Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Clause, and Yes, contrary to popular belief, you CAN purchase a Walthers Proto 2000 SW8 with DCC & Sound for the low low price of $99.95!
I received mine yesterday purchased through my local hobby store.If there ever was a reason to switch to DCC…this is IT! The QSI Quantum sound is simply amazing. The 12 functions include coupler crash! & brake squeal/flanges along with an audible F10 function which speaks the current speed of the loco. How cool is that?
Here is a pic of the loco I purchased. When the temperature’s get a little warmer here in Iowa, I’ll paint it the “Davenport Northwestern and Rock Island” livery you see in the background locomotive shown here.
Here is an inside view of the loco with the shell off. (Courtesy Tonys Train Exchange)
This photo shows the speaker location (Courtesy Tonys Train Exchange)
And yes this loco does have one set of traction tires. So far it hasn’t bothered me, but I went ahead and ordered the regular wheels from walthers through my LHS anyway.
I experienced 2 problems not necessarily with my locomotive, but with my DCC layout.
I have a Tony’s Train Xchange PSONE Power shield that I had to add jumpers to JP4 to allow a higher trip current to handle the extra power needed from the QSI sound unit on the loco. Not a problem, but now I’m wondering what I bought this for if I have to max everything out in order to run a sound locomotive.
My ONLY DCC friendly turnout (a walthers code 83 curved turnout) causes the locomotive to stop, probably because of the short wheelbase with the traction tires. This will be remedied by replaci
Is that a working dome light on top of the cab, or just a dummy? I saw a similar switcher a couple of months ago that had a “flashing” dome light on top. (Flashing - i.e. the LED pulsed on and off.) Made for a pretty cool effect. I would think it would be pretty easy to install one into your new toy, if you were wanting that.
That is one nice looking locomotive. I didn’t know that P2K made the locomotive with sound. Thats cool. I might have to look into one if they have the right paint scheme that I like.
The sound-equipped SW has a Roco type motor instead of the Kato type motor found in the regular SWs. I prefer the Kato design, but it looks like Life-Like went to the Roco type because it’s smaller and can be mounted sideways.
Tom, that is in fact a working strobe on my painted Driline SW9 loco. I’ve got an NCE SW9 decoder in it and installed a 1.2mm lamp into a details west strobe. Matter of fact I did this to 2 other loco’s, another SW9 and an Atlas U33C. They look really cool and were simple to install.You can even adjust the strobe flash. My U33 Atlas loco blinks twice then rests, as opposed to the two Driline loco’s flashing alternately every time. You could spend days playing with the different lighting effects available from the NCE decoders.
I probably won’t install a strobe on the sound unit, simply because the unit I am painting to match didn’t have a strobe, and I’m afraid to drill into my nice new shiny loco.[:)]
I just asked my LHS to order me one, too. I’ve got an S1 that I was planning to eventually add sound to, but for that price, I think it’s cheaper to get the factory engine.
They’re already down to just a couple of road names, Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, and Wabash, so you may be doing some re-badging to end up with what you want.
How are the headlights? Did they use LEDs? And is the cab-end light mounted in the cab, or way back in the shell with one of those silly light-pipes?
Update - it’s on its way. Thanks a bunch for bringing this to our attention.
They use an amber LED for the front with some really short light pipes. I’m not sure what the cab end light is. I assume its an LED as well that illuminates those plastic pipes. They are not exceptionally bright. The light is not colored at all. It looks like plain white incandescant bulb light, even though they are using LED’s for the power source.
Yea, if you can paint the shell your roadname color then its a great deal. I bought the Wabash “Black” model becuase all I have to do is paint a white section along the main body and I’m done to match the Driline color scheme. Still, the sound is fantastic and really a good buy utlizing the QSI Qantum sound. I thought my generic soundtraxx decoders were good until I heard this one. Man it blows them outta the water. But they are still good sound decoders for main line engines. Because I’ll be using this little guy often for switching, I wanted a good brand sound decoder that worked well, and this one fits the bill.
Thanks for the info Ken. I’ve ordered the “Walthers” upgrade wheelsets to replace the traction tires, so that should take care of my single turnout problem. My other turnouts are power routing and I don’t have a problem with them.
I am hoping that they produce this with the B&M Minuteman paint scheme soon. Proto 2000 produced the SW9 without sound some years ago in this paint scheme so I am optimistic that they will soon produce it with sound.
My guess is this is a fire sale to sell out the available inventory. I don’t think you’ll see these again. On the other had, it’s a great opportunity to pick up something that just needs a few dollars worth of paint and decals to turn it into a quality model of exactly what you’re looking for.
