The stock sound system in your Kline is Lionel’s generic steam sound card. ERR large steam is a better option vs, generic steam, but there is a caveat IMO & others as well,…….the max volume you get from the ERR kit is not as loud as the stock Lionel system, …..you can “upgrade” the ERR kit with a larger speaker, and that will improve it a bit,….just an FYI,….
Pat
@harmonyards posted:The stock sound system in your Kline is Lionel’s generic steam sound card. ERR large steam is a better option vs, generic steam, but there is a caveat IMO & others as well,…….the max volume you get from the ERR kit is not as loud as the stock Lionel system, …..you can “upgrade” the ERR kit with a larger speaker, and that will improve it a bit,….just an FYI,….
Pat
Cool, thanks Pat.
likely going to send this to Pat for a major Chassis/motor swap, but still trying to sort out it's current issues just cause!
Here is a video demoing flakey track contact in case anyone has seem this sort of thing before.
Measure the resistance between the two pickup rollers. Should read close to zero. One may have a broken wire.
Pete
Does it exhibit the same problem with the tender attached ? I don’t have one handy to look at. But I thought the tenders rollers as well as chassis ground was connected through the tether. On many of these older models. You have multiple wheels touching the rails. Problem with some it’s not the best of connections. The pilot and trailing truck just sort of floats on a pivot to the chassis. One set of drivers has a traction tire, one set is blind and the other drive wheel is making the best contact.
The newer Legacy stuff. Many feature axle wipers on the trucks now to aid in the outside rail connection to the chassis.
Nice layout! Have you tested with any other locos? If your track is all-new or lightly run upon, you might try cleaning some of the blackening/oil off of the center rail. In the video I'm pretty sure I saw sparking near one roller, that indicates shorting or poor contact. If the Hudson's rollers are covered with black gunk, the factory blackening on the center rail is your culprit. My $.02.
@Ted S posted:Nice layout! Have you tested with any other locos? If your track is all-new or lightly run upon, you might try cleaning some of the blackening/oil off of the center rail. In the video I'm pretty sure I saw sparking near one roller, that indicates shorting or poor contact. If the Hudson's rollers are covered with black gunk, the factory blackening on the center rail is your culprit. My $.02.
Thanks Ted! I built it all by myself! No help from the the wife....go figure. The wood will disappear as I continue adding the metal trusses. Then comes the rest of it of course. That should take a long while!
Posting another vid shortly to show it working. Definitely was the tender not being tethered. Probably the shell weight is also helping. I keep the tracks pretty clean.
As Pete mentioned, verify both pick up rollers have continuity between the two, and as Dave C. pointed out, the Kline Hudson shares a common through the tether. So hook up your tender for further tests ……also note, you’re running without the engine shell on, some weight on the drivers will help aid in diagnostics as well,…..
Pat
Al sorted! For now anyway....
@Norton posted:Measure the resistance between the two pickup rollers. Should read close to zero. One may have a broken wire.
Pete
Hey Pete, I emailed you with some questions about the Chinese motor install.
Well I'm not sure if I should veer to far off topic, but I was looking at my childhood locomotive next to the Hudson and it's no wonder I'm drawn to it. This is not the exact engine, but the same model and road name that I had as a kid. I loved that thing. I remember being around 4 years old and freaking out when my dad brought it home for my brother. These things were mass produced in the early seventies and went into to all sorts of sets with different numbers and names, I've come to learn. It was just this last January that I started thinking about it and found this one on ebay. 7 months later I've gone a little nuts, built my table and bought all this train stuff...Clearly this MPC era loco was inspired by a Hudson though it's never referred to as one or any other engine specifically that I've seen
.
Actually, the 4-4-2 is an Atlantic type locomotive.
Right, but the shape of the boiler and the steps in the front. I don't think the Atlantic has those features. The shape of the cow catcher. I think it looks more like a Hudson despite the wheel configuration. Even the shape of the cab and it has the 3 vents on top! Mind blown! 
This Atlantic below is my first and only high end Lionel Legacy steam engine with the latest electronics and whistle steam. I bought it because of the matching wheel configuration, but it still doesn't remind me of the MPC the way the Hudson does. The MPC looks like a Hudson shell on an Atlantic chassis to me! They should have called it the Hudlantic!
