podcast features the sounds of railroading in Buffalo and Western New York from 1948 to 1955. The recordings featured in this program were captured in the field by John Prophet using a portable wire-recorder; a technology that many people have never heard of. Regardless of how "lo-fi" they may be, these recordings capture an element of industrial history that has long since vanished from Buffalo, NY. 

Each episode contains stories about how the recordings were made in addition to how my involvement with the archiving of the wires came to be. Some historical information about Buffalo's railroad history is woven in as well. 

Please note that although these recordings center around Buffalo and other locations in Western New York, if you are a lover of authentic steam engine and railroad sounds will thoroughly enjoy what you'll hear.