Railsounds and the freight cars

Classic Toy Trains Forum
1

First, I would really like to say how impressed I am with this forum!!! This is really exciting stuff. I find my self logging on daily just to read all the inquiries and responses. Some really great information!!! My compliments to you all!! A great use of the internet!!

My question is; my son and I recently have gotten involved (again) in trains. [:D] We have purchased a new Railsounds equiped locomotive and the TMCC system. Wow do we really like it! I have a lot of postware equipment and we are excited about taking it off the shelves and operating it again! (We had 5 trains running around the Christmas tree, and 1 in it). So I planned on purchasing the railsounds Steam (6-26816 REA), and the Diesel (6-26817 Alaska) cars. When we run them with the older equipment…

  1. I assume the sounds can be controlled with the TMCC controller ?
  2. I also assume the TMCC controller would be configured for a seperate identity for each sound car ?
  3. Most importantly, does the track voltage need to be turned up high for the sound cars to function ? Because if so the speed of the older engines is still controlled by the transformer and this would be a significant problem, I believe.

(We are using an older ZW transformer)

I sure appreciate the feedback!! This sure is an invaluable service… Thanks

Don [:)]

2

You should install a battery in the box cars to deal with sound cut offs when track volatge drops below 7 volts.

Railsounds does not require TMCC to operate, it just has enhanced features when used with it, assuming there is a TMCC receiver in the car/loco. Some sound cars explicitly designed for use with TMCC include “dummy” controller boards (no motor drivers) that allow triggering of auxiliary sound effects. These boards are programmable with TMCC ENG id’s and work independantly (like dummy loco’s/Aquarium car) or in conjunction with ENG’s in a consist (like the Station sounds diner cars and crew talk caboose). The standard RailSounds Box Cars only have RS boards and wheel sensors. They respond only to whistle/bell signals.