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I have a 6208065001 NYC 4-6-6 Hudson W/Railsounds #5412 that I purchase used a number of years ago.  The other day I ran the unit in Command Mode for the first time and the engine performed well but it was missing a number of features.

I had head light, boiler light, smoke, direction, decent slow movement and Railsounds crew/tower talk with idle steam sound. What I didn't have was variable chuff, whistle, bell, reverse reset sound, backup light or rear coupler.

I replaced the R2LC with a 691R2LCC08 R2LC / RADIO RECEIVER (C08 CODE) board from Lionel, set reset codes but to no avail. It seems a though no serial data is being received by the tender.

Before I go further down the rabbit hole on this one and start replacing the DCDR and engine Motherboard can someone point me in the right direction? Any help will be greatly appreciated!

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The problem is the RailSounds audio board in the tender.

While it is indeed a complete RailSounds system, that particular version is Conventional RailSounds, and will not function properly in TMCC command mode.

The problem isn't technically the board but rather the chipset installed in it. To allow for things like CrewTalk and TowerCom to be usable in conventional mode, all the TMCC-related coding was removed as memory space was at a premium in those days.

The solution is to replace the RS4 audio board with something that's TMCC compatible - the good news is those are 98% of the RS4 audio boards out there.

As for the back-up light and rear coupler not functioning, I believe there are some jumpers that need to be changed on both the locomotive and tender motherboards when going from conventional to TMCC control. Also, be sure to restore/reset your R2LC with the proper code... 34 in the case of that locomotive and tender.

TRW

Good news so far. Replaced the audio board as per paperTRW suggestion and got the railsounds that I expected. I now have a functioning rear coupler and a functioning head light that responds to AUX2. Still no rear light. I've been all over the engine but the problem is that I really don't understand how the backup light circuit works.  I've learner by searching prior threads that the R2LC controls rear light on/off via pin 7&8 but how is that signal processed. Does the 6108689131 DCDR process the signal and energizes a circuit via the tether harness to the mother board in the tender or is the signal sent directly to the tender where it is processed?  Once again, any help will be greatly appreciated!

With the help of the diagrams I was able to trace the backup light to the engine's motherboard harness at which point I applied power to the yellow wire and the backup light illuminated so  I appears that the circuit from the mother board to the lamp is fine. I swapped out the R2LC radio board with a known good spare and the problem persisted. So since I have power to the motherboard, the R2LC is good and the harness wiring is fine that seems to only leaves the motherboard as the culprit.  I ordered a replacement from Lionel and when it gets here I'll post my progress.

I want to thank you fellows for your support.  I took on this project and a William's Train Master Command upgrade as a means to learn more about Command Control.  It's been frustrating at times but I've learned a lot!

Well I finally got this all sorted out.  The motherboard had an open circuit from PIN 10 to the Tender harness connector.  I soldered in a jumper, reassembled and reprogrammed the (newly purchased from Lionel) R2LC radio board and nothing! I swapped out the R2LC for a ERR R4LC code C08 and all the features came up.  I had smoke, head light, backup light, coupler and RailSounds.  Question; are these boards returnable to Lionel and if not, are they repairable?

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