Freesound Forums

To complete work on an amateur thatre production, I'm looking for the sound of an old manually operated railway switch, the sound made when the points change to redirect a train. I've found a great example on YouTube, if it wasn't for the fact that it's a crossing that operates electrically and quietly. I need definite mechanical "Click" as they change.

This is not exactly what you are looking for, but I uploaded some metal lever-sounds of an old tractor, perhaps there's something usable.

https://freesound.org/people/YleArkisto/sounds/333999/

Best regards
Merja / Yle Archives

Thanks, I was going to search for levers, clicks and so forth, once I had some time and had figured out which would be bthe best key words. I think your samples are probably usable enough for what I'm after. Everybody "knows" what kind of sound railway points changing makes, but hardly anyone has ever actually heard it happen, so what I need to give them is the kind of sound they're expecting. I think I can make something by pasting together various parts of your sample to make a suitable slide and click noise. Thanks again for your suggestion.

Hi again

Today I had more time to check our soundfx-collection more closely and I found some authentic recordings of manual railway swifts.

They are old mono-recordings from 1971 and the sound is not very brilliant, but anyway you can get an idea how the swift really sounds.

I uploaded two slightly different examples.

https://freesound.org/people/YleArkisto/sounds/334138/
https://freesound.org/people/YleArkisto/sounds/334139/

Best regards
Merja / Yle Archives

Thank you so much for these, exactly what I was looking for. Being mono and archive recordings is fine, I can easily convert them to stereo and mix them in with some other ambience to create the effect that will be needed.