old school lionel sant fe with new comp boards

[chad tm5000/trainstation]

can anyone help with old school f3 santa fe engines and transfer to the new stuff like rail sounds, smoke and whistle. is it possible to do or do i have to buy the upgraded engines now. my son wanted to know this,we are going to the greenburg train show this month here in pittsburgh and he wanted the cheif at half the price and hes only working with a couple buck. please help from the train station home chad and son micheal/caboose

[TRAINCAT]

Post war F3's are not cheap, unless they are all beat up. I have seen a few guys modify them with new electronics but your talking over 200.00 for parts alone. My advise to you is buy some Rail King engines, they already have it all. I don't think you can add smoke to the post war engines, there just isn't room. Watch Ebay and see what you can find.

Roger

[rtraincollector]

If you want to convert it to TMCC you can do this. The cost is $60.00 for the AC commander and $85.00 for rail commander. now if you want cruise commander it would be in the place of the cruise commander its $105.00 but you can add this for a total of $145.00 or $190.00  so there is your answer and the site I got to get these prices is http://www.mttponline.com/ Its one of the guys on here know as boxcar bill I have converted one AC engine my self now if he don't find one at the train show you might want to check into a williams as they do remakes but with dc canmotors that thru the electronics its converted to run on ac track you could get a dc commander same price as the ac commander and install that a williams you can get double A's for about $239 plus shipping or here its just a a unit with 3 passenger cars for like $278.99 now these don't have tmcc in them but heres another option to get what you want with some cars and then you can add tmcc http://www.ebay.com/itm/Williams-00321-Santa-Fe-Flyer-Passenger-Train-Set-/330748138988?pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item4d022015ec

[phillyreading]

My advice is to buy something new with all the sounds and smoke controls that you want. It will be way easier, and much cheaper, than converting older Lionel engines to electronics.