Many folks have commented about some of the new releases having sound dropouts. Usually it's on switches or crossovers, rarely on a straight piece of track. For locomotives like the Vision Line Challenger and the Vision Line Niagara, the culprit is the two closely spaced rollers on the tender, too easy for them to lose contact on a transition piece. My fix for the dropouts is the YLB - RailSounds Battery Replacement (RS-Lite). This is a permanent battery replacement specifically designed for Lionel RailSounds equipped locomotive. The RS-Lite version plugs into the audio board directly and has one wire to the center roller, job done.
It actually comes in two versions, one for locomotives with a battery cable, and the other for locomotives with the RS-Lite board.
