Lionel's recent decision to broaden the line of RS-4 boards it will sell to the public creates an opportunity for owners of the K-Line Shay to get much better sound. At the time K-Line built their Shay, Lionel refused to sell Shay sound boards to them. K-Line moused up an Atlantic board to produce a sort of machine-gun sound that really isn't much like an actual Shay. In the process they introduced a design defect that caused the sound to drop out completely at higher operating speeds. Now that Lionel will sell you a real Shay board, K-Line Shay owners can make their engines sound like they should.
I ordered a Shay board from Boxcar Bill (aka Modern Toy Train Parts). There is a pretty broad selection of versions available for different railroads (I assume this is just the crew talk that is different). I opted for the Cass Scenic version, which is described as "enhanced." To date, nobody has been able to describe what has been enhanced; if anybody out there knows, please post. Anyway the installation was a simple drop-in. I had to remove the cab interior and one other board to get at the RS4 board, but it was pretty easy. The challenging part came on reassembly as it was difficult to keep the headlight wires from getting caught between the body and chassis or between the stack and the smoke unit. I took the opportunity of having the body off to inspect and improve the smoke unit according to the Mike Reagan video. It turned out that there was no sleeve on the resistor, the wick was in good condition, and the fan motor was turning in the correct direction, so the only thing I had to do was open up the air hole on the top board.
The test run was a complete success. The engine sounded like a proper Shay and smoked like crazy. I had been a bit worried that there might be something about the K-Line engine that the Lionel board wouldn't work right, but apparently the K-Line modifications were all on the sound board itself. Chuff rate seemed appropriate, and I the sound didn't go away at higher speeds.
All in all, this was 40 bucks well spent. And, like a lot of other people on this board, I can highly recommend "Boxcar Bill" (mttponline.com) for excellent service and prices.
