HELP: BLI PRR P5a Questions

[Trainman440]

Hi all, I got 2 questions before I decide on whether to get one of these engines.

1. The passenger version has whistles instead of horns mounted on the roof, since at the time I presume horns werent really a thing.  Yet every clip I can find of these engines plays the same horn. Does the engine come with a whistle sound as one of the 3 preselect whistles/horns?

2. There are three notable paint schemes: passenger(whistles, steam gen, brown roof, top markers), freight w/ brown roof(no steam gen, horns, no top markers), and freight, DGLE roof(large numbers on sides). 

I know that passenger varients would be gone by 1935-1940s as GG1s were released and replaced them in passenger service. But when did the freight with brown roofs get replaced by the full DGLE scheme? From pictures it seems like the brown freight P5a were really rare and quickly replaced. 

Any info would be great!

Charles

PS I know the second question would better fit in prototype info, but the first is more about the model. 

[gmpullman]

Trainman440

Does the engine come with a whistle sound as one of the 3 preselect whistles/horns?

Yes, you can choose, IIRC, alternate "horn" 4 for a nice sounding whistle.

(Trivia) did you know the GG1s were originally equipped with whistles?

GG1_top by Edmund, on Flickr

GG1_top_crop by Edmund, on Flickr

As built the P5s had brown roofs. By 1934 it was realized that the P5 and P5as were not suited for fast passenger service. In 1937 the "Futura" lettering scheme was applied and the brown roof was eliminated and DGLE continued to be applied to the roof. Futura lettering was phased out in the early 1940s.

So you would see brown roof freight motors beginning in 1933 through 1937, give-or-take.

Some of the P5 and P5as were equipped with Westinghouse Pneuphonic horns, presumably after 1932-33 but probably converted to the A-200s around 1936.

PRR_P5a-7898 by Edmund, on Flickr

3. Be sure you get a second-run or at least make sure you don't get an earlier one that has the bad motor which will then toast the decoder. All three of mine had to have decoders and motors replaced (fairly easy job and BLI supplied the repair parts).

PRR_under-wire_2k by Edmund, on Flickr

PRR_P5a_BLI2 by Edmund, on Flickr

Cheers, Ed

[Trainman440]

Awesome thanks, that lineup is lovely Ed!

Charles

[Overmod]

This has been a great enlightenment to me.

I always thought the Pneuphons were a postwar improvement, around the time the two-bell horns appeared on select first-generation diesel power.  I had never realized that the whistle on the original Gs was a passenger 3-chime, not one of those owl-hoot blowing-across-a-bottle-mouth air whistles like the ones on MP54s.  Does anyone have a record of how GG1s with those whistles sounded?

Not apropos of PRR motors: we now know what the multiple-bell DL&W air horns on steam power sounded like!  (Not the dainty honkers on the Hudsons; the chimes on the Poconos).  There turns out to be sound newsreel film, some of the very first equipment tested, with these engines featured... you won't find this on any decoder but even then, railroads understood the use of air-operated warning devices decidedly different from car or truck horns.  (The DL&W's were like those on Cotton Belt 4-8-4s in being made by an organ builder...)