my (bad) luck continues

90% of mine hum like that.. Its just static its not gonna blow up...

Hello Forrest,

I have several Legacy engines that omit a humming sound when the layout is powered up, like yours I believe it comes from the sound board, when the engines are activated the hum disappears and when they are shut down, again like yours, after a few seconds the hum returns - this happens on all 3 of my ES44's, an 0-8-0 and Berkshire 765. I thought this was 'normal' until I bought a couple of Mikado's that remained silent before and after activation. I emailed Lionel a couple of times about a year ago and never received a response, so I would be interested to hear what they say if they respond to you.

Roy

I see that on certain engines, both TMCC and Legacy, but not all of them.  I'm afraid it's the nature of the beast, I haven't even tried to track it down.

I'm with John,personally I don't know if any of mine do this because I don't let an inactive loco sit on a powered track for any length of time.  This topic has come up before,doesn't seem like anything serious.   https://ogrforum.com/s...eryString=legacy+hum

I have to believe this is as simple as the orientation of wires and the boards in the locomotives and tenders.  The fact that it's there for one locomotive and not for another with the same set of boards, seems to indicate an environmental thing.

I once swapped all the boards from one steamer to another, leaving only the motherboard and obviously the internal wiring, the issue stayed with the same locomotive.

After moving some wires around in the locomotive and tender with no success, I abandoned the attempt to "fix" it.

My guess it is a 60 cycle hum from various sources in your train room (lights, transformer, etc).  It is like the noise you see on your DVM probes when they are not touching anything.

Earl

Hey don't feel bad, my ears have been doing that for years.

No fluorescents. 

also, it is the only engine doing this.

Yes, if the hum goes away when the loco moves it would be an indication that maybe a ground is not the problem . . . still, I can think of several, admittedly strange, scenarios where a poor ground (but probably not a completely open one) would cause a hmm or problems when the lco was stopped by not when the motor has been activated, but frankly, I don't

if it were me, while keeping in mind I might be going down the rwrong road, I'd check the grounds on both loco and tender first anyway.  I've seen so many weird things that are fixed by checking and tightening grounds, in model trains and other stuff including my profession (electric power systems), that its Mother to me - where I always go first.   Also, it is very easy to do - about the easiest diagnostic to run - just ground the thing well manually and see if the problem stops. 

I can think of several, admittedly strange, scenarios where a poor ground (but probably not a completely open one) would cause a hmm or problems when the lco was stopped by not when the motor has been activated, but frankly, I don't

I have a Legacy SD70Ace that when I put power to the track makes a humming noise, it sounds like the smoke fan is turning. When I start it up it sounds normal and performed normally. When I shut it down it hums again. When I first got it and had a problem addressing the engine Lionel customer service worked with me on the phone and when I asked about the noise on powering up the track was told it's normal for a lot of the Legacy engines.

"Lionel customer service worked with me on the phone and when I asked about the noise on powering up the track was told it's normal for a lot of the Legacy engines."

hmmm,

or should i say, hummmm.

try turning off the smoke unit and see what happens.

"just ground the thing well manually"

exactly how do to?

If it aint broke don't fix it, wait to hear from Lionel if it will give you peace of mind, see if it truly is a problem.You should get a reply by Monday or Tuesday at the latest. With all due respect to Lee, he's a nice guy, but the majority of his threads about "fixing" or "trying" this or that have resulted in a disaster and locos that no longer run. Other folks have experienced the same sound with no ill effects.If its that big of an annoyance put a siding on your layout with a toggle so you can remove power when the loco is not being used, this is just overall good practice anyway.

"try turning off the smoke unit and see what happens."

no impact