This caboose is under genisess line but what soundd can a caboose have?
Ah, finally someone here noticed the Athearn Genesis announcement.
The lighted cabooses are more my style, sound probably not and for the extra cost…
But since you asked, its all on the website:
http://www.athearn.com/Search/Default.aspx?SearchTerm=gencaboose+ATHG&CatID=THRF&PageSize=72
http://www.athearn.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=ATHG78318
SOUND EQUIPPED MODELS ALSO FEATURE:
- Soundtraxx Tsunami SoundCar decoder w/ included sounds:
- Air horn or conductor’s whistle as appropriate
- Clickety-clack with optional wheel flat spot sounds
- Brake set/release sounds including retainers and brake squeal
- ”Big Hole” emergency brake application sound
- Handbrake tie-down/release
- Adjustable flange squeal
- Air, horn, and bell sounds work seamlessly with Soundtraxx locomotive sound decoders
- Supports Advanced Consisting in DCC
- Full DCC functions available when operated in DCC mode
- All functions NMRA compatible in DCC mode
There have already been discussion going on elsewhere regarding the new line of Genesis cabooses, with a lot of complaints about the price. The “light only” version is MSRP $109.98 and the lights + sound version are MRSP $149.98.
And for a little perspective, back in 2011/12 when Athearn announced the Gene
And they excluded the flushing toilet??? I liken it to the BLI stock car that moos & oinks. No thanks…
Tom
Well Tom, different strokes for different folks. The horn/whistle might be useful to some. The moos and oinks, maybe less so.
Remember, Athearn did the mechanical reefers with the sound of the engine running the refrigeration unit - they did sell and some liked it. They probably thought it was cool to see the reefers roll by with the refrigeration sound, just like the real thing when railfanning.
I get-it, not everyone is into sound, even engine prime mover or horns for that matter. As some say, vote with your wallet. There isn’t much point in 50 choruses in “my wallet is safe”, but we will have to endure some anyway.
For caboose era fans, probably mainly of the 60’s thru 80’s, these will be very welcome, depending on RR modeled. I’m hoping for some ICC D&RGW to be among the offerings in a later run. D&RGW did pool some trains with the UP so one of them might be useful to me.
Cabooses that match real cabooses, at least to me, are a signature look for the railroads they served. So much so that even when funds were tight, I managed to hunt down and buy a few D&RGW shop built cabooses as the Athearn Santa Fe cabooses painted in D&RGW livery just loolked wrong to me. But everyone has their level of what they are willing to accept.
It is pricey, and the sound is a little strange.
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But Dang! That is one beautiful model of a caboose. I am very impressed.
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-Kevin
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I HAVE to get one of these, mostly for the flat spot sound, I love listening to that sound trackside.
Ah yeah, the flat spot bang bang bang. Lovely.
Looks nice. Probably sounds nice. But wow expensive. I have 15 cabeese on my road average price $6.03.
I like that number much better than $109.99!
My fleet of eight Algoma Eastern cabeese (I love that word!) cost me about $22.00 Cdn. each including buying the Athearn cabooses, lighting components and window glazing. The lighting circuit credit goes to Mark R and it works great. Circuit diagram below.
The camera washed out the marker lights. There is a light for the conductor’s desk but it doesn’t show up in the photos. I used a very high value resistor so the light glows but is not too bright, like an oil lamp would be.
Here is Mark R’s constant lighting circuit:
Yes, it works with a 5 volt capacitor.
Dave
David and Dave,
If you are happy with ATSF cabooses painted for other RR’s then enjoy yourself. These are not the droids you are looking for, clearly. This line of Athearn Genesis ICC cabooses are not aimed at people who need/want or are satisfied with cheap generic cabooses. And of course, anyone who models a fantasy RR can use anything on the market and paint them for cheap. Fine, again, Genesis are not the droids you are looking for.
Some replies here remind me of people who have no interest in a product but just show up to troll or complain. [I] Modus Operandi.
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Um… All my cabooses are brass, the SGRR does not look for the cheap way out. I have a couple plastic steel cabooses I use for props in “modern” photos.
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My non-interest in the Athearn caboose is not trolling, it does not meet my needs.
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All SGRR cabooses have center cupolas.
All SGRR cabooses are wooden.
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My plastic Athearn prop caboose. With careful paint the Blue Box Athearn ATSF style caboose is a very nice looking model:
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Even if they are not the “droids I am looking for”, I believe I am free to complement Athearn on the magnificent job on these models, which is what I did.
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I doubt that Dave’s or David’s comments on their models, what they did differently, or how much they spent qualifies as anything like trolling.
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-Kevin
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Well, the new Athearn caboose is very nice, but like a large percentage of these new high detail, proto specific, RTR offerings, it is mostly too new for my era…and not offered undecorated or in any road name I am remotely interested in.
If the Seaboard version was offered undecorated and unassembled, I might go for a few.
RioGrande, my B&O, C&O and Western Maryland caboose are all reasonably accurate models for those roads, every one for less than $50, most for less than $20.
I too have Blue box Athearn, Bowser, MDC Roundhouse, and Atlas Trainman caboose that I have super detailed to some degree and have or will add lights to for my detection system (I don’t bother to detect every car).
Average cost, $15 to $20.
