Ok, I stopped at my LHS today and bought a Bachmann Thomas engine in HO scale. I also purchased a Digitrax N scale SDN144PS sound decoder. When I got home I heated up the soldering iron and soldered 4 wires with shrink wrap drilled a few small holes in the back of Thomas's tender and stuck the itty bitty speaker that comes with the decoder to the back wall of the tender. I used my Digitrax PR3 programmer and soundloader and used the BR class "light prairie tank" sound project and added a wav file of thomas's horn to the project. Downloaded the sounds and Thomas is happily running around my shelf layout. I was worried that the tiny speaker would be insufficient but it is perfect! Thanks to another forum for the decoder suggestion. He needs a little break in time but the horn brings a smile to my face everytime. He could still use a headlight and taillight in the future. Perhaps a bit of extra weight too. This will be great when my nieces and nephews come for a visit. This was a very simple conversion only 4 wires to solder from the Bachmann circuit board to the decoder. Bachmann was kind enough to leave plenty of wire to make the connections easy. Here is a youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDSbVQgVfec to show how to make the conversion (without sound). Next I gotta find a sound clip from youtube of Thomas saying "Bust my Buffers" and add that sound.
-Art
-Art