Walthers HO Scale Metroliners

C'mon Approach. Really? Why would they make two seperate models: one with lights and one without. I have yet to see any manufacture do that.

Athearn did it. The new SP cabooses they made came with a decoder or without. The models WITHOUT the decoder had the marker lights but NOT the interior lights! They needed to be wired to a resistor and then to the track to operate also. This is why I ask!

The LEDs are integrated in to the decoder board which is on the roof of the car for the Sp cabooses. Soundtraxx made these decoders and they are also making the decoders for the Metros.

taken right from walthers website(THIS IS DC MODEL)Working Headlight, Gyralight, Reversing A-End Red Marker Lights, Number Boards & Interior Lighting

Well they made it to ebay already both Amtrak & PRR sets & singles

By the way, does anyone know, off the top of their head, which Soundtraxx decoder is installed in the Metroliners and if its available separately?

I'd like to purchase two more coaches to make a 6 car trainset but the 2 other road numbers being offered are DC only.

Wow Blue/White LEDs? Sometimes I wonder if walthers even gives a crap. You think they would spend 5 minutes looking for accurate golden-white LEDs but apparantly that was too hard. Now your metroliners have xenon blue headlights. What's the point of producing a model if you just overlook obvious inaccuracies. Plus the metroclub was never in phase 1, and the lettering was always "Metroclub" and never "Parlor Car". It gets kind of old having to fix the flaws that walthers is too lazy to fix themselves. Call me a rivetcounter, but I'm in this hobby for modeling and not toy collecting.

I found a Pic of 884(metroclub) in Phase 1 http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=3106184" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What's this sorcery?! That must be the only one then, because I've yet to find any others. Atleast I'll be able to have 1 accurate train of Metros! I also wish they'd stop going with soundtraxx decoders though, they sound terrible compared to QSI and loksound. Hopefully I will be able to swap out the LEDs atleast, redecal the car type plates to Metroclub and we should be good to go. Excellent find on the photo.

another pic http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=1263354" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; lol shall I keep going,as far as decoders,soundtraxx is
the only company that has these exclusively for the walthers metroliner,QSI doesn't have the sounds and LOK has some European
sounds but no close enough to what they really sounded like,soundtraxx was custom to walthers as they have NO LISTING of the
sound on there web site rrpicturearchives has metroliner listed under unknown loco,many pics go unnoticed as I believe this is
where walthers got there prototype photos from

The new loksounds are catching up with the tsunamis. Frankly they can blow them away at this point. The QSI has always been worthless sound. None of its engine sounds are real they are all synthetic crap. All ticks and whirrs. Loksound has always had the best audio reproduction in the industry, Nobody can match it. Its just a matter of getting the right sound files. That and the motor control. The Tsunami motor control is not bad but its still not as good as the Loks.

If you havent heard a lok lately listen to the new Lok select diesels. The GE one that came in my friends amtrak P42 from Kato is spot on. Even has HEP start up and shut down.

Too bad the horn sounds like complete and utter garbage. The customization features on LokSound are also equally terrible. If you listen to the QSI Amtrak K5LA horn it is 100% spot on. With QSI you can adjust the ditch light flash rate down to fraction of a second, adjust the length of the flashes and even make the bell and ditch lights turn on when you blow the horn. You can't even customize the strobing effects on a LokSound, they have to be the same rate as the ditch lights, and don't even think about a customizable flash pattern. When ESU decides they want to stop giving every soundset a S3L and give you the ability to customize the flash rates and lengths, then I'd consider LokSound in my p42. Till then, they are far too unrealistic imho.

cnj1524 wrote:another pic http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=1263354" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; lol shall I keep going,as far as decoders,soundtraxx is
the only company that has these exclusively for the walthers metroliner,QSI doesn't have the sounds and LOK has some European
sounds but no close enough to what they really sounded like,soundtraxx was custom to walthers as they have NO LISTING of the
sound on there web site rrpicturearchives has metroliner listed under unknown loco,many pics go unnoticed as I believe this is
where walthers got there prototype photos from

There's no phase 1 club in that shot. Just a Snack bar and a coach. The other 2 are PC patch jobs from the looks of it.

It helps to have the Programming Manual for the decoder in question,all of the major Decoder manufactuers have that manual
avaible online(normally as a pdf file),each decoder manufactuer has a method of fuction remapping,or changing CV values.
It also helps to TURN DOWN the volume levels to remove the distortion heard at the default factory settings.

Since the Prototype has been turned into a Cab Car long ago,the recordings used to create the sound files were not as
good as what is done today for sound capture.

They didn't even use the right horn for the Metroliners. Traction Motors and Blowers are Traction Motors and Blowers. The big deal breaker is the horn and the blue/white LEDs. I'm the biggest EMU fanboy you'll meet, but walthers drops the ball on everything these days.

I posted wrong photo,and the horn is supposed to be an PRR S2M or S3L,havent heard it yet,its listed on there site,you should be able to change it