Railsounds Question

Classic Toy Trains Forum
1

Is it possible to reprogram Railsounds or do I need to buy a replacement chip?

I have recently aquired one of the Lionel “Hotrod” GP-9s. It has a cool looking paintjob and has railsounds that sound more like a car (burning rubber, squeeling car break sounds, etc)

I like the paint job, but I’m not sure I’ll like the sounds. So I was wondering if I could get a more standard Geep sound board.

Anyone have any suggestions.

Oh, and I’m going to run it either way, but was the “hot rod” series very popular? Is there any real collectors value to this series?

2

PlasiLiz,

Contact Train America. At a minimum you will have to replace the sounds chip. They are very knowledgable about what you can and cannot do with certain vintages of Lionel PC boards.

www.tastudios.com

Regards,
Roy

3

thanks Roy,

They are currently upgrading my old 2025 to railsounds 4.0 and TMCC, so I am aware of their work.

But I saw somewhere that Lionel is the manufacturer of the chips. Do they sell direct to consumers or local shops, or just to the OEM crowd?

4

Lionel should be able to help you out.
Give them a call and talk with a tech.

As far as collectability goes it is anyones guess.
But I don’t think they were wildly popular, so they may become collectable.

5

TAS and Digital Dynamics have a selection of about 9 standard sound sets, one of which is the set used in practically every other GP-9. They’re about $30 for just the audio card, which is much, much easier to change out than the chip by itself.