Among the items remaining from an estate purchase is what I surmised to be a Lionel 6-8100 N&W 4-8-4 and tender, clearly used but in reasonably good cosmetic condition. The tender had a neat array of speaker holes in the floor, exceptional heft, and a 3-wire tether plug which connected to its mate dangling from the engine cab. OTOH, the tether wires and plug bore no resemblance to anything OEM that I'd ever seen.
I first put the engine alone on the rails and applied power. Amazingly, the engine ran fine...forward, idle, reverse, etc...the headlight was fine...and she smoked/puffed quite decently for its age and l-o-n-g slumber. Of course, no sounds, yet.
Then I attached the tender, connected the 3-wire tether, and repeated power application. Engine functions remained the same. But the sounds!?.... First of all, there was a static 'steam' sound that was constant and loud, had no chuff, no variation for direction or motion. The whistle was...decent for its time. No other sounds....e.g., no response for 'bell' actuation.
So INTO the tender we went. And we discovered this board/speaker...
...which was held in place solely with deteriorating two-sided foam tape. The 'heft' of the tender, I discovered was largely due to a HUGE lead weight (????) held in place by extra long screws holding the water scoop detail beneath the tender floor.....CLEARLY not OEM!!?
There is NO definition on the board anywhere as to its origin or manufacturer. Can anyone help me identify what I've got here with this board?
A few more details about the as-received condition... One of the tender trucks has a cam-like feature that looks like it is probably of Lionel design to enable a 'chuff' impulse to a sound board. Well, there's NO wires attached between the truck and the board. I suspect this is why there's no chuff actuation for the steam/static, but by the same token I can see to points on the circuit board where such connection(s) might have been made. The only two pins for direct board connection are where the speaker is attached. (If there are solder pads on the foil side of this board for such signal wires, I can't tell...there is so much gummy/foamy residue covering most of the foil side of the board. Unless you have a good technique for removing the same safely if the board is salvageable, I'm assuming there's nothing on this side of the board of interest in its identification.)
Regarding the three wires to the engine.... One of the wires (brown) goes to the center rail pick-up of the engine. The black wire is attached to the common (frame) connection on the back of the motor. The third wire (blue) is attached to the motor field winding connection, also on the back of the motor. And I confess that the latter connection makes no sense to me whatsoever in the present situation/operation of this set.
Now, I do not intend to keep this engine. I have a prospective buyer. He runs conventionally. He would like decent whistle/bell sound....chuff would be a plus, if reliable (IOW, is that 6-8100 cam gizmo on the tender truck worth rejuvenating for this purpose?)...so I'm game for any thrifty solution. (I've got a WBB True Blast II Steam Sound Board/Speaker I could install. Of course, that doesn't have any chuff sound capability.)
Anyone?
Thanks for I.D. info and/or quo vadis suggestions.
KD
