Upgrade engines older steam

Your Williams Big Boy would need a Cruise Commander and Railsounds board. The Hudson would need an AC Commander and a Railsounds board. Operating couplers optional. Puffing smoke is more involved. You would need new fan smoke units and something to trigger them. The Lionel Big Boy will operate fine with no upgrade though a Cruise M and new Railsounds board will give some improvement. 

Pete

If you want true chuffing smoke from the Williams and the Hudson, you'll have to consider upgrading to a fan driven smoke unit.  The Lionel Big Boy has fan driven smoke, but it run continuously.  In any of these, to get chuffing smoke with the fan driven smoke unit, one excellent solution is my Super-Chuffer II, it gives you chuffing smoke, smoke at idle, and adds some lighting features as well.

The Hudson and Rock Island are both AC motors, so they'd be using the AC Commander.

If you're looking at doing this yourself, I'd pick one of them, plan and do the upgrade.  This will give you a basis for the complexity of the job and for ordering additional stuff to do the next batch.  It's a lot easier to guide you through one upgrade than a whole raft of them at once.

Thanks to both Pete and Gunrunnerjohn I appreciate the input, John I have never herd about Supper- Chuffer II do you think it might fit in the Williams engine I think that the smoke units in the other units will be fine also i see in your posting that you mite be able to help me with the needed parts to do the upgrades. Thank 

Lots of threads on the Super-Chuffer here, including several on various installations.  No problem fitting it into almost any steamer, occasionally a really small one like an 0-4-0 might be a challenge.

 I think that you have the right idea do one first so i think i will take on the Williams first then move on, I take it that JW&A is where i might get stared by chance would you know there Ph # and a contact and when they are open. Thanks  

All my products are sold through Henning's Trains, link in my signature.  Feel free to post any questions about installation and usage so you can get an idea of what you need or can use.

Here's a video of the Super-Chuffer in operation in an MTH Camelback TMCC upgrade.

Thanks i like that smoke unit. I take it that i can find JW&A just on line.

Your produces can be purchased through Hennings on line with err equipment

John on the Williams it will need a DC cruise command and Rail sound board with a supper chuffer am i right Thanks 

Actually, for a complete job with fan driven chuffing smoke, you'll need the following.

• ERR Cruise Commander (the DC is implied, there is no cruise for AC motors)
• ERR RailSounds Commander (choose the sound set on the ERR website)
• Fan Driven Smoke Unit (I use MTH steam smoke units, but a Lionel smoke units work as well)
• Super-Chuffer II (controls smoke chuffing and adds lighting features)
• Chuff-Generator (generates programmable synchronized chuff pulses based on driver revs)

Let me know if you have any questions as I'm sure you will.

john can you get the chaff generator and the super chuffer both at Hennings i called and they do not carry ERR equipment i guess 3rd rail is the only place I can get it  

SteamPiston posted:

john can you get the chaff generator and the super chuffer both at Hennings i called and they do not carry ERR equipment i guess 3rd rail is the only place I can get it.

Send me an email, we'll get you fixed up with the ERR stuff.

rpstone78@q,com Thanks a TON Ron

That's not a valid email address.

rpstone78@Q.com   John try it again that is my email  Thanks

Works better with a period than a comma.