Investigating an Unusual HO Noise Making Boxcar
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 มี.ค. 2024
- In this video I investigate an old Bluebox box car that someone modified to make sound.
Thanks for watching, let me know if you have any theories.
#hoscale #train #railway #modeltrains
It is a Radio... I believe that wire that goes the length of the chassis is the antenna. There was a time where you could get an AM or FM transmitter , set it to a frequency that matches the radio receiver ( in the boxcar) and basically broadcast sounds or whatever you wanted to the boxcar.
A way to test this might be to see if you have any adjustment nobs, potentiometers, etc. and see if you can tune it to a radio station in your area.
While I don't know the sound system the person used to inject the audio into the rails, it is a sound car used to play back any audio for desired sounds. The first clue was the black wire running along the floor. When you placed it near a light (most likely a LED type), it picked up the electrical noise of the light due to being electrically noisy. This system is something similar to the PRR train phone system where the wire and track is being used like a transformer to pick up the audio. This person used a DC track set up with the audio source being coupled in with a capacitor to add the audio to the track. In modern day, this wouldn't work well with DCC and you most likely would hear just the singing of the DCC signal with the audio being distorted. As far as the circuit itself, it's a combination of a receiver and an audio amplifier to make the sound. It will not have any volume control on the car since the volume is controlled from the audio source.
Thanks for that very detailed analysis! This very helpful. Would you possibly know what kind of device I could use to get the car to play a coherent sound?
Hello Tomas Trains, my Internet connection, is not good today, sorry for delay. I do not recall the name or model no. of the diesel sound system, just remember it was made by Soundtraxx. I bought it at The Great Scale Train Show in Timonium, Md. Soundtraxx had a booth at the show, got it directly from them for my customer in N.C. I am a model R.R. custom builder. I will try & get up with him for the info you want, will let you know.
It would be interesting to speculate that the boxcar is supposed to pick up a signal transmitted through the tracks, to broadcast railroad sound effects. Its circuitry is picking up transmitted interference, so it could also pick up transmitted sound effects.
Thats an interesting thought. Maybe there is a modified controller that went with it that made the car make the desired sounds that has since gone missing. Thanks for the idea and for watching.
Try running your mystery car at the end of a stack of cars, not so close to the loco.
A couple of thoughts. I wonder if the speaker is bad. I might replace it and see how it reacts to rough handling while switching. I wonder if this is an electronic version of an impact test car. If you back into it too hard or go too fast it sets off an alarm. Just some thoughts! Enjoy.
You could make a Halloween train. Maybe you could put a DCC decoder in it and program sound to it.
Both good ideas : ) We’ll see what happens and whats in the budget lol
I built a sound car similar to your's, the electronics were for a soundtraxx system made around the mid 90's . I The system was set up to play through an amplifier, which was good for it's time. The system would send the sound signal also through the rails, which the boxcar would play the sounds identical to signal going through the main amplifier. I think your boxcar may be for the same purpose. I wish you good luck with it!
@@richardperry5743Thanks for that information! That sounds really obscure but now that you've told me, I will keep my eyes out for one and do some research. I figured there was something missing that would make the car work.
@@TomasTrains7 You're welcome, I hope I helped you! That Soundtraxx system was sophisticated for it's time, they made separate systems, one for diesels, one for steam. The air horns for diesels had to be programmed by selecting the musical note that each air horn plays. System was unusual for having 4 horns, ( or chimes) each had to be programmed individually, in this case, had to match Southern RY. The purpose of the boxcar with sound was to give the location & direction of the train, the prime mover & other sounds were more pronounced with the amplifier & stationary speakers, including a woofer for bass sounds. There were prime mover sounds for E.M.D., G.E., Fairbanks Morse, Alco & Baldwin engines. Throttle control was a wireless infra red hand held unit. We also added a reverberation to enhance & give depth to the sound. This was all done with DC trains, DCC was not yet very common, or existent at that time. If you can find this sound system, make certain you can get the instructions for it, you will need them!
@@richardperry5743 Would happen to know the name of the system?