Lionel Walking Brakeman car - noisy?

I have the Southern pacific walking brakeman boxcar and it doesn't make much noise.  

It's been awhile since I first got one that was from a train set. And I guess like FasTrack, the opinions of noise is subjective. But I guess I thought mine was noisy too. At any rate I took the shell off and lubricated all the gears and moving parts, which were bone dry.

Whether the lubrication helped to quiet it down, I don't remember, but given all the moving parts and nylon gears, lubrication is not a bad idea for longevity. I have an elevated track where I have placed a string of self-operating cars. My motorized aquarium car makes more noise than does the walking brakeman car. But of course, my MPC era 9307 (postwar based) chase gondola has them all beat as far as making some noise.

brianel_k-lineguy posted:

It's been awhile since I first got one that was from a train set. And I guess like FasTrack, the opinions of noise is subjective. But I guess I thought mine was noisy too. At any rate I took the shell off and lubricated all the gears and moving parts, which were bone dry.

Whether the lubrication helped to quiet it down, I don't remember, but given all the moving parts and nylon gears, lubrication is not a bad idea for longevity. I have an elevated track where I have placed a string of self-operating cars. My motorized aquarium car makes more noise than does the walking brakeman car. But of course, my MPC era 9307 (postwar based) chase gondola has them all beat as far as making some noise.

How true.....LOL   By the way, I like your idea of a dedicated possibly elevated track to nowhere for these type of action cars.  In some ways they are more enjoyable standing still.  

I just had a brain storm.  On this dedicated section of track, each car can have it's own section of powered track.  This way, they can be run individually.  Then the cacophony of sounds wouldn't drown out my thinking process.  

Which brings me to another gripe.  While watching TV, some programs, whether they be the news, documentaries or whatnot, have background music playing while the narrator is speaking.  As I get older, I find it very difficult to hear what is being said over the music even with my hearing aides in place !

Dan

Take a look at TV sound bars with "accu-voiice". Installed one of those for a friend who had hearing issues and its amazing how much clearer it makes voices.

sound bars for dialogue

Dan Padova posted: How true.....LOL   By the way, I like your idea of a dedicated possibly elevated track to nowhere for these type of action cars.  In some ways they are more enjoyable standing still.

I've always had small layouts, but the one I have now is the smallest one ever, so "real estate" for operating accessories (which often have a large footprint) is at a premium.

Thus came the idea of an elevated section of track across the entire back of the layout, with operating cars placed there, to put some "activity" to the layout.

I have a Lionel Powermax transformer dedicated to this elevated section, with some extensions built off it for a floodlight tower and an illuminated junction tower. I also have a couple of snap together truss bridges on this section along with a girder bridge. Visually it gives a small layout a lot more dimension.

So, what I did was to use very narrow sipping straws - cut with a slit down them lengthwise - and then I slipped them over the center rail. They're just a few inches in length. So I can easily turn on or turn off an operating car, by pushing to the left or right just an inch or two, to allow the center roller pickup to come in contact with the "live" rail. 

When I want to turn the car off, I roll it back an inch or two, so that the center roller is now over the sipping straw piece. I just had to figure out how many cars would be parked on this elevation, and then to space the straw insulators in the right places so that the car could be moved just slightly to turn it on or off.

Right now I have an aquarium car, a vibrator searchlight car, the walking brakeman car, the chase gondola and a toxic waste car all up there. I can have a couple cars on at one time and not trip the transformer.