The Lionel Powermasters were particularly "dirty" with respect to the AC sine wave they put out. There was a remedy that seemed to work on most Proto-1 locomotives and might work here. You have to get a NON-POLARIZED 100uF to 200uF @ 35 volt electrolytic capacitor and tie it across the hot and common leads of the output of the Powermaster. This smooths the output AC sine wave so that it doesn't confuse the MTH electronics. Again, use a NON-POLARIZED capacitor because a regular electrolytic capacitor will likely burst (or explode) when used with AC.

Hope this helps.

I can attest that the 135W PowerMaster creates issues with two of four PS1 locomotives I tried it with, so the previous advice by Matt is probably a good idea.   Running the same locomotives with an old KW worked perfectly.

A TPC unit would have been a better choice, it will run MTH PS1or PS2 locos conventionally, even fire the coupler.

Before I got DCS I ran my RailKing RS3 and 2-8-0, both with Locosound, my Atlas/MTH Hybrid GP9 with PS2, and my RailKing NW2 with PS2, using a MTH Z-750, PowerMaster, and CAB-1.

Here's what I did to wire it up:

POWERMASTER “A” WIRE (FUSED) TO Z750 TRANSFORMER RED TERMINAL AND CENTER RAIL

POWERMASTER “U” WIRE TO Z750 TRANSFORMER BLACK TERMINAL AND OUTSIDE RAIL

THROTTLE ON CONTROLLER - MAXIMUM

POWERMASTER GREEN LIGHT - POWER IS ON

POWERMASTER RED LIGHT FLASHING - CAB-1 REC SIGNAL

Z750 TRANSFORMER PLUGGED INTO A POWER STRIP

Here's what I did to start/stop an engine:

TURN POWER STRIP ON

PRESS BOOST TO WAKE UP CAB-1

THROTTLE UP UNTIL SOUND IS HEARD

PRESS DIR FOR DIRECTION

THROTTLE UP TO MOVE TRAIN

AUX1 THEN 0 TO CUT POWER

TURN POWER STRIP OFF

This may not be normal, but it worked well for me.

Thanks, all, for your suggestions. I was able to get the RDC's to run fine, and the directional control worked well. Just no horn, bell, or other sounds.  I didn't know about the TPC unit differences, and have these three Powermasters to put to use.

I'll try Bob's method tomorrow night. Next, capacitor if Bob's method fails.

B&OBill

Track Power Controllers are the best thing to use to run MTH locos with the Lionel CAB-1 and Lionel Power supply.

The early versions of the PowerMasters do not have roll off caps built in and this causes earlier version of the QSI sound boards to behave badly.  MTH and QSI added a "detector" to shut down the sounds if the locomotive was used with a power supply that has a sharp chopped sine wave.  Original QSI boards behaved very badly with the PowerMaster so shutting down the sounds wasn't such a bad thing.  The bi-polar capacitor that Matt suggested in the previous posts is a way to lessen the sharpness of the chopped sine wave and "fool" the detector circuit.

BTW, that same chopped sine wave is what allows your older PW loco's to run much better.  The technique had been used on HO/N power supplies for a while to get additional performance.  PowerMasters were released near the beginning of the release of the more elaborate sound systems which were mostly designed to run on sine waves output.

The newer PowerMaster MAY allow you to run with access to basic sounds BUT the CAB-1 itself can not generate the really short DC offsets to access all of the sound features in PS-1 and PS-1 loco's.  These features are accessed with Track Power Controllers by means of "macro" buttons that have been programmed into the device.

TPC's are excellent products.  They can handle more power (300 or 400 watts), support additional speed steps, and they have the macro sequences that allow a CAB-1 to triger shorter pulses to control additional features/sound effects.  They cost more that the PowerMasters AND they requires use of a Command Base and serial data cable.  TPC's have no radio receivers built into them.

Bill,

I'll be glad to send you a couple of the correct capacitors. I'll drop three of them in the mail for you.

Thanks to Trainman9, and all of you for your help. Adding the capacitor works perfectly. Go over to "Weekend at the Movies" if you'd like to hear and see the MTH Speedliners operating under PowerMaster control.

B&OBill