John M. Prophet's Webster-Chicago 288-1 Wire Recorder

This video take an in-depth look at the Webster-Chicago wire recorder; specifically the one owned and operated by John M. Prophet when he made his railroad sound recordings from 1948-1955.
To hear more of John's recordings, please listen to the Living with Steam podcast, which can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[@RetiredEE]

Really interesting! Have you used any post-processing software like one of the many noise reduction packages available? Thank you for making these recordings available for so many yo hear 🙂

[@wrakca6049]

Wow!! all I can say

[@gonebamboo4116]

This was great. I have really been enjoying your Living With Steam series.

[@LivingwithSteam]

Thanks very much for listening... and watching.

[@StephenCarlBaldwin]

Great illustration of what pioneering audio archivists had to deal with. Thanks for making this video!

[@findingnino]

My dad had one.

[@LivingwithSteam]

Do you still have the wires he used? If so, get them digitized! There could be priceless family mementos on them.

[@findingnino]

@@LivingwithSteam Na my sis sold everything when he died.

[@jim874]

Love the channel. Hope you keep adding to it. Did John ever venture beyond Western NY? I was born in 1948 and I always love to see footage of railroading back then. There is a guy who does the Wide World of Trains channel on KZbin who has around 5,000 or so videos of trains around Dunkirk, NY. Sorta a like a modern John Prophet. I wonder what John would think about all the KZbin railroad fan channels that people have up.

[@LivingwithSteam]

Oh… I can bet he’d LOVE all the railfan videos. If you think about it, the first generation of railfans only had 8mm or 16mm movies, photos, record cutters, and wire recorders. If you wanted to see rail “videos” from other folks, you had to initiate a trade from an ad in a magazine (like Railroad Stories), or borrow from a fellow railfan. The internet brings ALL of that and more into your living room. If John wanted to watch a film about the PRR, he’d simply click and watch; not shoot it himself. But with that said, John had an INCREDIBLE collection of railfan videos on VHS in addition to original promotional films on 16mm. He had so much, he could have easily started his own KZbin channel. And I most certainly plan on adding more videos to the channel. Unfortunately I’m a one-man band with a demanding day job.

[@jim874]

@@LivingwithSteam Oh I hear you about the job. I guess it takes a long time to put together and edit a 20-40 minute You Tube show. I know about filming stuff. Never had a movie camera, but a lot of 35mm slides. I say a lot, but as I think back, I wish I took 2 or 3 times more pictures than what I did. As a kid, I was very frugal with the limited number of shots I had the money to buy and the pay to get developed. And I ruined about half of them... blurred from moving the camera, or taking a picture of something that, when I got the pictures back from the developer I couldn't figure out WHAT that was! Now with just my cell phone I shot EVERYTHING

[@jeffshorts6052]

Amazing I never knew a wire recording device even existed. I can remember the old reel to reel tape recorder. Neat video of time capturing.

[@LivingwithSteam]

I had the same reaction when John first told me that he made recordings using a wire recorder. I remember saying to him, “you mean a tape recorder?” He replied, “No. A wire recorder recorded on a stainless steel wire about the size of a human hair.” I looked at him like he had two heads. I was an audio engineer and had NEVER heard of a wire recorder before. Now I own two. 😄