The Siren Board

I've always wondered why people say this 1003 is so special. It doesn't look like or sound like there is anything that makes it unique, but people still say it is and it gets A LOT of recordings. Does anyone know why it's so special? I think it could be it's age, or it has a 6M blower, but I'm not so sure.

Well the Mineola 1003 used to have this kind of design which people found it very interesting and cool, but the fire station was rebuilt, so the 1003 is yellow as of now, but before it was repainted it looked like this.

Is that the only reason why it’s so special? I know it used to be painted like this before it was painted yellow again.

Well, it does hi-lo every day at 6PM. I'd consider that special, since it's rare for any siren to do hi-lo, not even considering the fact that it goes off daily.

A few years ago, a bunch of recordings of this particular thunderbolt started to appear on YouTube. I believe then people started to gain significant interest in it, as it had a unique paint scheme, and ran Hi-Lo. It's also a Thunderbolt on Long Island, which is near New York City, so an active Thunderbolt that close to a metropolitan area would also gain a lot of attention.

It's very similar to why the Silverstreet Thunderbolt is so over-recorded and foamed over. It performs a rare signal with both solenoids working, it tests reliably and regularly, and is unique due to its (former) paintjob and overall appearance. It's easy to record since it tests daily, and has a pretty unique sound due to running on such a low chopper level. All makes for a very foam-able siren for most enthusiasts.

It honestly isn't. It's been insanely overhyped like so many things.

It might be because the horn is bent. Or maybe it’s because it has a 1000T horn and the 1003 horns are shorter.

My take would be that its because it is very easy to record. It does Hi Lo everday at 6pm, So that would make it an easy siren to record, which is probably why it is recorded a lot, It even has a very (formerly) unique paint job considering its very rare to find a siren with a unique paint job that performs hi-lo daily.