Caboose jam-packed with electronics

Yikes!

Well, basically they just crammed the standard TMCC three-board set into it, all the money went into a new motherboard layout I suspect.

Most all the TMCC Station Sound Diners have the same setup.

Pete

@breezinup posted:

Just thought I'd share this. Today I opened this caboose, built in 2001, which I've had for awhile, to judge what will be required to put a different shell on it. Good grief, that's a lot of electonics in this thing! Lionel must have spent a lot of time and resouces developing this. Certainly a clear visual sign of O gauge railroading entering the electonic age!

This caboose is one of the relatively few of this type Lionel made with this type of RailSounds Crewtalk. Pretty neat, in that it has TMCC and does voice communications back and forth with a TMCC Crewtalk-equipped engine running in front, like the conductor talking back and forth with the engineer.

Wow, I didn't know sounds-equipped rolling stock are this jam-packed with electronic boards just for the sounds. I guess I'm satisfied with crew talk coming from the engine and even that is only audible at slow speeds. As the engine speeds up, its noise and the rest of the moving cars make it difficult to understand any dialog, especially when two trains are running on the layout. 😉

Would these boards be just for sound features and not motor controls?

@Corvette Rob posted:

Would these boards be just for sound features and not motor controls?

Hard to say. It has a R2LC but sometimes Lionel programs them differently. I would bet they could be used with a motor driver. Too bad its in a caboose. It would take a long tether to reach the engine.

Pete

@Corvette Rob posted:

Would these boards be just for sound features and not motor controls?

Well, the R2LC is doubtless a standard board, but of course, the caboose doesn't have motors.  The missing component is the motor control module, either the DCDR or DCDS.

I have a few of these 20 plus year old talking cabooses. It was and still is cool to use them programmed as a train (tr) with a railsounds 4.0 or less engine. Each one talking back to each other. Does not work well with a railsounds 5.0 engine as the engine has a longer dialogue and talks over the caboose.
Still was modern technology in 2000.

Thanks for your replies.  I was thinking of playing with an old MTH engine; non-protosound;  and seeing if I could bring it into the TMCC world.

@Corvette Rob posted:

Thanks for your replies.  I was thinking of playing with an old MTH engine; non-protosound;  and seeing if I could bring it into the TMCC world.

Keep in mind even if the engine runs it won’t give you steam sounds without finding another sound card. You could drive one of the ERR Railsounds cards though.

Pete

@Corvette Rob posted:

Thanks for your replies.  I was thinking of playing with an old MTH engine; non-protosound;  and seeing if I could bring it into the TMCC world.

Obviously, the R2LC TMCC receiver would work for an engine, but the sound card has caboose talk on it.

Let me know if you're looking for TMCC boards/motherboards, I have a good supply of them.