Need help hooking up a 1996 Lionel loco w/RailSounds...

Your CW should work just fine. The sound activation button was an early form of the bell button.
Also if the bell button does not work on the CW, reverse the leads to the track and it should work.

franktrain

Thanks Frank!

Are the RailSounds started by the motion of the train?

Back then, modern electronics were entering the "O" Gauge 3-rail market. Whistles were blown by positive (+) DC superimposed on AC track voltage. Bells were rung by negative (-) DC. These small black buttons made these new sounds accessible from transformers in common use then, even those with weak DC output from whistle and horn circuits.

quote:

Are the RailSounds started by the motion of the train?

I could be wrong but I vaguely recall only two Railsounds that depended on the motion of the train.

The first was a primitive CHUG/CHUG/CHUG/CHUG sound made inside a big black plastic wheel concealed in a tender. It contacted the center rail and turned as a train moved forward or backward. Partitions inside this wheel accumulated small pieces of material (beans, one guy told me), raised them, and let them fall down, making CHUG sounds (more or less). Marx may have come up with this one.

The other was a contact near the bottom of a smoke unit. When a crosshead moved a smoke lever up, the contact closed and made a hiss of "white noise" that resembled a CHUG as a locomotive moved faster. The speaker was in the tender.

I'll point out that only within the past 10-l5 years have high-tech electronics accomplished what A. C. Gilbert envisoned in the 1950's: DC operation, as well as electronic whistles, horns and "diesel roar."

I think mine has the middle roller in the tender.