Personally I don’t understand this sound thing. If a loco is in a steel works your are hardly going to hear it over the general racket. In an urban scene I settle for someone in the neighbourhood having a really noisy party and turn my sterio up to represent it.
BUT, if you really want sound AND have a tight budget…
When you lay your track leave out the foam underlay. If that isn’t enough to get the rumble you want ease the drive train gears slighlty out of line.
(Replacing the gears every other year will cost a bit but nowhere near as much as $100+ extra per loco.
Sound also drives others nuts at shows.
Then again, best one I’ve seen…
After running a switching layout with bells ringing on every switcher move ALL day an exhibitor was asked to at least stop the bells. His respons? “BUT someone could get run down by the train”!
I have also heard of people using the hallmark cards that allow you to record your own greeting for sound in their locos. They make the recording of their own sounds and disasseble the card and place in inside the loco with a switch on the outside. This likely could be done for under $10.
I thought you were going to suggest using the card with a clothes pin and cutting notches in the drive shaft to make a sound like we did on bikes with spokes and baseball cards in our youth.
I have a DVD of Western Maryland Shay#6, and it is surprisingly quiet. In fact, only in a few places in the video can you hear the exhaust chuff, and the camerman was directly in front of the loco. You can even see him reach out and touch it a few times. Even though he was so close, the one sound you could always hear was the clicking of the wheels going over the rail joints.
When done in excess or extreme…just about anything can drive us nuts! [:p][:0]
Going to a train show and listening to sound equipped locomotives at full volume is, to me, a headache generator. Turned down low, sound can be quite pleasant.
Dave as for the sound thing…
Just my two cents. There are a quite a number of modelers like me that had the opportunity to spend a lot of time around prototype locomotives some years back (70s-80s for me).
For us model locomotives equipped with sound can be a very a pleasant trip down memory lane. Locomotives like the GP7, E8, SDP40f, U36B, S12, and RS1 have been long gone from mainline service. But it is a neat aspect of model railroading to be able to have models of these units and to hear what they sounded like.
Two years ago, I remember modelers on this forum…and my LHS commenting that sound is just “a new “gimmick and fad” that will grow fade out quickly”.
Seems now that sound’s popularity is skyrocketing! [:D] Helping with that: Soundtraxx has dropped prices, Digitrax is making an affordable decoder available and last I checked TCS will be jumping onto the bandwagon.
How sweet it is!![dinner][C=:-)][swg][tup]
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For a group of people who spend so much time complaining about how poorly a manufacturer has modeled a given engine, how some of us decry the addition of sound is beyond me! Those thoughtful engineers also included a mute and volume control, just like for your TV. So, if one engine is getting on your nerves, you mute it (and mute is adjustable) or you adjust the CV output setting.
Well, the sound debate is nearing (if not exceeding) the vehemence of the NCE Vs. Digitrax debate. Not here, but in general.
I like sound, I think sound adds realism. I think sound is as much a part of being prototypical as replacing over-thick grab irons, etc. But that’s just me and since none of you is coming over to my basement anytime soon, I’m perfectly willing to accept alternative viewpoints as valid.
He he he. Well, when there’s much more to show than the current “plywood central” I will.
As some of my earlier posts mentioned, I’ve recently moved and “the layout is dead, long live the layout” is pretty much the order of the day. But FWIW I might dig around and find some pics of the “layout that was” until this one’s a little more photogenic.
Well, we’ve gone on a total detour… but I must say I love “plywod central” pictures. Those work-in-progress wide views are just as inspiring to me as the beatiful striving-for-realism close-ups of finished projects.