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Lionel 3-Truck Shay 'squeals'.

Ingeniero No1Ingeniero No1OGR Forum Member

For Christmas, I gave Judy (my wife) a Lionel 6-11157 3-Truck Shay. Yes, she likes Shays and thinks that they look like they are floating over the rails when seen from the gear and rod side.

 

The engine runs fine, but makes a squealing sound that I do not believe is correct. The squeals are synchronized with the other chuffing sounds, and I have found one way to eliminate this somewhat annoying sound:

 

If I accelerate the engine to any speed, whether slow, medium or fast speed, and once I have reached that speed I back off one notch on the remote, the squeals go away and only a nice beating sound remains.

 

Is anyone familiar with this sound characteristic? Is it normal for this type of Lionel Shay? If not, is there a way to fix it?

 

BTW, this Shay is TMCC and I run it with my Legacy system; just in case this makes a difference.

 

Thank you for your help.

 

Alex

 

PS. I took nice video of this Shay today, but before I post it, squeal and all, I thought it would be a good idea to ask.

 

 

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Train DoctorTrain DoctorOGR Forum Member

I remember that when MTH brought out the H-9 2-8-0, my friend bought one and gave it to me to lube before he ran it at our club layout. There is a squeak in the loco that drove me nuts (more) trying to oil it to get the squeak out of it. I finally turned down the sound, and the squeak went away. Sheesh. BTW, when they reissued the loco, the same squeak was still in the sound set.

HW Hot WaterOGR Forum Member
Originally Posted by Train Doctor:

I remember that when MTH brought out the H-9 2-8-0, my friend bought one and gave it to me to lube before he ran it at our club layout. There is a squeak in the loco that drove me nuts (more) trying to oil it to get the squeak out of it. I finally turned down the sound, and the squeak went away. Sheesh. BTW, when they reissued the loco, the same squeak was still in the sound set.

That "squeak" is in the REAL steam locomotive that the MTH Recording Engineer recorded in the field. The noise is caused by one bad valve ring, thus you hear the "squeak" only every fourth chuff. The squeak, or high pitched squeal, is/was caused by the high temperature superheated steam blowing by the worn valve spool ring.

 

I always thought that the "squeak" was a GREAT sound, and not that uncommon on real steam locomotives. 

mountain482mountain482OGR Forum Member

I understand that many real-life steamers may have made that sound at some point or another throughout their lifetimes, which means in some instances, it is prototypical.  In this case, however, it seems to stand out particularly loud on Lionel TMCC Shays.  It may just be more noticeable since the chuff rate is wrong (3 CPR).  As Alex does, I also overshoot the original desired speed and back it off and the annoying squeal goes away.  Thank goodness the Legacy 2-truck models do not have this squeal.

Last edited by mountain482
Views: 1,026
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