Most SP cab forwards used the standard SP 6 chime whistle. When they were smokebox mounted, they did not use the lever/rope pull type valve. They instead used an air actuating valve in the cab and an air valve to blow the whistle. This resulted in the whistle being either on or off only and the engineers could not quill the valve and "play" the whistle.


Tom, I've got one of those 6 chime whistles as well. LB did not stand for long bell. LB stood for "Locomotive Bronze" and 9299 was the pattern number. There was a system in SP's Sacramento pattern shop to denote what pattern went for what application. When the pattern went to the foundry, whoever was setting the molds and calling for the material didn't even need to look at the spec card, they just had to look at the pattern to tell them what material to use.

I've got a steel SP short 5 chime and the pattern number on it starts out with LS, meaning "Locomotive Steel". When I helped restore the 2467, we found LI, LS, LB and LA on tons of parts that were made in SAC. Here's what most pattern prefixes stood for.

LI Locomotive Iron
LS Locomotive Steel
LB Locomotive Bronze
LA Locomotive Aluminum