Wet your whistle on the Pennsylvania Railroad

[halfdime]

Last week I thought I had finally found privies associated with a 19th century homesite in the neighborhood where I grew up. We had pinpointed the location of the house from old maps and aerial photos and found side by side evidence of two privies a perfect distance from "the house." We probed and could feel and hear evidence of civilization down there. Everything was perfect, except the probe didn't go as deep as expected. So we dug, and quickly found broken glass and other relics. A colored marble fell out (six so far), we found remnants of toys, two milk bottles, lots of cool stuff. At about two feet, we ran into a solid clay layer and hopes of these being privies flew out the window. Still, we were finding interesting items so we continued digging and yesterday started sifting. The coolest find of the day was this brass Pennsylvania Railroad conductor's whistle, or at least that's what the evidence points to. Unless, of course, it belonged to Phillip Richard Robertson or something.

 

[I-DIG-IT]

Nice digs. I don't think they would hear a whistle, engines would be to loud, that's why they use lanterns, I could be wrong, cool whistle either way.

 

[jwarner51]

Conductors commonly used whistles. I'd say you found one congrats!

 

[Kiros32]

Let me know if you need some help!

 

[CoinandRelicMan]

Thats a nice whistle and a good story also, would be worth trying to find out more information about it.

 

[stefen]

When digging privies, remember not to blow whistles and don't bite your nails...

 

[Old Dude]

When digging privies, remember not to blow whistles and don't bite your nails...

I thought that was the requirement for being a plumber, but it works here as well!
Good find. Not something you see posted often so great job!