Just a guess on my part, but this could have come indirectly from the late Graham Hardy, who at one time had a rather extensive array of railroadianna for sale. Back when he had his sales or auctions (I can't remember), I was a lot younger and didn't have the money to make serious attempts to try to acquire that stuff. The late Bill Pennington told me that some of his whistles ended up with Graham who lived in or around Reno IIRC.