Just got done putting in the SoundTraxx decoder from Litchfield Station. The decoder is pre-programmed with an air horn. I shot a short test video here:
All I see is lots of white space 
Edit: I see it now!
I put the Tsunami in about a week and a half ago, and want to mention something. You can improve the synchronization of the chuff with the drivers at low speeds with a procedure that is covered in the manual on the Soundtraxx web site. You use the 28 step speed table option and set the speed to match the chuff at each speed step at low speeds. I did this with the full train attached on level track. It looks much better than using the standard three speed control CV’s (what I’m pretty sure Litchfield would have done), The matching gets more difficult at higher speed steps, but doesn’t matter as much.
Hal
It sounds like your installation was well done. I have several Tsunami medium and heavy steam, and know them well. If you would like your chuff sounds to be synchronized with the driver turns, enter CV 116 in Ops Mode and probably start with an initial value near 160. I use speed step 10, let the engine get up to that speed, enter CV 116, and try a value of between 150 and 170. I soon see if I am high or low just by counting four chuffs in my head in rhythm with the main crank.
It looks like a very nice model. You should be pleased. Crandell
Hey, thanks for the tips for chuff sync. I will definitely give that a try.
I will likely install a cam, one day soonish, for now it sits train complete on my in construction layout.
Kinda disapointed with its low speed performance, but for a train that would pin the speedometer at 128mph you wonder…
All the talk about high speed train service today at 110mph norm, this train was doing it already decades ago, feels like we have gone backwards for some reason.
I was reading about its history a bit, and its shovelnose design had a thing about cows straying on the track, engineers seemed to appreciate it, one episode noted an engineer saying a cow was on the track, and at full speed shot the cow careening into the air tangling in the nearby telephone poles, all bones broken, the train never slowing.
… I want wun… Sniff thas beuteeful…
Simply put, we have. Part of that is regualations on safety, but a lot of it is simple maintence (or lack thereof) and to a lesser point today than yesterday, horsepower. That 4-4-2 could probably walk away with as much or more train at 110 than most modern diesel electrics, passenger at least. And quite possibly, still pin the speedo.
Is it only two chuffs per revolution? I thought it should be four…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtEU_iDu7RQ&feature=related
I guess it is 4…
Each cylinder requires two steam fillings per revolution, one in the rear to push the rod forward and one in the front part to push it back. A 2-cylinder steam locos thus has 4 chuffs per revolution.
Yes Ulrich that is very informative, I have now searched the web for some more info on the chuff rates.
A two cylinder locomotive has 4 chuffs per revolution. A three cylinder locomotive has 6 chuffs per revolution. And a 4 cylinder locomotive has 4 chuffs per revolution, but “harder”, as they work together.
Mallet locomotives is a totally different experience, sound wise [:D].
Mallet compounds also have 4 chuffs per revolution, only one engine’s cylinders exhaust up the stack. Simple compounds have 4 chuffs per revolution of each engine, but in the real world they go in and out of sync and one slips and the other doesn’t. Can’t happen on typical models since one motor usually drives both engines so the decoder has to ‘fake it’.
–Randy