Adoing a soundboard to my 1970s Lionel diesel switcher

Yes it's easy to add a sound board. You have the ERR Railsounds unit as well as the MRC ac Sounder. Both are a two wire hook-up

Since it's a Lionel and sounds like your only engine or you only have a small fleet, the Railsounds sound system is tough to beat.

I have looked at the ERR Railsounds product, it looks like they randomly put their boards on sales as well, I will have to check frequently on their website.  It wont have any issues playing nice with the manual switcher or the CW80 as far as you can tell?

Adding an LED is super easy and cheap.  I've done it with an 8500.  Adding the soundboard is fairly simple, but costly if you buy new.  ERR is 85.00 and O scale on MRC is 109.  While sound is awesome, for the price ERR wants, I'd rather go and find a sound-equipped loco.  For instance, I found a MTH Soo SW-9 switcher with Protosound 2.0 for $160.00.  I bought a new battery for it for $15.00.  So for $175 I have a lightly used, new to me, simply awesome diesel switcher, with far more features than what will come with adding a sound board.  The alternative to buying a new board from ERR or MRC is to find a used board that may or may not fit in your 8569.

I bought a used Protosound 1 board off the forum here and added it to my Lionel 6-18825 (Soo Line GP38).  It's a tight fit, but I got the board in the shell and since the loco already had a speaker box, there was no issue with where to place the speaker.  Now my only issue is the weight.  I had to remove the 6 ounce block Lionel put in the shell to fit the board, so I'm going to get some weights for a pine car and add them to the various voids inside the shell so I get some traction.  This project, outside of time, cost me $25.00 (so far) and the sound is fantastic.  Time wise it cost me about 8 hours of carefully documenting the original wiring of the loco, figuring out the exact wiring for the new board, then going through and soldering every connection.  If I get the weight issue down and the loco runs smoothly, I figure it's time and money well spent as it adds a degree of realism sorely lacking in the original condition (the horn sounded like a dying cow).

I love sound as it makes the play more fun.  But I'm one to consider economics.  In the end, the value of what you do is up to you.  An 8569 is worth about $40.  Is it worth paying more than double the value of the loco for a new ERR sound board or is it better to find a used proto 2 loco?  That's a question only you can answer for yourself.

If you're looking for inexpensive play value, it's possible to occasionally find a Lionel GP-9 from the late 1990s on the auction site for under $100 that has TMCC, RailSounds, flashing strobe light, and electrocouplers. Lionel made a bunch of these in different roadnames over a number of years, and they're pretty bulletproof units. These can be run conventionally, but if you add a used Cab 1 and TMCC base to facilitate remote control, you and your son will have a blast. One of these engines will take your play value and increase it exponentially.

I have some OEM Lionel RailSounds sound systems that might fit the bill. 

Details can be found here:

https://ogrforum.com/t...systems-alco-and-emd

TRW