I have an Athearn SD40-2 That I want to put to Have a DCC decoder with sound indtalled but I am not the most knowledable person so I ask you all which generation of diesel is it and what horn is most common for say a CSX locomtive and Norfolk Southern. I am looking at the Soundtraxx products but if there is a better choice please speak up I will take all advice. I wi***he tsunami were availible for Diesels…I could always just buy a Broadway limited if my wife would let me but kids colledge funds come first…
www.discounttrainsonline.com might have what your looking for at a better price.
SD40-2s are second generation diesels. I have no idea what horn(s) would be appropiate.
You might also look at Loksound. They make one that has the correct prime mover for the SD40-2 and a Nathan 5-chime horn, and it comes with a speaker that fits perfectly inside an Athearn cab (I posted about one I put in a GP40-2 a while back).
I’ve been very impressed with this decoder. It sounds good and has excellent motor control.
I second dacort; I have a Kato SD40-2 with the twin speaker under
the fans; it works well. The key is proper speaker mounting.
My approach was to remove the light pipe under the fans, placing the
bulb directly at the back. Then drilling as many holes (#74-78) as
possible in the fan bases. Then using goop or gasket to seal the
speaker set underneath the fans.
These speakers are pretty inefficient, so a good seal is important to
get as much sound output as possible. A back chamber for the
speakers should not be needed, since the entire shell acts as a back
chamber as long as there are no other significant openings in it.
Hal
CSX locomotives inherited from SCL and Chessie are generally equipped with the Nathan K5LA horn (same type Amtrak uses) while some CSX units inherited from Conrail use Leslie 3 chimers. Soundtraxx has the K5LA horn available in its current line of decoders and will also be available in the diesel Tsunami.
The K5LA, IMHO, is a pleasant sounding horn.[:-^] I first heard it on Amtrak back in 1980.
If you want to hear what a K5 sounds like, go to http://atsf.railfan.net/airhorns/
Scroll down and click on the different “K - series” choices and you hear variious sound bytes.
You’ll need a Media Player or Real Player to hear them.
Enjoy the music! [{(-_-)}][4:-)][tup]
Today, CSX and NS have a mix of horns. CSX has mostly Nathan K5LAR-24s (different from a K5LA in that the #2 and #4 bells are reversed) and most of NS’s fleet has them as well. But a few locomotives on NS still have Nathan P5s. Now, since CSX and NS split Conrail, many of the units on both roads are ex Conrail Both RR’s recieved a ton of ex Conrail SD40-2s which had Leslie RS3Ls. Pretty much every Conrail unit had some varient of the RS3L.