Baffling air whistle failure

[thor]

I laid down two ovals on the floor yesterday, each with a LH track switch to connect to each other via a couple of straights and an uncoupler so it could be shared between them. I wanted my little girl to have the air whistle to play with and me to have the Docksider and uncoupler to play with, so I also put in three plastic pins after the uncoupler and before her switch to ensure that the two controllers couldnt short out.

The Lionel controller that came with the set has the whistle button, so does my MRC controller but although it is brand new, it never has worked my air whistle!

I can live without the sound of a whistle though. So thats why I used the MRC controller for my loop.

Well I quickly discovered that the air whistle wouldnt work anymore. It did the last time we had it out and the Lionel controller button must be sending a DC spike because the train goes faster, as always, when the whistle button is pressed.

So I examined the tender, the roller, the board, everything looked okay only it wouldnt work. So fair enough, its broke, we'll just manage without.

However a funny thing happened when she changed the switch and backed her train onto the straight section to uncouple the last car, I told her to be careful not to go past the insulated end as the power would die. At the time, though I didnt know it, my oval of track was powered up but my engine was in neutral.

First off, her train kept running even though she backed its tender (not the loco) past the insulating pins, secondly when she hit the direction button to pull her train back onto her oval, the whistle sounded! The train didnt change direction no matter how much she hit the button, it just kept on activating the whistling tender!

My loco came back to life - I had forgotten it was powered up in neutral - and there was a bit of confusion what with conflicting control signals and all and we got our respective trains back onto their respective loops and back under control and of course the whistle stopped working!

So I tried replicating the same condition (only without my loco in place) my controller with slight power up. backing her train to the same position as before, nothing! No matter what combination we tried, the whistle remained dead.

I am baffled and we want our whistle back!

Does the above help anyone figure out whats happening and can you help me?

[chuck]

Is the tender a PW tender or modern?  Are both power supplies modern?  The speed up when the button is pushed doesn't always mean the trigger circuit is working.  In fact, sometimes it means the booster winding is cutting in while the rectifier which is supposed to produce the spike and  which should cause a drop isn't. 

[thor]

The tender is modern and so are both power supplies. The Lionel one came with the Disney 4-4-2 that has the air whistle tender. Its the one previous to the CW80, a gray plastic sloped design with a center knob and a seperate 60W brick.

[sir james I]

Did you try reversing the wires to the track? modern whistle will only respond to the DC from one direction.  The bell responds to DC fron the other direction.

[brianel027]

Mike (Thor), I would second Sir James idea.

I run my entire layout on rectified DC current off a Lionel 1033. The majority of locos have reverse circuit boards removed. BUT the few that have them in, I find I can blow horns and whistles by simply changing the direction button, which changes the direction of the DC current to the track. One direction, the whistle sounds, the other it doesn't -even though it is always DC current. The locos with the reverse boards still in them do not change direction when I change the current direction to the track.

BTW, I have another whistle mounted into a Bachamann Plasticville RR Shed building that I pulled from a Lionel tender. This one runs off separate accessory current and doesn't slow the train down the way most normally operated traditional horns/whistles can do.

[Anonymous]

try putting some other electrical load on the track such as a lighted caboose and then try the whistle.

[thor]

It was my fault! I didnt know that it matters which wire goes where! I thought because it was AC it didnt matter, I never realised how the whistle works with a DC spike.

[traindaddy1]

 Thor-- Edited: I wrote this before I read your last post but I'll leave it.

I don't know if this is related to your problem. I have an older Lionel ZW transformer that will activate air whistles and diesel horns on all my trains except the Polar Express air whistle. The PE does work very well hooked up to a track with the CW80.

I spoke to Lionel Tech and they told me that the newer tenders do not receive the signal from the older ZWs and that I could solve the problem with a Sound Activation Button (610-5906-001)    We'll see!