My Father-in-law and Mother-in-law came over on the 25th for the unwrapping of the presents and a great dinner my wife cooked. But the highlight of the day was my train under the tree. My inlaws are from New York (Poughkeepsie) and they both remember the New York Central painted in the grey lightning bolt scheme. Under the tree I had the MTH ABA F3 in those colors pulling the NYC heavyweight 70’ scale cars from Lionel. I had the whole train behind the tree, so they got to hear and see it pull out from around the tree. The part that really blew them away was the Protosound 2 announcements. They were amazed to hear a New York ACCENT in the voices!!! A VERY cool touch from MTH. [8D]
MTH has gotten much better at this than when PS1 was their main stay. Those guys sounded like they were reading from a Sears catalog. The newer announcements definitely have local flair. The Pittsburgh trolleys always had that Burgh dialect. Glad you had a great Christmas!
Marty: Hope you had a great Christmas too [:D]! I just grabbed a new MTH PS1 FM Trainmaster (Jersey Central) off E-bay. I was wondering about what the sounds will be like. Can you give me a hint? I fully plan on updating/upgrading to PS2 on it when I get some $$$ together. The sellers did install a new battery and tested everything for function before putting it up for bid. Is the speech at least understandable? I have a BIG gripe with Lionel and their CrewTalk…which seems to come out as “gobble-gobble” every time it plays. Good for Thanksgiving…not so good for train operation
Eric: Not sure if you will get a Texas drawl on the T&P locos. Would be kind cool if you heard “All aboard…I reckon we’re departin directly at the station over yonder”. Yeeee Hawww!!! [(-D]
Colin: Yep…I don’t doubt what you say. But check their ad in the catalog:
RailSounds 5.0 sound system with new intelligible CrewTalk dialogue, more TowerCom announcements, and eight diesel RPM levels.
It’s a high end loco It’s LOADED with options…
TrainMaster Command Control equipped - able to run in Command Control Mode or in Conventional Transformer Control Mode
Odyssey System for speed control with ON/OFF switch
Directional lighting, including LED headlights
Operating marker lights
Front and rear ElectroCouplers
Dual powerful maintenance-free motors with momentum flywheels
Magne-Traction track gripping system
Traction tires
Fan-driven smoke system
Die-cast metal trucks, pilots, and fuel tank
Metal frame
Separately applied metal details
Illuminated number boards
Illuminated cab interior
It all depends on how much you spend for the loco/set as far as whether you can understand the CrewTalk or not. Lionel is still installing the “gobble-gobble” stuff in their lower end locos.