I do have some undecorated Spring Mills Depot wagon top bay window kits that will be built for the ATLANTIC CENTRAL, they were about $50 each.
Sound effects? Even if I used DCC, I think not.
A thought on those kinds of sound effects. I’m not a “railfan”, I don’t sit by the tracks to watch modern trains. But I live near two major mainlines and see moving trains all the time. Many within 100 to 300 feet from the highway or other observation point.
At those distances, few if any of these specific sounds can be heard over the general noise from the train or other ambient sources.
When you look at an HO model from 3 actual feet, you are 270 scale feet away…what would you reasonably hear?
Sorry, just my opinion, but sound has in some ways made our models more toy like and less realistic, with sound quality only slightly better than a nine transistor radio…
Sheldon
Tom,What toilet? You mean that commode looking thing we used to store spare fusses,batteries and odds and ends?
There was very valid reason we didn’t want to use that thing.[xx(]
Try listening to a flat whee for 10 hours then let me know. I can say first hand a caboose or the car next to the caboose with a flat wheel gets nerve wracking after the first two miles.
Yup lovely noise those flat wheels.
Bang,bang,bang,bang,bang,bang,bang,bang,bang,bang,bang,bang never ending banging until you reach the terminal.
These Cabeese are pricey, each more than the price I paid for every one of my locomotives (albeit DC locos, mostly used). But wait, loot at that detail. Again, LOOK AT THAT DETAIL!!!
I was particularly struck by how fine the grab irons appear. They ALMOST look TOO THIN! Now that’s a new problem!
I have seen the older SP lighted cabeese at a train club and it’s really nice, the lights certainly add to a train.
So I guess it makes sense to pay $100+ for these Cabeese! Still, no way I can afford such models right now!
Jim,Modeling a believable Freelance railroad takes as much dedication as modeling a prototype.
My choices for my freelance railroads was either the Roundhouse 2 window “Eastern” caboose or Athearn side bay. Both filled the requirements for my freelance railroads.
As far as the Genesis caboose there is a item missing and it sticks out like a sore thumb… Those “lazy boy” seats I mention on the other forum. Looking at the copula you can’t miss them. That’s how I notice them.
Exactly, every loco and caboose that says ATLANTIC CENTRAL is believable for an eastern Appalachian railroad in 1953. There are no UP Big Boys, or offset cupola ATSF caboose lettered ATLANTIC CENTRAL.
No veranda turbines or cab forwards, mostly boring Mikados, Consolidations, Mountains and Pacifics, some 2-6-6-2’s, and some other east coast type articulated locos.
Sheldon
We had the engine sounds, so now trains can make a tinny rattle sound as they move. Caboose? OK. Reefers with cooling systems? Great. But how about the stations? We need sound systems for the announcement speakers, and the crossing gates need bells. And how about the loud car stereo sound from the teenager’s car at the crossing waiting for the train to pass? Roads and highways have a distinctive car sound from the tires. I can hear my interstate highway from a couple miles away. A tire store needs that VWOOP VWOOP from the air wrenches. And industry has great potential. Refineries, steel mills, sawmills, all make great noises.
Sixty some years ago, we painted the plywood green and stuck green sawdust on it for “grass” and called that scenery, fancy was green lichens as trees. Now days we have scale model trees, static grass, even scale corn stalks, molded rock faces, and so on for detailed scenery. Used to be trains made little motor sounds on the track. We need to fill in the audio soundscape in similar fashion. A great scale cacophony.
Really?
First lets talk about scenery. I suggest you search up “Severna Park Model Railroad Club” and look at some pictures. That layout, still in existance today was started in the mid 60’s, 50 some years ago, and at that time had, and it still has, scenery that is cutting edge and stands up to anything being done today.
The layout has been featured on the cover of Model Railroader many times, starting in 1973 if I recall.
They were not the only ones doing good scenery that long ago. I was part of the scenery crew…think “zip texturing”.
Sound - Yes, life is noisy, but under what conditions do we hear all those sounds?
If I was in a larger scale, which creates a more intimate re
Most of those sounds can be provided by high quality speakers mounted under the layout, not in the moving pieces. Ambient sound does add something, but canned station announcements and such quickly lose whatever appeal they had initial when the same thing is repeated over and over. The ambient noise that DOES repeat in nature is a different story.
Lots of sound locos have things like radio chatter and station calls, even, in the case of MTH, train wreck sounds on some of them - now that is just plain silly, who’d going to pay $400+ for a sound-equipped loco to actually stage a reack (put your hand down, Gomez)? Radio chatter on one of my locos - built and used in a period before railroads used handheld radios, and then even though they were used in excusrions after the dawn of radio, the content of said chatter matches MODERN communications, not what was used in the 60s. Useless, but there was space left in the decoder after all the actual locomotive sounds were in there, so I guess they decided to use it. Canned station calls are another one, unless you are modeling the cities used in the recordings, they don’t fit.
I doubt I will put sound in any of my cabooses. Lighting - sure. I will probably go a step beyond the basic constant light circuit and add in a small microcontroller, because even after they started using electric markers (battery powered), the conductor’s desk lamp was still an oil lamp, so with the micro I can have the markers lit steadily like an electric light, but have a gentle flicker inside fromt he oil lamps.
–Randy