10 days and counting till the grandkids come in.
Both the steamer and diesel are running good, uncoupling problems (over the switches) solved, smoke unit working well, bridges in place, far side of the layout powered up to solve slow down problems, and the newly acquired second pair of switches work well.
The only remaining issue was sound, or lack thereof. The eBay sales of the whistle billboards were either too pricey or the items looked crappy. Toyed with the possibility of buying the MRC Symphony 77 system, but couldn't convince myself to go that route.
My 7'x10' American Flyer layout sits adjacent to my DCC powered HO layout, so I ran a pair of wires from my bus wires on the HO layout up over the basement ceiling and down to the American Flyer layout to a piece of HO gauge flex track concealed in a forest of trees and placed a sound equipped steamer and a diesel on the track. Then, I ran a cable from a UTP panel on my HO layout up and over and back down to a UTP panel on my American Flyer layout for a pair of throttles, one each for the steamer and the diesel.
I placed one of the throttles between the transformer and the switch controller for each engine, one on each side of the layout to keep the kids (engineers) apart. Voila! Press a button on the throttle and you have a very prototypical sound - - a 4-8-4 steam whistle for my steamer and an E8 diesel whistle for my diesel switcher.
Total cost of this solution: Zero. I had all of the materials on hand.
Rich
Alton Junction
The ingenuity of my fellow model railroaders never ceases to amaze me.
(And often-times scares the #$@# out of me.)
I have figured out what is wrong with my brain! On the left side nothing works right, and on the right side there is nothing left!
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