Legacy 2 Truck Shay Chuff Rate

That was quite a surprise hearing a Shay sound like a rod engine.  I hope there is some way to fix it.  I wonder how Lionel could make a mistake like that.  This is not their first Shay and there are lots of real Shays still running to go listen to.

I just pulled the prototype unit off the shelf in order to confirm that as designed, this engine chuffs 6 times per wheel revolution.

rudy

Lionel Engineering

Rudy, thanks for getting involved.  Did your Shay work as intended?  Did you watch Eric's video?

I saw the video, but I wasn't able to count revolutions on the screen. My comment is based on my review of the prototype engine. I made a mark on the wheel, put the locomotive on roller tracks and, at slow speed, counted the number of chuffs for one revolution of the wheel (six).

The Shay has three doubling acting cylinders driving the drive shaft mounted on the right side of the locomotive.  This drive shaft drives the wheels through a set of bevel gears having a gear ratio of about three to one. The drive shaft would have a exhaust rate of six chuffs per revolution.  The wheels are driven by the drive shaft with a gear ratio of about three to one.  The wheels should have a chuff rate of about eighteen per revolution.  The chuff rate of the drive shaft (6) times the gear ratio (3) would produce eighteen chuffs per revolution of the wheel.

it would appear that you have verified that the chuff rate on the two truck shay is considerable less than it should be.  Is there any way to speed it up the chuff rate so the model will sound like a real Shay?

Thanks for your help on this.

Thanks for the detailed reply, David. With the smaller drive wheel and 6 chuffs per rev, our shay presents a very different sound than our road engines. We don't consider it practical to model 18 chuffs per wheel revolution on an engine of this scale. 

thanks,

rudy

to answer that question.  no.

there is no way for the general public to access the legacy commands.

David

Thanks for the description of how a Shay works and the relation to what we hear when it operates.

We don't consider it practical to model 18 chuffs per wheel revolution on an engine of this scale. 

Rudy

Thanks for the replies. 

Is there a technical impediment to producing a realistic Shay sound of 6 chuffs per crank shaft revolution? 

I think as is, it would mess with your speed control features. Adding another sound system not connected directly to the legacy, but running off its own reed switch(or whatever) used to fill in the sound gaps might be possible. How much room do you have in one of those beauties?  Also the 18 chuffs may sort of blend together into a ball of indistinguishable noise. I think Lee's tag line of "if no one has every done it that way, it might be fun to try" applies here well.

That would sure be my guess.  In an O scale model, the individual chuffs would be virtually indistinguishable, and I imagine the resulting effect would disappoint most operators.

Ted:

I, too, was considering purchase of Lionel's beautiful two truck Shay model, but after watching this video, I won't buy it.  The chuff rate is, apparently, not adjustable and so totally wrong that I just couldn't bear it.

I'm not a rivet counter by any standard, but this thing sounds like they have the wrong sound set in it.  Many Shays are operating all over the US, why not record one of them and do it right.  The chuff frequency is only part of the issue for me.  I don't know if it's the relatively small cylinders on a real Shay, but the chuff sound is quite different from a conventional steam locomotive and Lionel has clearly used a stock chuff from it's library which, to my ears, sounds just awful coming from a beautifully represented 2 truck Shay.

Pat

I am similarly disappointed.  The 2 truck Shay and the larger 3 truck Pacific Coast Shay would make a great combination but the really, really wrong chuff rate an no way to set it to sound realistically is a deal breaker for me.

For designed for logging service or industrial switching, a Shay is at home at low speed.  Legacy locomotives have a well deserved reputation for fine slow speed control.  I just wish the Legacy Shay could be set to maximize the realism of the sounds in the realistic end of the speed range.