I recently bought an R-36 World's Fair subway on ebay that I thought was Proto Sound 2 equipped. It turned out to be Loco Sound (even though it was advertised as Proto Sound 2 (no model number given) and the box itself said "R-36 4-car Subway Set w/ Proto-Sound 2.0; although the model number is 30-2274-0, which is the loco sound model number).

Anyway, I love this train and rather than try to return it blah, blah, blah, I was wondering if it was possible to either:

1. Upgrade it to PS2; or
2. Put the R-36 engine shell on an R-12, R-17, or R-26 chassis, and load the R-36 Protosound file from the MTH website on to the other chassis through the DCS Loader program.

As for upgrading to PS2, I couldn't find an official R-36 Upgrade file on the MTH or Protosound 2 websites. Anyway, if it is possible to upgrade, does anyone know roughly what that costs, including parts and labor (I couldn't do it myself).

As for changing the shells, am I correct in assuming the R-12, R-17, and R-26 shells and chassis are interchangeable?

Any info would be most appreciated.

Rod

The Upgrade kit itself is 150.00. Labor varies depending on who you use but its probably about 100.00.

You should have no problem swapping shells if you want to.

wait. I didnt know you could upgrade a loco sound set to PS2. how the heck do you do that? would love to upgrade that loco sound R17 chassis I got.

i had purchased a few sets of the non-powered R-36 sets, [add-on's and the car on the flat car]...then i saw a good price on the Mets 2 car subway series set without track or pack and purchased that, [it has the queens station stops] i then swapped the R-36 shell onto the powered Mets chassis to run a set of R-36's

I recently replaced a LocoSound setup inside an R-17 with a 5volt PS2.0 board. The board was not an original subway or trolley board with the extra memory so it cannot handle the subway station stops but I don't care about that. Right now it has a Pennsy P5a Modified Electric Loco soundset in it with traction motors sound and a cool whistle and all the features of regular PS2.0. All I needed to drill was one extra hole. I used a Dallee Forever Battery to save space. The LocoSound tach must be replaced with a PS2 tach. The voltage regulator has to be mounted on the chassis and well insulated. The speaker has to be 16 ohms. I didn't bother putting in the PS2 couplers since one fine day I'll put shortys in all my subways. The harness plugs all mated up just fine. It's a tight fit and the board sits at an angle. The only problem I ran into is very very poor quality idler gears on the trucks. I wish I knew what to do about them. They're so loose I'm amazed they stay on and run.

quote:

Originally posted by trainer:
It turned out to be Loco Sound (even though it was advertised as Proto Sound 2 (no model number given) and the box itself said "R-36 4-car Subway Set w/ Proto-Sound 2.0; although the model number is 30-2274-0, which is the loco sound model number).

Trainer,
Even though it does not appear to be much of an issue with you, I would be bothered by false advertisement if the seller knowingly sold it as a loco sound train. Since it probably sold for what a protosound version would have, I would ask the seller to reimburse the cost of the upgrade (about 250.00?) and give him a negative feedback if he fails to offer a fair compensation.

Thanks for your help on this topic. I decided that an official upgrade wouldn't work because there would be no station sounds. So I bought an R-12 "1" Train and put the R-36 shell on the motor car from the R-12. That went smoothly, but when I went to upload the sound file for the R-36 to the R-12, I found out that the R-36 has a 5 volt sound file, and the R-12 has a 3 volt board. (I know, I should have checked to see what kind of board the R-12 had before I bought it.) I don't want to mess up my R-21 Redbird (which has a 5 volt board), so now I am considering an R-17 Redbird (I started a new topic today on whether the R-17 has a 5 or 3 volt sound board). Anyway, thanks again for your replies.

Rod


P.S. I really wish there was some way to manipulate the sound files. I saw a post a while back where someone raised the same question in connection with York, but I don't know if anything came of it.