I have a delema, I want to get the Atlas GP40 that has onboard DCC installed. but it does not have sound. The GP40 that I want is a road name that I havent found anyone else do, the Vermont Railway. I just got off the phone with Tony’s trains. and they told me to get sound in there, it would be best to take the decoder right out and get a Soundtraxx DSDAT100LC decoder that does power and sound. it would run me $80. The best price i can find on a VT railway GP40 is $75. So i have $160 total involved. plus me doing the work installing the decoder, which i have never done before.
the other option is to get a Proto 2K GP30 that has a DCC decoder and QSI sound installed already. I found one of these for $160. Now, its not the right road name, so I would have to take the shell and re-paint it and get decals for the VT railway.
So, my question is, which would be the better route to go? money wise its no difference, so its just the work involved i guess.
is there a difference in quality between these two makes? that could influence my choice too.
Painting an engine is pretty easy, unless swapping the decoder in the atlas is realy easy too, although I will need to install the speaker too, somewhere.
Other idea would be to get the Proto 2K and at a local train show find a shell of the VT railway gp40 and see if it will fit on the Proto’s chassis. anyone know if they will? I doubt they will.
The ATLAS GP 40 shell will not fit on a PROTO GP30 chassis as the GP40 is longer than a GP30. As for getting the PROTO GP30 and painting it for Vermont, you could do that, but, I don’t believe Vermont ever rostered any GP30’s so it would not be accurate. It is your RR though, so, if that is what you want, it is up to you.
if its not, then i will just get the atlas GP-40…although, really we are not that strict about having our VT railways engine the EXACT same as prototype. so I could get away with just painting the GP-30
The decoder in the Atlas comes out pretty easy. It clips on to the top of the motor, and the wires are held in with those little black clips. You will need to remove the weights to get it apart, but they come out with a screw. Not sure of the room inside to put the speakers in. I believe the MRC sound decoder will also fit, snaps into the motor mounts. Again, the speakers might be a problem.
The factory Atlas paint is very good. It would be very hard to do a better job yourself.
The Atlas drive is most excellent. The P2K drives can be hit or miss.
I think you’d prefer the QSI sound if you heard them side-by-side. I’ve got a self-installed Soundtraxx in an Alco RS-3, which is fine, but the QSI in my P2K SW-8 has a nicer sound, and more options to play with.
Installing a different decoder is usually easy. But, putting a speaker in an engine that wasn’t designed for one can be quite a problem. Some engines have room inside, but many newer engines are intentionally filled with extra weight so they will pull better. The only way to get a speaker in some of these is to machine down some of the weight, which will reduce their pulling capacity (maybe not by much, depending on how much needs to come out.) It may not be an easy job.
Also, if the non-sound engines has extra features like ditch lights, then the replacement decoder likely will not be able to drive them.
I have a Pk 0-8-0 with the QSI sound, I think its really nice.
if the GP-30 is as nice, then painting it red and doing the logo’s would be the easiest thing. Even if VT railway doesnt have a GP-30, we wont mind much, we are not too hung up on that.