Possibly a strange question, but when I shut down a switcher (Kato NW2 with LoKSound decoder) the final sounds are (maybe) the cab door shutting followed by the ringing of a bell similar to an old fashioned crank telephone, or like the class time bell in school back in the dark ages. Maybe even the alarm bell in a fire station. What the heck is this bell all about?
Mike
Technically it shoudl be there on startup too, once the main battery switches are closed but before the engine cranks. If you watch some of the "starting up a xxx" videos on Youtube you will here it. Not sure if it's triggeder by low oil pressure (my guess) or low fuel pressure, or just no engine RPMs, but it's an alert presnet in nearly every loco. I'm 98% certain it's oil pressure, it also serves to alert the crew to a failure while in motion. Theoretically you would hear the alarm and be able to stop the prime mover before it caught fire or something else bad happened - in reality if it's the fourth unit in a consist and all crew members are up in the lead unit, good luck. SO when you manually shut down the prime mover, but before the switches are disconnected, the alarm is triggered.
SOme are bells, some are more like buzzers.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Thanks, and very interesting. It does not ring on start-up. and I've not dug into the paperwork for the decoder to see if it says anything. None of my other sound locomotives have this feature so far as I've been able to determine.
Curious.
You can hear it in some vidieos like these:
right at the beginning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbxQuOisvFs
the sd40-2 has a pericing buzzer, but you can also here a single ding from the warning bell when he flips it from start/stop to run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zen6JvBI1r0
You can hear it on this loco before it shuts off and then again just before auto-restart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ9h2q3Gjm0
It's not very loud frot he outside of the loco, but the Loksound scripts are usually witten as if you were in the cab for shutdown and startup, so the warning bell would be louder.
Those are the same, or very similar, bell sounds. Also great videos. Thanks.