I have a large scale passenger set....Virginia & Truckee. I took the engine and tender to my local hobby shop and had them put DCC and sound in it. Wow!! I am really glad I did! Runs alot better and the sounds of the chuffing and bell and whistle really set it off. Was not that expensive to have it done. The cost of the DCC & sound was around $100.00 and the installation was about $40.00. Took the hobby shop less than a week to do it. I have another large scale engine that I am going to take there and have done. The sound makes all the difference!

      The reversing board that is in the Williams tender with sound. How do they control the engine? I dont see any wiring running from the tender to the engine. Does it operate the engine through the power in the rails? I assume the tender is a pullalong unit Also is it possible to connect a Railsounds unit to the board plugged in like the Williams unit is without burning up the board or the railsounds unit?

   Hi there,

     I have a Southern Steamer that I would like to add the Southern Crescent Limited decals to including the crescent moons. This would be for an O-scale engine. I thought I saw them one time on the Net but I have looked and now I cant seem to find them. If anyone would happen to know a company/site that carries them, would you please point me in that direction.

Thanks!

UPDATE!!!!

     I was in luck yesterday! I was on Ebay and found a NEW in the box unmarked Lionel tender. A body swap is all I'll need. The tender has RailSounds in it so it should be just what I am looking for. Must be an older one cause it has the single wire coming out of it just like mine. I will keep you informed.

    Also, ya that foam was just about dust when I took the tender apart. There was enough left to keep the board from touching the metal bottom. I put a new piece of foam in it anyway but it still BUZZES alot.

Hi there Len,

   I just purchased a mint in the box Lionel Southern Crescent steamer from 1978-1979. Really cool! However, I put it on the track and the tender has this loud buzzing noise and then the chuffing comes on, if you want to call it that. The sound unit from Williams would be a good replacement for this engine. I called Lionel and asked for a SOS circuit board and they were less than helpful.
    My SOS unit in the tender has the speaker kind of standing up on an angle. It snaps into a bracket like you described. There are two wires from the speaker to the board, another wire from the board that goes down through the bottom of the tender to the rear truck and another wire that plugs into a wire coming out of the engine. So which wire from the Williams unit pugs into the engine and which one plugs into the wheel pickup.
     Oh! And any ideas on how to quiet the engine down. Those gears on the engine's wheels are a bit noisy too.

Thanks!!

   Just a couple of questions:

   Has anyone fitted end of car rubber diaphragms to Williams heavyweight passenger cars without any major modifications?

   Also, I see alot of Williams heavyweight Southern Crescent passenger cars out there for sale. Some ads show them with green matching roofs and some show them with black roofs. Both are listed under #43461. How can BOTH colors be listed under one part#?

    Does Williams or some other manufacturer make passenger car diaphragms to fit Williams heavyweight passenger cars? I know MTH sells them but dont know if they will fit Williams cars. K-line used to sell them also. Anyone found any for their cars?
Thanks,
New Choochoo

Good afternoon,
   I was in touch with Soundtraxx. They still do not offer a large scale decoder but did recommend a solution. I can use the TSU-1000 for sound only and then use a separate decoder to run the engine. I do have a Digitraxx DG583S decoder rated at 5+ amps. That should be enough to run the engine. I'll have to sit down and take a look at all this and see if that will work.

Good afternoon everyone,

    I have been doing some investigating online. Before I spend alot of money on this sound upgrade, I think I will try some inexpensive things to see how things sound and go with the installation. I see that Digitrax offers a DH465 decoder rated at 4+amps and it also has a provision for adding a SFX064D soundbug. Reading further, I see that I can use the 8 ohm speaker that is in the tender as that should work instead of the 32 ohm tiny one that comes with the SFX064D. This should get me going as to what will work. Being indoors I dont need to blast the sound. Any thoughts? I just dont want to get an expensive unit right off the bat and destroy it.

Good morning guys!
    Thanks for all the responses. I really appreciate them.
  My layout is flat, with no inclines. Running a Large Scale "G" train indoors takes up alot of room. Luckily I have a large finished basement that was being unused. I made the layout kind of a LARGE loop type. Large table at one end and the track travels from there along two of the walls to another large table at the other end and then back. Actually it is like a large "L" shape. I work on it now and then. Its not going to be anything fancy.
   I have been watching the SoundTraxx site. I see they have a couple of sections for large scale trains but I haven't seen anything develop with an offering for decoders for the large scale. I may just have to send them an inquiry as to when they will be coming out with a decoder for large scale.
    I visited the site for the beefed up SoundTraxx decoders. That looks like something promising. I will check out the MRC units as well. My train has 4-5 passenger cars and I have done some upgrading to the cars....replaced the grab handles and end railing with the blackened metal ones. I had the knuckle couplers installed but found that they tend to uncouple on some uneven track, so I went back to the other style that came with the cars. I know I can always fix the knuckle couplers so that they are permanently closed.
     I will let you know what decoder I will go with. Any other ideas, please let me know.

As I suspected,the Soundtraxx 1amp decoder would be a bad choice. The Digitrax 5amp decoder would be better. Now that just leaves the sound part. The chuff in the tender is so so,and I would really like to upgrade it and get a better sound plus a whistle and bell. Is there a way to add a sound decoder? Do I still have to be concerned with going over the 1 amp limit? Who makes a decoder with sound  that will work in the large scale? Thanks for all the replies guys!

   Hi there all,
    I have a Bachmann Big Hauler Steamer 4-6-0 that I would like to add a decoder and sound to. I was thinking along the lines of the Digitraxx DG583S so it can handle the amps if it should go over 1.0 amp. Would there be a way to add a chuff,whistle and bell to the engine activated by the buttons on the controller. I currently have the Bachmann Dynamis system with the 5amp booster to power the train. I also have a Soundtraxx 1000 Tsunami but it is only rated at 1amp and I don't know if the engine would draw more than that and burn up the decoder. The engine is fairly new,1-2 yrs old,hardly been used. A Virginia & Truckee. Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.
   I talked to a hobby shop locally and they are not sure if the large scale could handle the 1amp decoder.

   I just purchased two new Bachmann manual switches #'s 94351 & 94352. When I installed them with new Bachmann track, they seem to be a bit different. The shape of the rail on the switches seems to be a bit different than the track that is connecting to them. When the engine and cars pass over them there is a BUMP at the connection and the train is kind of rocky as it passes over. The switches work ok but I would expect a better connection for the price. Think they are defective as in made wrong?

No not yet. I may work on that tomorrow. I think I know how to hook them up although I am not really sure. Will give it a try.

    Well I have been working on the train layout this week. All the track arrived and I have been busy laying it out. One thing I did find is that all NEW track necessarily isn't made right. The engine seemed to have a problem going around a couple of the curves, like the drive wheels were binding with the track. I narrowed it down to the section causing the problem and replaced it with another piece and that took care of it.

     The power supply that came with this set, surely is NOT large enough. I do have the Bachmann 44902 but have an idea that I am going to need the 5 amp booster to go with it. Once in the past when I ran LS I used an MRC 6200 power supply and that gave the engine enough oomph to move good!

   As far as sound.....I would like to add a whistle and bell to the chuffing it already has. I don't know if I want to go with DCC though. I am finding that Digitrax is about the only one that offers a decoder large enough to handle the LS....5amps......and that is a motor and function decoder only. I can add the SoundBug and get the sounds but I am not sure what to do. I just want to be able to push a button or two and get the whistle and bell sounds. So many decisions!! LOL!! Any suggestions??