The announcement of a soon-to-be-published book on steam whistles and
calliopes and the exchange of Mechanical Music Digest and e-mail material
and messages indicate that there is quite a bit of interest in calliopes.
Compared to player pianos, nickelodeons, orchestrions and band organs,
the instruments were never really common and there is still very little
technical information available and almost none on the steamers.

The following bits and scraps of calliope lore have recently surfaced:

It is true that these instruments are always out of tune because the
whistles become larger and longer as they heat up which lowers their
pitch.  But the most serious problem is the universal use of saturated
steam.  As the steam cools down even a little, it condenses back into
water which fills the whistles and the steam pipes (manifolds) and
causes the typical snarling ,spitting, rasping noise.  A simple
superheater made of a coil of stainless steel tubing above the fire
through which the steam passed on its way to the whistles would have
worked wonders.

Plans for air calliopes made of brass tubing or plastic drain and water
pipes are occasionally seen in Home Handyman type publications but few
were made because a full complete range of diameter sizes in copper or
brass pipe stock for whistles was not available and a large machinist's
lathe was usually needed.

Some time ago MBSI published an article on a homemade table-top steam
calliope, which for years made the rounds of organ, steam locomotive,
traction engine and old auto meets and displays in the upper Midwest.
It featured simple brass flute-like pipes, all less than three quarters
of an inch in diameter, powered by a small fire-tube boiler and a
kit-type model steam engine which turned the pinned cylinder.

The design was very similar to another pinned-cylinder steam organ
which played in a unique and very remarkable sidewalk clock (seen
years ago in Vancouver or Victoria, BC, Canada).  Experimental smaller
steam calliopes are rare because of the difficulty in purchasing or
making several dozen small, high-pressure steam whistle valves easily
and smoothly operated by the rather fragile pins on the cylinders.

Caliolas [Wurlitzer] (wooden pipe air calliopes) were never really
mass-produced because they were too loudly-voiced for nearly all indoor
uses and they lacked the waterproofing necessary for parade and other
outdoor performances.  Some very interesting Caliola types have been
made of new wood and we sometimes see instruments made up of higher
pressure old church organ pipes.  See, for example,
http://mmd.foxtail.com/Calliope/freiling.html

The Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin, displays and often
operates a calliope mounted in a large spectacular very old hand carved
circus parade wagon named "The America".  It can be seen and heard
during the annual Independence Day Circus Parade in Milwaukee, along
with a field of other automatic instruments.

It is interesting to observe the visitors who approach this impressive
and spectacular instrument.  Many are very concerned that it might blow
up, as the steam seems to leak, hiss and roar out everywhere and
even the howl and blast of the large industrial oil burner is quite
intimidating.  A steam calliope with its boiler, fuel and water tanks,
its spectacular orange-red firebox, its water pumps pounding, with its
safety valve blowing off and smoke everywhere, all set up and playing
for a large, enthusiastic crowd serves as something of educational and
historical display of the bygone age of steam power.

Steam and air calliope whistles and organ pipes are really simple
enough but boilers seem to be a complete mystery to those born in the
internal combustion age, and a few more words on this subject might be
tolerated here.  The steel sheets and tubes in a boiler will not fail
even under the most intense heat and high pressure as long as there is
always water on one side of all boiler tubes or plates.

Many Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts cook over campfires in "Indian pots"
made of the folded thin bark of the native birch tree.  The water and
the wet bark cannot be heated above 212 degrees F.  An excess of heat
just boils the water away more rapidly and the bark can not reach its
kindling temperature.  (The same thing happens as some types of rockets
enter the earth's atmosphere: the special ceramic material on the
surface boils away, cooling the interior.)

The calliope musician continually checks the boiler water level and
operates his water pump and steam injector as needed, knowing that any
overheated steel will quickly soften and may bulge and tear a hole.
If this simply permitted all the steam to rush out, little harm would
be done but actually _all the water_ in the boiler, which has been
heated up far above its normal boiling temperature, instantly turns
into steam in a thundering bomb-like explosion.

For about the last two hundred years, the steel beams and girders of
new buildings were covered from sub-basement to the roof with plaster,
asbestos or concrete to protect them from the heat of a fire which
would otherwise quickly cause the metal framework of the building to
soften and fail.  In recent years some engineers, architects and
building inspectors seem to have forgotten what they should have
learned in college, as can be seen in the World Trade Center disaster.

Jim Lynch

 [ "The Engine's Moan - American Steam Whistles", by Edward A. Fagen,
 [ is now available from the publisher, Astragal Press; visit
 [ http://www.astragalpress.com/astragal_cat_steamwhistles.htm
 [
 [ Several calliope articles and links are at the MMD Calliope Site,
 [ http://mmd.foxtail.com/Calliope/  A photo of a new steam manifold
 [ and valves is in the article, "Steamboat Delta Queen Calliope".
 [
 [ A system diagram that _outlines_ a modern steam calliope system
 [ suitable for both parade and fairground use (i.e., intended to
 [ be certified, licensed and insured for public performance), is
 [ at http://mmd.foxtail.com/Calliope/Sys/index.html
 [
 [ -- Robbie