When I’m running trains, I’m an 8-year-old kid. I still like blowing whistles, just like I did with my Lionels. Some things never change.
Once I got my first sound engine, I was hooked. For a while, I still ran everything, but I noticed I was leaving the non-sound engines in the roundhouse more and more. I began adding sound to my existing fleet, and now I’ll only buy engines with sound already installed.
But, I haven’t felt the need to equip every engine with sound. I run my road diesels in consists anyway, so I’m generally happy with one sound engine. I have a couple of old Athearn rubber-band drive locos that I’ve converted to sound dummies with the addition of a SoundBug. I’ve got a Bachmann 0-6-0T tank engine that will handle the steam-era switching at the carfloat terminal. Since it’s pretty much confined to that corner of the layout, I put a SoundBug into one of the old mill buildings by the canal and pointed the speaker at the back wall. With the same address as the engine, it’s a pretty good approximation of on-board sound.
With this patchwork quilt of sound, the casual visitor would never know that every engine isn’t sound-equipped. And now, there are no quiet wallflowers left in the roundhouse anymore.
Why get rid of the old loco when you can just add sound to it. That’s what we’ve done. And I’ve found the sound much better than in most OEM sound locos. Typically the locos that come with sound don’t have a premium speaker or great installation, or maybe just 1 speaker whereas we like 2 speakers.
I think OEM sound equipped locos have helped and hurt the cause of sound in HO.
If the decoder craps out the model may not run (depending on type of decoder and what fails) unless the correct electrical jumper piece for DC only operation is installed in its place. Most people do not save that piece when converting engines over to DCC, and some new engines do not come with that piece.
In my case, the engine would work, then not work, then worked again–it didn’t die all at once. When it died, for the new owner, it would not run. I had bought it “brand new” but old stock from 7 years ago, from a trusted friend, then changed my mind about the railroad and sold it a month later. It crapped out immediately for the new owner, but had given me a few problems which I thought a factory reset had fixed. New owner ended up having to buy a new sound decoder and pay somebody to install it for him.
I work in engineering. Every time you add something more complex to the product, that’s one more possible opportunity for failure/future maintenance headache. It’s a simple fact of engineering.
I have a modest layout. Even though I run some fairly long trains, most of the time, I can pull them with a single diesel unit–and I usually buy more than one of most models–so if I need another unit, I just add another of the same thing. So I have no use at all for DCC as I have “multiple unit consisting” in DC, and today’s engines can run nearly as well in plain DC mode.
IMO once you play around with the sound for awhile, as most of us do, just like when we were kids, the novelty simply wears off.
10 engines aren’t that many to convert. It may be many could use the newish Digitrax SDH-164D decoder (came out in the last year or so) that usually can be found for $40-some dollars. Don’t worry about doing it all at once, you can install a sound decoder say every other month and pretty soon you’ll have an all-sound equipped fleet. Plus, you can m.u. a sound and non-sound engine very easily under DCC. I have a pair of RS-11’s that I run together back to back. Only one has sound, but I find that’s not a problem running a train.
When I converted to DCC I had about 30 engines. Not too long after that I moved, and am currently running a switching layout that will be the first part of a fairly large basement. Anyway, with a small layout, I only need a few engines so generally just run my sound equipped ones.
I have a mix of sound and non sound engines. When I had my medium sized layout and ran longer trains I loved sound. The trains would get further away and the sound would decreases in volume and become louder as it came closer to me, plus the constant chuff of a steam locomotive or the drone of a F7 was pleasing as it came and went. Now that I have only a 13’ x 18” switching layout after awhile sound becomes annoying, it’s always in your face even with the volume down. I have a Bachmann switcher with factory sound and a Proto 2000 without sound. I use the Proto 90% of the time now because it is so quiet. The Bachmann although nice sound for the money, it’s noisy with the sound off which I find typical in Bachmann standard series engines and I must say I have a couple of other P2Ks that have sound also and I keep them quiet when I run them, plus I use Peco turnouts and if I park the Bachmann with the sound off and throw the turnout and then throw it back the sound comes back on because Pecos are power routing, very annoying.
