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The irony here is that Mighty Sound of Steam boards made starting in 1980 were improved to avoid static with the whistle.  MPC offered a whistle with the 1972 to 1975 run of the 8206 baby hudson, and then pulled the whistle until the release of the Chessie berk in 1980.

 

Yet all these sound boards are pretty fragile.

 

I had a couple of mine rebuilt by the repair guy at Traditional Trains Hobby in New Hyde Park, Long Island.

 

411 Jericho Turnpike  New Hyde Park, NY 11040

 (516) 328-6664

 

The store does not have a website, call ahead to see when the repair guy works.

 

Ken

A couple of thoughts here. Maybe the material that you used to replace the original foam pad has something to do with it. If it is super sticky, maybe there is too much moisture in the 'sticky stuff' to short out a couple of resistors on the board and change the pitch of the whistle. I think on this engine, there was 2 foam pads with a metal plate sandwiched between them, was that replaced? Did you happen to resolder one of the 3 wires? If you think the board went bad, beleive it or not, Lionel still has replacement boards for this engine.

Originally Posted by Burlington Route:
Originally Posted by gunrunnerjohn:
Originally Posted by Burlington Route:

Hmmm, mine doesn't seem to have a whistle....

 

 

Sure it does, you're just not holding your lips properly!

 


...yeah, but when I push the dang button nothin happens!

I think that you can get a pill for that these days.

 

Originally Posted by PC9850:

These were certainly the dark ages of train sounds... 

 

Still, for me personally the mighty sounds of static bring back fond childhood memories of watching all the TM VHS tapes produced when those sounds were still considered new. Funny just how archaic those videos look as the years go on.

Same here, that is until Lionel brought out RailSounds 1.0, and TM used them heavily in the early 90's. As a result, those sounds stayed in my head much more vividly than the SOS, and they sounded a lot better than the SOS despite still being primitive by today's standards.

 

The chugging of the SOS nonetheless doesn't really bug me, though depending on the engine, the whistle can be at best tolerable to at worst awkward. The earliest whistles sounded like a broken fire alarm.

I won a Trainsounds Tender on the bay.  Desc. said tries to make sound, but needs repair.  Got it really cheap, around $20.  I opened it up when I got it and found this in it.  Guess they gutted it for the newer boards.

 

If anyone needs or wants this - let me know.  Probably around $5 for shipping?

 

 

photoMA28678800-0001

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There are several variations of MSOS I believe even in the first year there were two different boards in the Milwaukee Special. Both had two rheostats that could distort the sound if not adjusted right. But than it is Mighty Sound of Steam so how would you know if the sound is distorted? Being that the system is so old I would think one likely cause of distortion could be a deteriorating speaker.

 

What I think is interesting about the MPC era and the Mighty Sound of Steam is after the initial offering in the Milwaukee Special, Lionel never seemed interested in improving the system and only took measures to make it cheaper. In 1973 the first tenders had two rheostats for adjusting the sound and also had a pickup roller in the tender so you could operate the whistle independently of the synchronized static. The next generation dropped both of these features and they never returned. The Southern Crescent 1977 and Blue Comet 1978 didn’t even have a whistle. In 1981 (is this the beginning of LTI?) Lionel offered the Chicago & Alton set with diecast tender shell and six wheel trucks and a whistle, they upgraded the system with a downward facing speaker and a grill carved into the chassis for the sound to escape through, which increased the volume. But never put a pickup roller back in the tender so the whistle could be operated independently.

 

I still like my Cheesy Sound of Steam engines. Out of the nine steam engines running on our toy train display 4 are MSOS, 3 are different variations of Train Sounds one is a PS2 Hiawatha and another is pulling a Williams Tender with the TrueBlast II .

We we have a most unique symphony a sound and the Chicago & Alton is heard above them all. I love it.

 

I think if I had a high rail layout and not a toy train display I might not be running MSOS. But than I am one cheap SOB so who knows.

 

 

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