Just picked up a set of K-line Heavyweight NYC passenger cars since I now have 2 engines that historically ran them.
Yes we are drifting WAY off topic, but this strikes a chord with my heart strings... I grew up during the MPC era and lusted after these in the catalogs. (Am I the only one who thinks that Lionel should do a "MPC Celebration Series"!?) The MPC-era 4-4-2 uses a modified 2036 boiler casting, which itself was a modified 2026, which was derived from the comparatively spartan and baby-faced 1666 produced from 1938-47.
So it's not really a scale model of anything. The 1666 supposedly had the lines of a NYC light Pacific. But IMO the details added around 1950 (bulky sand dome, Viloco sanders, air line coolers on the pilot deck) were inspired by the last of steam: the C&O K-4 Kanawha, or P&LE A-2. Take a moment to visualize what a postwar 2018 would look like with a lowered headlight and flying number boards [C&O]. Or, with a twin-sealed-beam headlight mounted high on a flat Selkirk front end in olive drab green paint! [P&LE A-2]. There are other influences too... The "sports model" cab definitely isn't NYC / Nickel Plate. Personally, it calls to mind L&N's "Big Emma" 2-8-4s, which were among the last steam locos Baldwin built. Even more details, such as a power reverse gear, were added by MPC in 1973 when they moved the marker lights to the boiler front (a great feature!) When it comes to "traditional" O gauge, you can't put too much emphasis on the wheel arrangement. Remember, in real life a 4-4-2 would pull as much as a 2-8-4 as long as it still had 293,000 lbs on the drivers!
Perhaps Todd Wagner could tell us what became of the tooling. After the last Girls Train replica (circa 2006?) it hasn't resurfaced, and I've nearly given up hope of a LC+ version. Pat doesn't know it yet. But when he retires I'm gonna ask him to fit a Pittman 8692 motor and NWSL gearbox in one of these 4-4-2s 
. Because sometimes, you just need a smooth 4 mph creep in that handy O27 size! 
@Ted S posted:Yes we are drifting WAY off topic, but this strikes a chord with my heart strings... I grew up during the MPC era and lusted after these in the catalogs. (Am I the only one who thinks that Lionel should do a "MPC Celebration Series"!?) The MPC-era 4-4-2 uses a modified 2036 boiler casting, which itself was a modified 2026, which was derived from the comparatively spartan and baby-faced 1666 produced from 1938-47.
So it's not really a scale model of anything. The 1666 supposedly had the lines of a NYC light Pacific. But IMO the details added around 1950 (bulky sand dome, Viloco sanders, air line coolers on the pilot deck) were inspired by the last of steam: the C&O K-4 Kanawha, or P&LE A-2. Take a moment to visualize what a postwar 2018 would look like with a lowered headlight and flying number boards [C&O]. Or, with a twin-sealed-beam headlight mounted high on a flat Selkirk front end in olive drab green paint! [P&LE A-2]. There are other influences too... The "sports model" cab definitely isn't NYC / Nickel Plate. Personally, it calls to mind L&N's "Big Emma" 2-8-4s, which were among the last steam locos Baldwin built. Even more details, such as a power reverse gear, were added by MPC in 1973 when they moved the marker lights to the boiler front (a great feature!) When it comes to "traditional" O gauge, you can't put too much emphasis on the wheel arrangement. Remember, in real life a 4-4-2 would pull as much as a 2-8-4 as long as it still had 293,000 lbs on the drivers!
Perhaps Todd Wagner could tell us what became of the tooling. After the last Girls Train replica (circa 2006?) it hasn't resurfaced, and I've nearly given up hope of a LC+ version. Pat doesn't know it yet. But when he retires I'm gonna ask him to fit a Pittman 8692 motor and NWSL gearbox in one of these 4-4-2s
Well, it definitely looks more relatable to earlier Lionel tooling than any real steam engine I've seen so far! When I first started trying to find it, I was quickly confused by the similarities of those different castings from other eras though I remembered that it had 4 drive wheels. I first had to deduce that it was early MPC, which I new nothing about. Then I came across the coal tender with the C&O logo and it all came back. Fortunately, there weren't to many different steam castings in that 1970-74 range. Which would be be the best forum for this kind of topic? I can always start new threads for these kinds of things.
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