Joey the Brit in his review ha suggested that this short picture of a steam whistle at the Westinghouse works in Pittsburgh was not meant to be shown in isolation. That seems likely. It was one of many shorts of similar length shot by Billy Bitzer and released in 1904. Like his series of studies of various operations of the Post Office the previous years, it seems likely to have been conceived of as a series, something to be shown one after another.
Yet is that not a basic step in editing? Our modern techniques of film editing is to show a series of disparate images and let the viewers' minds build up linkages. Indeed, last month TCM showed the surviving material from Orson Welles' 1938 version of TOO MUCH JOHNSON. That seemed to consist of Joseph Cotten and Edgar Barrier clambering over the rooftops of Manhattan in no particular order. Clearly the intent there was to edit this into a chase sequence. That was never done; or, if it was, does not survive.
I suggest that the series of short films that Bitzer produced of the Westinghouse Works was intended to be edited into a single film. It just never got done; or, if it was, was lost, leaving this one of many disjoint actualities.