Lionel presentation at TCA open house, Acela and Legacy Upgrade

I noticed both. He was asked about the Acela project by someone who might have been in the know already, or so it seemed to me. But he said this project won't be leading to anything being issued until 2021, shortly before the prototype is retired, because they have a VL project going for 2020. He also said that in both mechanical and electronic terms any new Acela would be simpler than the original. Well, it would have to be. 

I'll be interested to see what if anything happens about this. It has always seemed to me that the tooling for the Acela cars must have been a considerable investment and Lionel would want to "recycle" it at some point.  But more to the point they are the finest detailed passenger cars ever produced in 3rail O scale, IMHO. The door opening and serial data issues are well known and it seems to me that they could be overcome. After all, there have been some more recent subway sets with a door opening feature that functions correctly.

I have the original Acela sets BTW.

On user-programmable Legacy sounds he was much less definite as in, simply not possible under existing Legacy system architecture but they were looking at the possibility somewhere down the pike. In other words he wasn't ruling it out, or that's my take on this point.

Upgradeable or what id really like is end user changeable sounds woukd be great. Available in ho land but not aware of specifics too well.

I'll believe the downloadable sounds when I see it.   It's easy to talk about doing it, but the reality is it would be a major change in the current architecture of the Legacy sound system.

I wonder if they'll still allow you to send in the old boxcars and get the better sounds loaded?

Just a thought on the sounds. Maybe they'd have the extra sounds onboard and you could select which horn for example? I'm not sure it would be necessary to swap out the type of motor sounds on a certain diesel for example. So maybe just certain sounds selectable by the operator? (like DCC)

Just throwing it out there!

I look forward to the new Acela release.

They should put the catenary arch effect in it.

Maybe a LionMaster version that will run on smaller layouts.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

I'll believe the downloadable sounds when I see it.   It's easy to talk about doing it, but the reality is it would be a major change in the current architecture of the Legacy sound system.

I wonder if they'll still allow you to send in the old boxcars and get the better sounds loaded?

That's pretty much what Ryan said.  I thought it was pretty clear when he said it too, but I was standing right in front, so maybe some of his words didn't travel too well to the back of the room.

The upgradable sounds response form Ryan seemed pretty clear to me that anything like that is NOT supported by Legacy due to the architecture, and such a thing would be way down the line in something to be determined (if ever).

-Dave

Engineer-Joe posted:

Just a thought on the sounds. Maybe they'd have the extra sounds onboard and you could select which horn for example? I'm not sure it would be necessary to swap out the type of motor sounds on a certain diesel for example. So maybe just certain sounds selectable by the operator? (like DCC)

Just throwing it out there!

They already did something like that I think at least twice in the past. 

The Acela had 2 different horn blasts, you could toggle which one from the remote. 

There was also at least one steam engine that had a horn in addition to it's whistle that was selectable with another key press sequence (I forget which engine off the top of my head, so I'm not going to guess and have people jump on me when I guess the wrong one )

-Dave

It was the Daylight GS4.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

It was the Daylight GS4.

 

Thanks, I think there was another one too, as I never owned one of those.

Now that you've listed one, I'll guess that maybe it was the CCII Niagara.

-Dave

There could well be another one, that's the one I know has it.

Dave45681 posted:

gunrunnerjohn posted:

It was the Daylight GS4.

 

Thanks, I think there was another one too, as I never owned one of those.

Now that you've listed one, I'll guess that maybe it was the CCII Niagara.

-Dave

My Lionel Pennsy S1 has both whistle and horn.

Johnsgg1 posted:

Dave45681 posted:

gunrunnerjohn posted:

It was the Daylight GS4.

 

Thanks, I think there was another one too, as I never owned one of those.

Now that you've listed one, I'll guess that maybe it was the CCII Niagara.

-Dave

My Lionel Pennsy S1 has both whistle and horn.

Vision Niagara and SP cab forwards too. 

gunrunnerjohn posted:

There could well be another one, that's the one I know has it.

So far we've listed five with either two horn effects (Acela) or an air horn in addition to a whistle (although my Niagara sounds like a sick duck when its air horn is triggered!) The ERR SP Daylight steam sound board also has it and it's a very good effect. 

I think, although I have to remind myself every time, that the key sequence is AUX1 followed by triggering the whistle (horn on the Acela). 

The MR s3's have two  different whistles as well as an air horn.

I'd be happy with the correct sounds for each model based on the prototype.

( As well as other things ....like the correct graphite colored smoke boxes instead of silver etc..etc.)