Tsunami Sound chassis for Stewart FT?

Model Railroader Electronics and DCC
1

I was looking at the new Walthers Flyer I just got in the mail and noticed on page 13 a sound chassis for Stewart F units that apparently has a built in Soundtraxx Tsunami decoder.

A quick Google search found the same for FT A and B units at a website called Hobbylink.com:

Stewart FT A

Stewart FT B

I have an old Stewart FT AB lashup from the first release, guessing early 90s? They are Santa Fe versions in the original as delivered catwhisker nose with cream paint and red striping.

We now run DCC on the HO layout, but the old FT AB set has never been converted to DCC. So they currently sit in a glass display case awaiting a DCC conversion.

Now I see these Stewart Tsunami chassis and wonder if this is just what I need to get my old Stewart FTs up and running again, and with sound.

The info provided on the Hobbylink.com site has a wrong description (mentioning a Loksound decoder), and the photo does not show the side number board lights that my Santa Fe FT A unit has. Incidentally, I used the Microscale FT decal set and the numbers look great lit up

So has anyone converted their older Stewart FT with this sound chassis? Does it include the side light boards? I couldn’t find much information on the Stewart/Bowser website on these.

2

From the picture it doesn’t look like it has the side lights, but there are enough functions on the Tsunami to hook them up. Can’t tell if it has the markers, either. The Reading FTs I have never came with the markers, but I have another set that was a custom paint job that started with the version with the markers. Guess I need more functions for a decoder in that one.

–Randy

3

I checked this evening inside my FT (A unit) and noticed the side number lights are soldered to a circuit board (along with the headlight, class lights, and nose number boards). They are all LEDs. I thought they were but I wanted to double check since this is pretty old and LEDs in model trains were not as popular back then.

Perhaps you have to swap the LEDs from the old chassis and hook them up to the new chassis and Tsunami decoder. Can’t tell too much from the photo exactly what Tsunami decoder is being used. Just a lot of black tape. But it looks like it doesn’t have the headlight or nose number board lights either.

I’m going to have to look more into this to see what the Stewart/Tsunami chassis actually comes with.