Putting sound decoders and keep-alives in brass locomotives

Model Railroader Electronics and DCC
1

This is more of philosophical question: I have a few brass locomotives that I am going to rebuild and paint. I want to put sound decoders, keep-alive capacitors and speakers in them. Some have Vanderbilt tenders that I have yet to figure out a way to get inside of them. These are mostly small 0-6-0, 4-6-0’s and 2-8-0. If I remove the weight I could put everything into the boiler shell and then have only one wire to the tender. I could hide sugar cube speakers in the cabs. This seems easier to me but messing with the boiler weight could be a serious problem. Will these function at all without the weight? I could use smaller weights and rebalance them or mill the weight so everything fits. Would that work? What are others doing?

Alternatively I could go afer those brass tenders with a torch and open the top but risk turning it into parts. I have never understood why the brass builders decided access to vanderbilt tenders wasn’t ever needed.

2

As a proud owner of a number of large GN steam locomotives, I feel your pain. Your comment on dealing with small locos with Vanderbilts gets me thinking you are dealing with SP or UP locos.

With coal burners, I would likely “gouge out” the floor of the coal space, insert the electronics in the tubular part, and then build a (removable) coal load to cover the surgery.

With oil burners, which all of mine are, I would likely remove various parts from the oil bunker, “gouge out” the oil bunker, and do the above. I would then build a new oil bunker using the previously removed bits for detailing. I’ve built two oil bunkers in plastic for steam locos so far, and they worked out fine.

With either of the approaches above, since there’s no soldering done on the tender shell, any existing paint job would likely be re-usable. Except for the oil tank, of course.

I have yet to get anywhere near adding sound to a brass steam loco. My wish is to add a “dual source” sound system, with a tweeter in the smokebox and woofer in the tender. Here is some discussion on the matter:

https://sites.google.com/site/markgurries/home/dcc-projects/two-way-speaker-system

Besides the woofer, I expect I would put the decoder into the tender, also. I hesitate on removing weight from a locomotive. This applies ESPECIALLY to the small locos mentioned earlier.

With this setup, there would be 7 wires between the loco and tender. On a small loco, like a 2-8-0, I think I would permanently connect loco and tender. Thus I would not need to use a plug/jack connection. With an articulated, on the other hand, I rather think I would have to use plug/jack.

Ed

3

Nevin,

You are going to have a difficult time fitting a keep alive and a decoder in the boiler of some of the smaller locos (I’ve tried). Loosing the weight is not good in terms of running qualities.

IMHO - A better option on the vanderbuilt is to cut through the flat top of the oil bunker and put the electronics and speaker in the tender. Can’t say what you’ll find - sometimes the cylindrical part is open to the oil bunker, other times not and you will have to grind a hole. You can put a flat piece of plastic with a new oil fill casting over the hole. If you make it a rectangle that mirrors the shape and size of the outside dimension of the bunker it will look right. Lots of work, but doable…

Good luck,

Guy

4

Before lighting up your torch or turning on the dremel, check out this exchange:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?3,1317781

One contributor says that the rear cover on the water compartment is removeable with a blade, at least for some brass models.

I for one would hesitate to remove weight from the engine, and I would certainly consider other alternatives before grinding a hole in a brass loco. Unless you absolutely want to stay in brass and be 100% prototypical (I am assuming the tender is), you could get another tender that is more DCC friendly. Bachmann, MDC, there are a few around, new and used. Keep the old one to retain resale value, of course…

Anyway, let us know what happens.

Simon

5

Prying out the end caps is a way in some cases. But there are a lot of tenders were the end caps are soldered. A friend of mine had to cut slots between the bolsters into the bottoms of the tanks to insert decoder and speaker. The surgery is later unvisible.

You could try to use a mini decoder beneath the cab roof. I wouldn’t take out the weight. You might loose a lot of traction effort increased by a possible imbalance on the drivers.
Regards, Volker