C W Burfle posted:As others have said, there are two whistle/horn positions. I find my modern electronics are most reliable with moving the control half way on a ZW.
That is the "pickup" position. The whistle control was never meant to be left in that position, which puts the full load through the rectifier. When in the "holding" position, a resistor is placed in parallel with the rectifier, sharing the load.
Is using the whistle control in such a fashion problematic? ----- I don't know.
Yup. The half way position also slows trains. You don't get the boost from the full position.
Oddly enough all my RailSounds II/III locomotives will trigger with the whistle lever on full, but my Williams and MTH locomotives need it in the half way position. It's like Lionel engineered there stuff in the 90's to work with a ZW.
