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Recordist's notes
This is a heart-warmingly old rail barrier system, where the train stops, one of the drivers get out, walks to a handle by the crossing and rotates it. Bells ring, the barrier descends and traffic stops. The train then crosses and halts again. The man raises the barriers and returns to the train, which continues its journey. A nice, and very human, consequence is that the timing of bells is determined by how fast the handle is turned and slows as the they get lower. It sounds different every time. This line takes slow industrial trains once or twice a day. It would be madness for high speed tracks. This sound was suggested by Marie, who grew up in the area and tells that kids were taught to stop when they heard the bells but, of course, do the opposite, running to pass the descending barriers so they do not have to wait. This also happened during the recording. A woman with a dog started hurrying when the bells rang, but the man at the handle told her to take it easy,"langzam, langzam (slowly, slowly)" he kindly says, and gives her a moment to cross. There are two recordings of the bells on this track - in reality they happened 25min apart.
About the place
Braunschweig is a city of about 244,715 people in Lower Saxony, Germany. OttoAnna lists 165 field recordings from here.
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Sources & credits
- “Bells of an ancient train barrier, lowered by human hand, Schuntersiedlung - Braunschweig, 38112 Braunschweig, Germany - Bells of an ancient rail barrier, lowered by human hand” by Peter Cusack – Public Domain Mark · radio aporee ::: maps via Internet Archive
- Reverse geocoding: GeoNames – CC BY 4.0