2013-01-10

Subway


An increasingly rare sound: a T1 subway car running southbound on the Spadina line.

Recorded between St. Clair West and Dupont station, this section of track includes the curving descent down Russell Hill, location of the fatal 1995 subway crash, as the tunnel drops under the Davenport ridge. I was sitting in the last set of seats of the fourth (of six) cars, with the recorder roughly equally spaced between the side of the car and the cab. Recorded shortly after 10pm on a Wednesday night, the train was fairly quiet and uncrowded.

I've added a short fade at both ends of the audio track, being careful not to step on the sounds of the door mechanism, and normalized the audio as I had left more headroom than necessary when I set the recording level. It was also my first time using the Rycote suspension mount that they make for hand-held recorders, which seems to work very well.