quote:
BTW, you can put the tender on the track and try them. You won't damage anything. You might get at least whistle, bell, and chuff sounds if you roll the tender.
Thank you for the suggestion.
I put one of the tenders on the track. When power was applied, I got the sounds of a steam engine idling, with occasional steam blow-off.
Moving the tender did not create any sounds. I do not see any sort of sensor on the wheels/trucks.
When I first tried the whistle (postwar ZW) I did not get any sound.
Then it occurred to me that with no other load, there might not be enough DC bias.
Sure enough, when I put an engine on the track with it, the whistle did blow.
I did not try to reverse the leads to see if it had a bell.
I wonder whether it is feasible to build a homemade simulator for the IR connection to test / operate the chuffing.
Boy is the tender heavy. I think it outweighs most of my postwar locomotives.