Back around 2006 when I was just getting back into the hobby I bought a few Lionel starter sets some of which had railsounds. One of the railsounds tenders worked well for a few years and then all of a sudden the whistle started sounding on its own sporadically as the train went around the track . So the tender went into a drawer and has basically been there ever since. I recently dug it out. Each of the railsounds features works as it should when the tender is not moving, the chuffing sound (which, by the way, does not have an on-off switch) begins when the tender starts moving, and the intermittent whistle sound still occurs. I’m wondering what would be required to fix something like this.
Try cleaning the wheels and pick-up rollers on the tender, I’ve had some Lionel sound systems start acting goofy when the wheels and pick-up rollers were dirty. Hope this helps!
Fooling around with my 4501 Southern that has some problems the other day. See “questions about circa 1992 railsounds”
Running back and forth on the test track, the whistle started blowing on its own.. Noticed a tiny spark on a tender wheel when the whistling started. Definitely dirty track. Really extra frustrating that the whistle does not work when whistle button is pressed, only starts the bell ringing. AARRRUUUGGGGHHHH!