Need info on Lionel's PRR E7 Breakdown B Unit

The "issue" mixing TMCC and Legacy locos is the difference in speed control. Legacy locos typically run slower starting speeds and have smaller speed steps.

Since this breakdown unit is essentially just an unpowered B with added sound and smoke effects you'll be fine.

Lionel didn't label it a "legacy" unit because the real "meat and potatoes" features of legacy really apply to powered units.

The manual makes it appear that the RPM is manually increased. It does not appear to have whistle or bell sounds,this is logical since when doing a "lashup" the lead loco provides these sounds.  I imagine someone who owns one will chime in.

Heres a link to the manual.

Breakdown E7 manual

One caveat, the Breakdown B Unit maybe about 3/32" taller than the A-Units.  If I recall correctly the E7 non-powered B-Unit and the E7 Breakdown B-Unit were made and released before the powered units.  And Lionel had corrected the "high water" problem with the E7 powered units with the release of the Pennsy and B&O.

I know my non-powered E7 Pennsy B-Unit was taller and need replacement parts to fix height difference.

Ron

Picture before correcting height difference.

Ron, I just ran mine.  While I did assign it it's own EN # I also added it to the AA's and pwd B as TR 8.  I run the ABBA as TR 8.

The Breakdown B has it's own sound package.  Much dialog, no horn or bell.  Seperate eng running sounds with some spurious mechanical sounds as the red knob is increased (but not the same as the rev increases in the RS A unit).  Nice squealing brake sound.  You can adjust the revs manually using 3 & 6.

Even without the 'breakdown' scenario, the added sounds are pretty neat while running with the RS A.

Thanks everyone for their comments.

John,

I'm not really interested in the breakdown sounds (although I think they will be fun).  Whether or not it had separate engine sounds was what I was looking for, so thank you for the description.  I try not to have dead (silent) engines on my layout.  The manual's instructions just referenced "background" sound; the only reference to engine sound was the CAB-1 diagram where it showed keys 3 & 6 changed RPMs.  I wanted to make sure it had diesel prime mover sounds before I bought one. 

Ron

After you have listened to it a few times, chances are you will turn off the sound. It's pretty annoying.