New-fangled relay?

[Anonymous]

Helloo all,

Maybe one of you out there can help me. I would like to be able to build circuits that work based on the whistle/bell controls.

Specifically, a whistle relay works (switches) only when there is DC present, even though it is exposed to AC constantly. This is a mystery to me as to how it works.

Is there a modern relay that can be used to do the same job in its place? Then I could do all sorts of fun stuff when the whistle/ bell control is used. [:D]

The original works great but must be mounted vertically and must be carefully isolated from the frame (ground). It's also kind of a big klunker.

TIA

[trigtrax]

The magic of the old whistle relay is the two copper washers staked onto the center post. You can simulate this if you find some of the later Lionel Whistle boards that drove DC Motored air whistles. These, like the old relay, will ignore AC and only trigger on DC. Reversing their input gives you the Whistle/Bell selection.