I just emailed BLI with a product suggestion and I would like your thoughts on it. Having a number of PRR brass steam locomotives, I would like BLI/PCM to make available sound and DCC equipped tenders, with loco wiring harness, which I could match up with my brass. Their K4 and I1 tenders would be ideal, especially the short version of the I1. I have two PFM 2-8-2s and a K4 which I would happily upgrade and I expect many others would do the same. What do you think?
I think you may be onto something. In addition to brass, there are quite a few Bowser (ex-Penn-Line) PRR prototype locos that would benefit from easy conversion.
I hope BLI agrees.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
How much would you pay for this product? 100? 200? My sence says that it would be on the 200 dollar range.
David B
Here is BLI’s reply: “Thank you for the suggestions. We don’t have plans right now to manufacture tenders equipped with sound. We do have some tender shells and chasses available through our service department”
It sounds like a canned response. If enough interest is expressed I’ll bet they would consider the idea. As for price, I would expect maybe $150 to $175.
why plug a 500 dollar hole with a 100 dollar part? good luck.
grizlump
You must appreciate that companies such as BLI are in the business of selling complete, increasingly high-end, locomotives. Separate runs of just sound tenders could tend to hurt their regular sales, as well as complicate their production schedule. The manufacturers don’t want you to retrofit your existing locomotives, they want you to buy all new.
CNJ831
And I; m guessing engine and tender are made in something equivalent to Batch molding the shells. RUin or waste a whole mold just to get the tenders
Heck. it’s hard enough to get basic temders for steam excoursions. Cost an arm for those nice Athearn turbine tenders
Each major part, like the boiler, cab and tender are produced from their own molds. So a manufacturer could easily run a batch of just tenders.
As far not wanting to sell sound equipped tenders because it might hurt their sales of new engines, that’s just plain wrong too. The real issue is whether they can make money selling the tender alone. Don’t forget they have to buy the sound decoders and install them too. A minimum production run would probably be 5000 - 10000 pieces, so the question is, would their be enough customers for tenders to make the cost turn a reasonable profit. In this case, probably not.
Jay, unless you yourself are a manufacturer of such items, I’d be a lot less willing to make such a brash statement regarding how such firms would regard offering such items. There’s been plenty of opportunity for various high-end loco manufacturers to offer such a product in recent years and you’ve seen nothing of the sort. Selling locos by pieces definitely cuts into potential profit and would be a foolish move on their part unless the demand were huge, which in this case it certain would not be. With regard to adding a sound tender to existing brass locos, as the OP suggests, one must understand that probably 90% of brass locos are owned by guys who never ever run them. Likewise, those desiring sound today are largely newer hobbyists who already are buying sound-eqiupped locos. There aren’t that many established guys interested in converting to sound. The market is thus likely to be very small. This is really a job for the aftermarket electronics outfits.
CNJ831
when walthers released the proto 2000 steam locomotives with sound a few years ago I asked them to release just the tenders with sound to upgrade all those non sound locomotives sold over the years.
their reply was…no
To me, that sounds like a pretty good starting point. You get to add the speakers and decoder of your choice. The tender is already set up to accept the speakers, and there’s plenty of room for a decoder. Fitting all the stuff in is the hard part.
Good response there, Mr. B.
Thirty years ago or so Bowser used to offer their line as either assembled or kit; I don’t remember for sure at this stage of the game but I think the difference in price was somewhere in the vicinity of fifty bucks. I always got kits mainly, when all is said and done, because I found it easier to assemble the kits myself than to come up with that extra fifty bucks.
Seems to me that BLI’s response is indicating that they don’t think there would really be a large enough market for their product already equipped for sound. I remember when I was going to real estate school years ago and it was pointed out in one of the lessons that there was a problem with houses that had had the garage/carport converted into living space: those people who wanted a garage or carport would not be interested in houses so converted.
BLI probably figgers that, as an example, the 100 dollar extra expense for factory installed sound may well invite purchases by those people who are willing to pay for the service while, at the same time, eliminating potential buyers who do not want to extend their assets to the purchase of factory installed sound. The fact that BLI’s response includes the phrase “at this time” indicates that this item ha
I’d gladly pay for replacement tenders… I’ve had issues with them, let me tell you. I’d definitely love to have some.
I can see a potential problem with these DCC/Sound tenders. I assume that there would be a ‘harness’ that matches the plug in the tender, and the modeler would have to isolate the motor brushes/solder the motor & headlights.
Knowing too many modelers, they would just solder everything with their Weller 250 solder gun and see if ‘she goes or blows’… lot of returns/customer service.
Jim
Decoder in tender and take power off the wheels?
This idea came to me a while ago when my P2K 2-10-2 took a nosedive to the concrete floor. The damage was pretty severe, so I salvaged the sound system and decoder from the tender and the wiring harness from the engine and installed them into a PFM Pennsy 2-10-0. It wasn’t too difficult. It did require some care to route the wires correctly because they are all black, rather than color coded. Now I have a PRR Decapod with sound and a strange whistle. I like to imagine the railroad was experimenting, looking for a possible replacement for their banshee whistle. The other minor difficulty was mounting the tender plug for the system. Some brass tenders weren’t designed for that. The Decapod tender was the easiest to work with, so it got the installation.