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I'm  new to owning this unit, what do I need to run this with my LIONEL 275 watt ZW to get the full railsounds affect the engine and tender have to offer, the whistle and chugging works excellent, also I did install the 9 volt battery in the tender, both engine and tender are new unused when I purchased them, any guidance would be very much appreciated, Thank You much 

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The manual is hosted on Lionel's Website.

https://www.lionelsupport.com/...ents/71-8053-250.pdf

You can operate the locomotive in Conventional Transformer mode and get all these RailSounds functions as listed on page 6:

  • Variable Chuff Rate
  • MultiWhistle
  • Authentic Bell
  • Reverse Unit Sound
  • Shutdown Sequence

 

Instead of a 9V battery, you should definitely install a YLB (Your Last Battery) unit as reviewed here: https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/...st-impressions-great

 

The Lionel manual goes on to explain all the TMCC capabilities as well which, aside from remote addressable control, are minimal. All that is needed is a Base and Cab unit.

Last edited by bmoran4

With just the ZW you can get whistle or bell depending on wiring to the track. Reverse the wires and you will get the other sound. To get both whistle and bell you need a bell control to produce the opposite DC shift to the track. Sounds you won't get without a TMCC controller are crew talk and tower com. You don't need a battery for conventional railsounds. The battery just maintains sounds for brief power outages when running in command mode.

Pete

@Norton posted:

With just the ZW you can get whistle or bell depending on wiring to the track. Reverse the wires and you will get the other sound. To get both whistle and bell you need a bell control to produce the opposite DC shift to the track. Sounds you won't get without a TMCC controller are crew talk and tower com. You don't need a battery for conventional railsounds. The battery just maintains sounds for brief power outages when running in command mode.

Pete

Even with a TMCC controller, you are not getting Crew Talk and Towercom with this engine. 

Note on Page 9, the 2 and 7 buttons on the keypad are called out as "reserved for future use".  Lionel acknowledged something was on it's way, but these were not included features yet.

I'm surprised the normal cautions about adding TVS diodes, using a faster breaker than the internal one on the PW ZW, etc. have not come up.  While not a more modern Legacy engine, these still qualify as potentially at risk when in use with a "bare" PW ZW.

As for the YLB, while I'm sure it's an excellent product (I don't think John makes any that are not excellent products! ), you might want to just try the engine with and without a traditional battery first to see if the interruptions during direction switching  bother you that much before you go to the expense and trouble to install one of those.  (Unless you already know those interruptions will bother you, then go for it ASAP )

-Dave

Last edited by Dave45681

This particular Century Club Steamer has awesome sounds, I recommend at least getting a really good Cab 1 Set, or if funds are available a Cab1L set. It depends on how you want to run your trains, Command Control is a lot of fun and allows you to have more engines on the track and each can be controlled separately. They would each have their own identity and this allows so much fun as others can run trains with you. 

I happen to have a Cab 1 Set, with 2 remotes, one new, one excellent. $150 delivered. All original boxes. Just an idea. I congratulate you for getting into the most fun hobby in the world. Enjoy your beautiful Steamer.

I also highly recommend you invest in the Cab1 set.  It works will all TMCC engines whether the newest model or the oldest.  The CC 726 is in my opinion when of the really good engines from Lionel.  Looks great, sounds great and runs great (be sure the handrails are not touching the boiler front or classification lights).  The Cab1 will only increase your enjoyment and will work with any regular (ZW, Z4000, etc.) transformer.

 

@leapinlarry posted:

This particular Century Club Steamer has awesome sounds, I recommend at least getting a really good Cab 1 Set, or if funds are available a Cab1L set. It depends on how you want to run your trains, Command Control is a lot of fun and allows you to have more engines on the track and each can be controlled separately. They would each have their own identity and this allows so much fun as others can run trains with you. 

I happen to have a Cab 1 Set, with 2 remotes, one new, one excellent. $150 delivered. All original boxes. Just an idea. I congratulate you for getting into the most fun hobby in the world. Enjoy your beautiful Steamer.

leapinlarry, Hello, what are the differences between the cab 1 and cab 1L, Also I may be interested in the cab 1 set you offered for sale, is that all I would need to operate my Century Club Steamer with my older ZW,  just a note my ZW was purchased and went thru completely by a  very well known fella named Ken Koeller, R.I.P, he was very well known in the hobby for his expertise, Thank You, very much as I appreciate the help, Frank

The CAB-1 is the TMCC controller from 1995 ( http://www.lionel.com/products...ote-control-6-12868/ )- you probably do not want to invest in this old technology. The CAB-1 will also require a TMCC Base ( http://www.lionel.com/products...ommand-base-6-12911/   

The CAB-1L is the logical Legacy successor of the CAB-1 design. It exposes most of the TMCC operations and some of the Legacy operations available ( http://www.lionel.com/products...e-controller-6-37155 ). The CAB-1L will require a Legacy Base #992 (Only available with the CAB-2 http://www.lionel.com/products...-command-set-6-14295)  or a BASE-1L ( http://www.lionel.com/products...trol-base-1l-6-37156 ), or the CAB-1L and BASE-1L can be purchased as a set ( http://www.lionel.com/products...-command-set-6-37147 ).

If you are serious about command controlled trains, I would buy once, cry once with the #990 (The #991 CAB-2 remove and #992 Legacy Base Package http://www.lionel.com/products...-command-set-6-14295 )

 

Marty E, l loved the video, and the Century Club Engines from Lionel  is what brought me back into trains after years of coasting from the hobby. The magic OF TMCC Command Control makes running trains so much fun. Although the features are limited, they still offer hours of fun when running our trains. Whistle, smoke, bell, crew garble, towercom, remote uncoupling, and the high degree of quality built in these engines is awesome. Thank you for sharing the video with us. Stay safe, stay healthy, Happy Railroading 

Marty E, wow, the 671 turbine runs fantastic and smokes great, the sounds are so good, Your Hudson runs great to, it’s a speedster and smokes great, the NYC, a favorite of mine since 1950’s era runs smoothly to and sounds great. Actually, I purchased these icons while my layout was under construction and they’ve been shelf Queens. I did sell my 773 to a older gentleman that wanted a Hudson so bad and he traded me an SD70ACE MKT and cash so it was a great trade. I just picked up a K-Line Scale Hudson TMCC to have another Hudson.  It’s in shipping USPS hands at this time. By the way, you have a great layout. Thanks for the videos bringing back fond memories of the past. Happy Railroading 

@leapinlarry posted:

By the way, you have a great layout. Thanks for the videos bringing back fond memories of the past. Happy Railroading 

Thanks. That was from years ago in an old house.  My current layout is more or less a quick build track on plywood to run trains.  Hopefully after Christmas this year I'll start the new layout and get some more detail to it.  All of these engines are strong performers.  I never touched any of the smoke units and have done basic lube and oil on them all.  I think the Hudson is my favorite but it's hard to pick 1.

@oldpirate has a nice steam engine to start with.  I suspect it won't be his last in the CC line.  These engines have come down in price too.

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