But to each his own, I would try a couple for a while and see how it works out with the type of operations you do.
My old locos are all old Athearn BB, with one Atlas RS-3; my new locos are all DCC/sound. It’s not necessarily the sound that sidelined the old ones, its the operation. My old BB’s just don’t have the slow speed or smooth performance (not to mention the detail) of the new locos. The RS-3 will eventually get sound; because it runs well (and I want to try adding C&O specific details and paint); I have a new Atlas U-Boat without sound; that runs great and will probably not get sound (until I run out of projects…which I doubt will ever happen. lol). One BB, a GP-35 with too-wide body, got repainted (a first for me) into C&O colors and a DH123 decoder, but because it doesn’t run well at slow speeds, doesn’t get run much…might get replaced by a new GP-35 (with sound);but the paint job turned out well, so it served it’s purpose.
The addition of sound makes me run trains slower, not speed wise, but pausing after moves, changing speed, etc. Sound has also made me learn more about railroad operations (I didn’t know the bell was rung while running next to a standing string of cars, for example). I like learning about how real locomotives are run; it really does ‘put you in the engineer’s seat’, by keeping an eye out for things going on around the train (like anticipating grade crossings and thinking where the men are on the ground). I have only had small layouts (I enjoy switching) and appreciate anything that makes the operating sessions longer (car routing has yet to be attempted; but is in the future).
Volume definitely needs to be turned down. I wish there was more bass; there’s nothing like standing next to an idling EMD, feeling that unique sound;which can only be described as ‘bubbling’ (that wonderful mix of low frequency pulsing and high pitch warbling). For safety, I don’t recommend standing next to the tracks as a mainline freight approaches-they can kick up debris,not to mention ma
To answer the thread title question - even though the thread takes a different slant - no, I haven’t given up older locomotives. Budget, era, and theme mean that even if engines that meet my era and theme were available with sound, I likely wouldn’t be buying them. I do just fine upgrading older model locomotives.
Modeling pre-1900 small power in HO (and HOn3) is pretty limiting on room available for a sound install. Due to steep grades and very slow layout speeds, I prefer to use the limited locomotive space to get very good slow speed performance and maximum traction. Someday, I would like to add under the layout sound, where the speaker can be big enough to have decent bass. Non-sound DCC decoders are needed to operate my engines on the modular club layout.
Aside from the fact that on-board sound is, at best, a feeble substitute for the real thing, the way I most enjoy viewing my moving trains would make sound an unwanted distraction. Therefore, my locos retain their dolphins.
When running deep (in the netherworld under the modeled part of Central Japan) they run silent.*
*With apologies to Cpt. Beach, author of Run Silent, Run Deep.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - quietly)
Someone above had posted that non-sound equipped units were becoming “cheap” in the marketplace.
Yippee for me! I have gotten some nice price deals on earlier run Athearn diesels that do not have sound and DCC installed.
I hope the price drops even further–as I’ll benefit from buying the older engines cheap!
SD45T-2’s, depending on the roadname, are very cheap right now, for the plain DC version. Bring them on–I’ll only buy more! Need the SP Kodachrome unit?–starting bid on Ebay was only about $60 recently. Unfortunately, I already had that road number (9192).
True about the function of the speaker (and then of course the sound units are designed for that type of speaker), Anyway I find your comment interesting because about 10 years ago I made the observation that we had spent hours and hours of research and tuning our locos to get rid of all that sound and gear grind, only to turn around and put electronic noise makers into them.
