World Listening Day: abandoned railroad tunnel
Some of our favourite sounds on Cities and Memory are from hard-to-reach, obscure parts of the world, and Erik Gould’s contribution to our World Listening Day project certainly ticks that box.
Here’s a field recording from an abandoned railroad tunnel in Providence, Rhode Island – Erik describes the scene:
“This tunnel was constructed in 1908 and was abandoned in the early 1980s. Since then it has become more and more cavelike with deposits forming on the roof and ground and a distinct sulphur smell in the air.”
“There is a lot of water there as well, dripping everywhere, with large standing pools in places and small slow moving streams along the old rail bed.”
His reimagined sound seems to imagine the tunnel still operational, bursting with human and mechanical life, as imaginary machinery works inside, ebbing and flowing with a metallic pulse.
City version:
Memory version:
