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A year and a half ago I purchased a very nice Lionel 6-11711 Santa Fe F3 ABA set on ebay. The dummy A unit (8102) has a Rail Sounds board and speaker inside. I rarely use the sounds on my trains and guess I never noticed that the RS didn't work on this set until yesterday when I decided to open it up and found an unplugged gray wire tied up in the bundle of wires sitting over the speaker. It comes off the lower corner of the smaller board at the rear of the unit. I can't seem to find where the wire should connect (connector crimped on end of wire). There are 2 likely candidates on the front end of the board (see pic). When power is applied to the track, the unit has a nasty buzz/hum. If I touch the connector end of the grey wire, the hum increases. Is this a sign that the unit is toast ? I'm guessing this is why the seller disconnected the wire (and failed to mention it in the ad). Seems like an awfully large array of several boards and a speaker tunnel in this unit. Lionel website doesn't show a wiring diagram for this model. Only an exploded parts diagram. Maybe it's not worth fixing, but thought someone on here might know if it's worth the trouble. The set is beautiful and runs quite nicely. I only paid $225 for the set, so I'm not upset this doesn't work.  Any ideas ?

Thanks,

Scott

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Hi Scott,

This took a little detective work.

1.) Your F3 set (6-11711) can be found in the Lionel Parts database.  The Railsounds 'B' unit has product number 6-18102.  The wiring diagrams for many Railsounds systems can be found in the same database under "Supplements", but unfortunately not yours because it's RailSounds 1 (the supplements apparently start  with RailSounds 2).

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2.) However I was able to find a generic wiring diagram for Railsounds 1 boxcars and tenders.  Each of these has the same sound board (610-8808-040) and amplifier board (610-8007-110) as your 'B' unit, so the wiring diagram should be the same.  Note that the wire colors might not match.  In spite of this the connections themselves should be good.

2021-04-02 14-01-00_an

Good luck.  Hopefully this helps.  Let us know how it turns out

Mike

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Mike, the wiring diagram was perfect. Colors matched my unit and allowed me to find where the gray wire goes. I found a loose ground wire under one of the wire nuts and that quieted the buzzing sound for the most part. I used an ohm meter to make sure the on/off switch was in the on position and that the volume pot was working. I checked continuity on all the wires and everything toned out correctly. I even had a horn and bell sound for a couple of minutes. But after turning the volume down, they disappeared. I sprayed contact cleaner inside the volume pot and after a couple more attempts, was able to get the horn to work once more, but again after turning the volume down, it stopped working again. Lights work and dim when I use my CAB-1 to try and activate the horn and bell, so I know power is working and signal is received. Still no diesel roar at all. No roar when rolling (it has the motion sensor on one truck). Maybe the amp board needs to be replaced ?

Thanks again for the wiring diagram. It was a big help.

Scott

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