The Siren Board

I don't know why Federal wouldn't paint a siren a color the customer wanted, but most sirens that aren't yellow or gray are probably customer-painted. If a customer was ordering a number of sirens, then I can't imagine a siren company not being totally accommodating.

I grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, part of the DC area's huge (almost 500 unit) Thunderbolt system. We had one black Thunderbolt, which was on the roof of Alexandria City Hall, a Colonial building with a black domed roof right in the middle of Old Town. Civil Defense required sirens to be yellow, but I'm sure the city fathers were able to get an exception in the name of historical preservation. I know I never saw any other color but yellow but that one single siren.

wow folks--thanks for the help and info!

here's a pic I snapped today of this white siren:


bigloudnoise, thanks for your side-by-side comparison of the two types of T-bolts...I thought a person would have to hear the siren in order to discern which style it would be!

Mr.Thunderbolt, this siren does work. It blasts every first Wednesday of the month, and if memory serves me, it does the alert signal first followed by attack. Of course, I never knew that's what the sounds were, but after listening to the audio samples provided in this thread, I am pretty darn sure.

Now I'll keep an ear out to see what sound is used during an actual tornado warning.

Interestingly, this siren used to be atop an elementary school a few blocks away from its current location, which is atop a different elementary school. (The original school was demolished.) It was white then (late 1970s) and is still white.

So....after all this, do you suppose white thunderbolts are considered unusual? maybe just not as common as yellow?

Greg Alcorn at Federal Warning told me that most common is Yellow(early on were a bright yellow, then later on "C" series were Caterpillar Yellow) . But there were some custom colors. Like Hawaii were ordered in green, But after the siren was outside for a few years, they get repainted in what ever they city wants or what they have "on-Hand". Like the one in Oak Park, MI is Handicap blue. Also, I saw one at West shore services that was painted red, but you could see where it's original color was yellow.

Oak Park




Red T-bolt



Dark Red Compressor Cabinet



And there were some grey T-bolts there.

tinyshoes wrote:wow folks--thanks for the help and info!

here's a pic I snapped today of this white siren:


bigloudnoise, thanks for your side-by-side comparison of the two types of T-bolts...I thought a person would have to hear the siren in order to discern which style it would be!

Mr.Thunderbolt, this siren does work. It blasts every first Wednesday of the month, and if memory serves me, it does the alert signal first followed by attack. Of course, I never knew that's what the sounds were, but after listening to the audio samples provided in this thread, I am pretty darn sure.

Now I'll keep an ear out to see what sound is used during an actual tornado warning.

Interestingly, this siren used to be atop an elementary school a few blocks away from its current location, which is atop a different elementary school. (The original school was demolished.) It was white then (late 1970s) and is still white.

So....after all this, do you suppose white thunderbolts are considered unusual? maybe just not as common as yellow?

that's a nice picture. It looks like it's been in service for a long time

EL1998P71 wrote:Greg Alcorn at Federal Warning told me that most common is Yellow(early on were a bright yellow, then later on "C" series were Caterpillar Yellow) . But there were some custom colors. Like Hawaii were ordered in green, But after the siren was outside for a few years, they get repainted in what ever they city wants or what they have "on-Hand". Like the one in Oak Park, MI is Handicap blue. Also, I saw one at West shore services that was painted red, but you could see where it's original color was yellow.

WOW, that's a nice bunch 'a thunderbolts there.

michael2572 wrote:WOW, that's a nice bunch 'a thunderbolts there.

AGREED--those are very cool photos!