I recieved my order of sound chips yesterday to start the upgrade for some of my BLI steam models.
So far, they are very impressive. The slow speed is about 1/4 to 1/3 third of what the old chip ran the model. I installed my first one in a N&W J. The cylinder cocks sound is unbelievable and continues for a few seconds at slow speed until they are shut off. If you have not heard the sounds, they are on the web to listen to.
I ordered the alternate chuff sound on the first ten sound chips, which is so much better than the installed sound it is just like getting a new model. I only had time to install three, but I plan on installing the other as soon as possible.
There are so many added features that can be optioned in the CV’s, that I am still looking over some of them. Alternate bells and whistles are some of the new features.
The Alternate chuff verion for the Union Pacific Mountain updates to true UP whistles for the MT-73, which is very close to the recording I have heard for the smaller UP locomotives.
Well worth the money and time.
Let me know if you have tried the replacement QSI steam chips.
So far, I only have three installed in the Niagara, J1 2-10-4, and the K4. They are sounding very nice indeed. I was happy, when I tested F11 to answer another member’s question about other function abilities for the Niagara, to find that it alters the whistle to the Niagara’s horn! I had no idea the Niagara had an air horn, and I hope this version is a close match to the prototype. Hooonk!
You can see the Air Horn in the pictures of the Prototype. I had an old recording of aNiagara on a freight train in 1955 and when they blew the air horn for the crossing in the recording, I was surprised too at the time. These engines were in fast passenger service and the horn sound could be heard a much farther distance than the steam whistle. On the Daylight, the horn was installed to be used for the country and the whistle in the city. That is not how they used them all of time, but that was the design theory.
The horn is on the left side of the stack on the Niagara and I don’t think this engine had a steam whistle, unlike the Daylight and several other steam engines which had both a horn and a whistle.
I’m pretty sure the Niagras had whistles also but I think the crews were instructed to use the horn whenever possible for ECONOMY as the air horn used much less horsepower (steam) and all roads, including NYC, were looking for ways to save coal… and money.
I’m not sure of the horn type or manufacturer but to me, they sounded just like the single note horn that was on the GG-1s of the Pennsy. I’ll have to check but I believe you can see both the horn AND whistle on the BLI model.
I’ll be getting my first four QSI chips this week and look forward to installing them. I’ll do one Niagra first so I can do a side-by-side comparison.
I wonder how the programming will be accepted using JMRI Decoder Pro? I hope it will support all the new functions…
I don’t have the Niagara’s even though it is one of my favorite engines. I could not verify if it had both the horn and whistle from my books, but the old recording I had was the horn only. If you model has both, they have probably done their research. You are correct, they might have used both at times. The early Hudson locomotives certainly had whistles, but I seem to have read some of those might have used horns also. On one of the VHS tapes with live recorded sound in 1956, the Hudson had a whistle and it sounded good. \
One of the people I know used the Decoder Pro software with his Zimo system and it worked, but they had problems using the latest version software, and had to use an older version for some reason.
Good luck , I think you will enjoy the replacement chips for sure.