I believe all the current production sound units (except perhaps for the Bachmann Big Hauler G-Gauge 4-6-0) use recorded sounds. The most modern ones allow the user to change the sound bites stored in the unit. I have a friend who did a spoof unit. He replaced the steam exhaust sounds with someone saying Choo choo choo, the whistle with someone saying “Get out of the way!”, “Coming Through”, and other things like the blow down with a whoopy cushion sound…
All of my locos have sound. I don’t have not one single loco without sound. I’ve tried to run them with mute on, and it just seems too toy like to me. Not very realistic at all. When the prototype is obviously very noisy. Ever hear a real locomotive that was quiet? Could you imagine, going to the rail yard and hearing complete silence?
The most locos I will run at one single time, is around 3 in a mainline consist, and maybe one switcher, while the mainline trains are hauling freight. I have all them at about 50% or less on the volume settings.
Have you been trackside lately? Trains today can slip upon you with very little noise from the engine or cars.
Even when I was braking the locomotives and rolling cars could be silent in their approach.Some time the sound of the wheels going over the rail joint was all you heard.
That safety slogan"Stay Alert & Stay Alive" was to be taken seriously.You could be hurt or killed by the engine or rolling car you didn’t hear approaching.
I know what you are talking about. We have had several fatalities where the victim was walking along the right of way with his/her earphones on and music blaring and apparently didn’t even hear the horn blasting.
I agree, the engines of today can be very quiet when drifting downgrade. I still remember the time I was at the Roseville, CA Amtrak station and was focusing my camera down the tracks toward the engine servicing facility. I was on the station platform 15-20 feet from the tracks but was still startled to see a train passing me from behind seconds later. Since then I’ve kept a better eye on both directions of the tracks when I’m out making photos.
When I switched to DCC, I went with all DCC and sound. Most of my older DC Locos have been display only ever since. The only part of sound that bothers me is the brake sqweal so I turn that down first thing.
Out of my over thirty locos, I have 1 that has sound, and that is all I will have. After about 10 minutes, I get a headache from it.
I know guys that have 1-2 non-sound equipped locos, and they have a ball with them. However, they also have the volume way too high, and when I show up with mine, they complain that the sound is too low.
I’m in both camps when it comes to sound… or no sound. About half of my 25 locos have sound while the other half don’t and I like them both. Personally, I think there is good sound and there’s sound that is not so good. I lean very heavily toward locos that have Sound Traxx Tsunamis installed, and not so much with others such as QSI. Granted, I haven’t bought a QSI sound engine in a few years so maybe they have improved the sound files they use. As a matter of fact, I won’t purchase a sound equipped locomotive unless I can hear it first, I simply pay too much for the feature to NOT demand sound that I can live with. For instance I have a Proto 2000 Walthers 0-8-0 switcher that is well detailed and a good, smooth runner,
but frankly the sound it produces reminds me somewhat of a broken Singer sewing machine on a particularly bad day. This unit is from around 5 years ago and I noticed in an ad the other day that they now have Tsunami sound chips installed. On the other hand there were thousands of these units sold and it could very well be that those owners hear nothing wrong with them.
It goes without saying that all sound units volume is set at the factory way too high and should be, in my humble opinion, reduced by half at the very least.
Fortunate are those who are just getting in. In a way, I’m one of 'em.
I have been an on and off MR since 1959 and have been in HO since the beginning. I now have about 40 HO loco’s and maybe 150+ pieces of HO rolling stock mounded up in storage.
I killed my last old layout back in 1999 and hoped back in, feet first, into HOn3 in 2010, thus, forever ending my standard gauge HO world. In 2010 the thinking, new, HOn3’er only had one choice and it was a great one.
Blackstone!
The fabulously detailed and Tsunami sound laden little DCC engines are fabulous and make the finest HO stuff I ever owned look sick. In that sense, I am new to the hobby and have had the best of the best since returning and will never let go of sound and DCC! No more crappy block controls with tons of wired block switches,etc., just the sound of an engine or two chuffing around shunting cars and pulling short ore trains to mills from mines all without regard to electrical blocks or trackage occupancy. Just like real railroading. With only a single power district, MR is finally a no brainer.
Sound…Good sound…at the right volume level, is a good thing.
