whistle blows randomly. very annoying.

c.martiono, try cleaning the track. In conventional operation, the whistle is triggered by a DC offset applied to the AC track power. Inconsistent voltage to the tender, for example, caused by rolling across dirty track, will masquerade as a voltage offset and trigger the whistle.

cleaned track and pick up rollers. still doing it....

Convert over to Legacy control power your layout with a 180w brick.Nick

Don't forget to clean the wheels.

I had a chafed wire on a Lionel Hudson that caused this.  barely noticeable, one of the wires on the IR tether wore on the wheels of the rear trailing truck.  Took quite some time to pinpoint whas was causing the whistle to randomly blow and other strange behavior.

exactly. maybe thats what ill blow my tax refund on lol. plus i reallllllllly want one of those legacy sd40-2's. so sick. 

Yes, the smoke unit is made to run best at the 18V of command operations.  It will always be weak when you run conventionally.  That is the nature of TMCC locomotives.

As for the whistle, try placing a lighted caboose or passenger car on the track with the locomotive.  I'd start with it right behind the locomotive and see if that solves it.  If so, then try placing it at the end of the train.  Still happy, then you need a "magic light blub" to clean your track voltage up.  You can either always run with a lit car (Which is what I do.) or install a light powered by the track somewhere.

yea thats what i figured about the smoke. i run the train with 4 kline aluminum ESE cars so theres plenty of lights 

i turned the engine around to run in the opposite direction around the loop and it doesn't randomly blow the whistle anymore. weird.