I upgraded my Greenbrier in the early 2000’s when the ps2 upgrade kits first came out. Still runs good to this day. If you do decide to go the mth route, you will want to order a shorter coupler than provided as it sticks out a ways.
The mth ps3 kit gives you everything you need for the following:
-4 chuffs per revolution
-synchronized smoke
-cruise control and dcs control
-nice wire harness to go between tender and engine using the existing mounts from the ps1 set up.
-ability to use sound files that have specific talk and crew chatter.
The Lionel route (or Err), you are going to need allot more hardware (and money, I think it may be double) to accomplish the same thing.
- ERR motor board/R4LC ($150)
- super chuffer ($75)
- chuff generator ($40)
- generic sound electronics for Lionel ($125)
- purchasing an additional wire harness to go between the engine and tender.
- and the process of figuring out how to do the antenna
I would argue there is a lot more thinking on design (board placement and wire routing) involved with the lionel approach, where as the mth approach includes all the wires/ harnesses and they route to one central board stack once mounted in the tender.
The only down falls of the mth approach are the following
-you will need to commit to uploading the sound file ( not a big deal, but intimidates some, no different than updating a DCS remote)
-need to be extra careful when handling mth electronics as they are very sensitive to static when installing them (should be using a static Matt for either install)
-my opinion, the sounds are not as rich as Lionel’s
For reference here is a YouTube video of some one going through most of the mth upgrade installation process. Disclaimer here, I have no idea why this gentlemen went this route as this was a former ps2 model and he could have just swapped the board moving the wire harness plugs over from the blown board and not lost allot of the light functionality in the engine. I didn’t have the harness mounting issue he showed in the video.
