Sound - how has it changed your MR experience?

[C&O Fan]

My experience is much the same as your's Mr B And yes I do feel sorry for my non sound equipped locos

 I also have a number of DC locos that have lots of dust on them

 One of my favorites is a Y-6 N&W Mallet so every once in a while I throw the toggle to DC and take it for a spin.

[Gandy Dancer]

How do you feel about sound on your layout?

Having been a sound person since 1983 or so (my first PFM unit, not counting the toy train attempts at sound), one could say I'm a pro-sound on the layout kind of person.   I love to have a locomotive just sitting at the station just simmering with the compressors engaging occasionally.  Ringing the bell and chuffing slowly gathering speed out of the station.  I really like the sound syncronized with the drivers not the motor voltage, so I can skid the drivers and have the sound match.

I must mimic some of the things others have said.  Bad sound (e.g. MRC Brilliance) is worse than noise.  Too loud sound (QSI default settings) is worse than silence.  The current state of the art is no where close to being realistic in terms of the frequency response.

[johncolley]

MB, The advent of affordable (relatively) sound, along with other features such as momentum, has reinforced my desire and ability to operate realistically. This makes model railroading ever so much more enjoyable. But I caution that many manufacturers put out products preset at maximum volume, which can be wearing in short order. I prefer about 40-50% volume so it is noticeable at close proximity but not all over the room. Yes, my yard switcher's brakes squeel, and I wait for the air to pop before changing direction...Cool!            jc5729 John Colley, Port Townsend, WA

[MisterBeasley]

I just got through wiring my roundhouse stall tracks.  As someone who used to run DC, I automatically installed a toggle switch for each track when I put in the control panel, but then I got DCC, and realized that I didn't need to shut each track off individually.  So, I tied all the leads together and just ran trains.

Then, I started to accumulate sound engines.  I went back to the wiring, separated the leads and ran wires to the toggles.  As much as I love sound, most of the time I don't want all of the engines chiming in.  The QSI-equipped steamers can be cycled down to the dormant state, which they will remember even if I power off, but the diesels don't have that feature, and I have to shut the sound off individually each time I power up the layout.

But sometimes, when I'm doing scenery or other non-electrical layout work, I power everything up just to listen to engines while I'm doing the job.

[tomikawaTT]

After skimming down the length of this thread, it's obvious that various people have very different reactions to on-board sound - and that I can agree with most of them.  That said, the following is my considered opinion and is not subject to refutation based on anyone else's experience.

I am running silent, and will continue to do so.

My reasons, starting with realism:

• I have been up close to big steam - and even to some remarkably loud small steam.  No sound system that will fit inside an HOj tender shell (or smokebox) can even begin to approach the cannonfire of a high-backpressure steamer fighting a grade.
• The locos that need sound - LOUD sound - the most are teakettle tanks barely large enough to contain a motor, gearing, weight and a directional headlight circuit.
• When seen from a distance, like across the Kiso Valley, it was hard to hear the JNR's modern low-backpressure steam locos UNLESS they were fighting a grade and almost losing!  Wind in the trees, birdsong and the rushing river would usually drown them out.
• The JNR's diesels, both locos and DMU cars, were rather quiet, thanks to a remarkable device called a muffler with which they were all fitted.  (Those with two engines had two mufflers.)
• My models of JNR catenary-powered motors and MU cars probably generate proportionally greater gear whine than their prototypes did.
• JNR whistles and horns don't sound anything like the ones I've heard in sound system demos, and the JNR didn't use bells (except on the Kobe waterfront, which I haven't included in my master plan.)

And finishing with modeling considerations which only apply to me and my personal model railroad:

• I am living on a finite income, so sound-equipping an extensive roster (assembled largely when I could acquire a couple of brass locomotives for the price of a sound decoder)  would bring the rest of my modeling and ralifanning activity to a halt - and probably put unnecessary stress on my marriage.
• I'm not really anxious to have 'the sounds of railroading' pounding through the far from soundproof door and walls of my garage.
• Thanks to years of exposure to flight line noise, my hearing isn't wonderful any more, and I'm not going to get something that I can't enjoy.
• A lot of my train-kilometers (all of them at present) are run on trackage meant to represent 'the rest of Japan,' aka hidden thoroughfares and staging.  Imagine the look on some mundane's face if loud steam exhaust were to be heard when the only thing moving in the area where the noise is coming from is a train of EMU cars.

Finally, I am not into operating a single locomotive, or a single train.  I am trying to simulate the operation of a railroad - which includes having several trains in motion at once.  Under those conditions, I can't see sound as anything but an undesirable distraction.

Just my .  Other opinions, equally valid, will differ.

Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

[AntonioFP45]

quote by CMarchan 

************I was lucky enough to get close to GP7s and U18Bs and their crews on the SCL in Florida as a kid. There was street running in my neighborhood and I watched the process of kicking the cars. The sounds helped to sear the experience in my brain. Standing on the Tampa Union Station platform on Sunday afternoons watching SDP40Fs rev up for departure is still fresh in my mind. Having sound on my miniatures makes sense to me. Many of us link our model railroading with our memories of the prototype. The sounds are part of that memory. Now if I can record beer car generator sounds ......end quote

So well stated Carl. 

I realize that this is why I'm so "gung-ho"  about sound. IMHO, for a number of us, it is definetly the railfan memories that are cherished. 

I could not fathom then in my teen years that those locomotives I saw, heard, and/or climbed aboard on, would become rare or extinct within a few years. Or that most of the friendly railroaders I met would retire or pass away.  The sounds I hear today from Lok Sound, Soundtraxx, and QSI units are, indeed, a wonderful link to those past experiences.     

Because of heightened security and frivilous lawsuits, it saddens me that today's younger model railroad/railfan generation does not have the easy access to cab rides, railroad yards, 1st & 2nd generation equipment, working railroaders, etc., that we had back in the 1970s and 80s (at least here in Florida). It was a cinch to experience the many unique nuances (especially sounds) of railroading up close and personal.  A friendly, respectful attitude and good manners often made the difference back then.