sound car

[rustycoupler]

Has anyone made a sound car using a coal hopper car?

[brokemoto]

Considering that for a steam locomotive, the sound usually goes in the tender, I would expect that a hopper would work well.  The question would be how to power it.

You could buy a Kato caboose, take  off the live trucks and  put them onto the hopper.  If you run cabooses, you could replace the live trucks on the Kato caboose with something else.  Kato used to sell the trucks separately, but they usually run out quickly once they put more in stock.

Micro-Trains has announced electrically live trucks, but, as far as I know, they have not issued them yet.

Sometimes you can get SPECTRUM tender trucks from B-mann's parts department, but that is hit or miss.  I understand that they take them off returned items, so if someone has returned something when you put in your request, you get them.

I would shy from using front tender trucks from the Standard Line USRA 0-6-0/2-6-2.  While they are live, and the electrical contact is not unreliable (mostly), their design creates a large amount of drag.  If you were to use those trucks, you would probably need at least two locomotives for a medium sized freight train.  That would not be unheard-of, in the prototype world, but still......

I have not tried it, but I would expect that it could be done.  If you consider that someone managed to get DCC and sound into an Athearn/MDC 1880s 2-6-0/2-8-0, this should be easy, in comparison, at least.