I witnessed this Siemens locomotive depart yesterday and for a second I thought I was losing my mind. Then, I smiled so hard:

Turns out, the startup melody was intentional in this particular model. The power converters have to adapt the current from the overhead line to convert it to the three-phase motors of the locomotive, and that generates a rising tone. The engineers decided to change the logic to increment the tone in precise few steps resembling a musical scale, rather than allowing it to rise continuously.

I debated whether to include this on Unsung. I guess it is software, even if it’s attached to the hardest of hardware. And sure, it’s “just” delightful, but it is still kind of nice to see someone go extra, adding a human touch atop a technical process that had to happen anyway.

But then, it reminded me of something. No, not the poor CSIRAC trying (and similarly struggling) to become a musician. Rather, a “musical road” built in Lancaster, California, where the engineers messed up the execution, creating a truly unpleasant, atonal melody. David Simmons-Duffin wrote a fun essay in 2008 analyzing the “bug” thoroughly, including useful visuals, and even replicating the problem. Subsequently, Tom Scott visited the road and made a video about it ten years later.

It won’t surprise you that the cause of the bug was bad hand-off between designers and engineers, but there can be no software patch for grooves you cut in asphalt – and so at least as of last year, the embarrassingly sounding road was still there.

I think I prefer my out-of-tune musical scale performed by a train. Given it’s easy to find compilation videos of Siemens locomotives booting up, it seems I’m not alone.