I am an electronic novice. can I up grade any of these engines to tmcc? 6-31960 engine of Polar express set , 6-30002 diesel el capatan set, and 6-38624 berkshire. If so what parts do I need and how do I do itt? Thanks
Check out the Electric Railroad Co. (I believe they are owned by Lionel). They have a few different options for TMCC upgrades. I’d highly recommend the Cruise commander. It’s more expensive and the circuit boards are probably a bit larger than the other options but it gives good slow speed running and keeps the locomotive running at a constant speed. The other options for these locomotives are probably the DC commander (for can motors) or possibly the mini commander. I’m thinking the diesel may be the easiest to upgrade, mainly because of space under the shell. I’m not certain on this but I’m pretty sure you’ll lose the trainsounds with that upgrade. ERR also makes Railsounds kits so you can easily replace them. I don’t own any of the Lionel Berkshire Jr’s so I can’t really tell how that installation would go. I know people have upgraded them. It may involve running a wired tether between the locomotive and the tender depending on which kit you choose and how much space you have under the boiler. Here’s ERR’s website: http://www.electricrr.com/ I would call them and ask about what they’d recommend for the upgrades. If you don’t feel comfortable doing the upgrades yourself, there are people who can do them for you. Links to upgrade services Electric RR co. will do them http://www.mttponline.com/ I believe Weaver Models does it too, but I’m not quite sure. Link to a video of a TMCC/Cruise upgrade to a Polar Express Berk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDGbHfIe4XY&feature=related
By the way, none of the kits are too difficult to install. Sorry my last post is so difficult to read, this forum doesn’t like to keep posts how you typed them. I had that all listed out to make it easy to read and now it’s all pushed together. Hope that helps.
once you goto http://www.electricrr.com/ and figure out what you want goto this site and order and save yourself some $$ as he sells there stuff as a distributor at a discount from there price. http://mttponline.com/ the guys name is Bill and he post on here off and on as boxcar Bill
I second the recommendation for Boxcar Bill, I’ve installed a number of these kits in various configurations. The hardest part for me usually ends up trying to make electrocouplers work on equipment that was never designed to use them, you have to get creative mechanically! [:D]
The actual electrical wiring is pretty simple.
I don’t know a dremel and the mounting truck and usually a few seconds and mine are ready to go lol I have added Lionel coil couplers to Williams with no problem that the dremel didn’t fix and it wasn’t much grinding. In fact my PA-1 I had to use the dremel on also as it was conventional couplers but I converted it to coil couplers took signal sounds out and installed train sounds which for now is good enough
I’ll put it this way I’m not really electrical minded but I found it easy and enjoy doing it now lol now never done a steam engine yet and not sure I really want to lol. But will say all I have done so far has been basically simple.
Try adding electrocouplers to a Williams GG-1 and then get back to me.
Hint: It’ll take some serious work and you’ll have to custom build the mounting for the couplers.
Steam locomotives aren’t that hard, you just have to add the chuff switch, usually a pretty easy install. The tether is another place you may have to get creative, I put one in an MTH Camelback, and I had to do quite a bit of customization on the locomotive to make a neat installation.
I did a Williams NYC Hudson TMCC/Cruise upgrade awhile back and it turned out well. I just added Railsounds to it a couple weeks ago. The coupler was actually the easiest thing on that locomotive but others as John said would be a different story. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k621Vhqm_GQ
Couplers on most Lionel engines are just remove one and put the electrocoupler in it’s place. It’s when you get to oddball configurations of trucks that it gets interesting. [;)]
Trainmanrock when you do it let us know how you came out and what you thought of the experience.