W1 Sound

[thirdline]

My as built W1 is the only loco I have without sound so I’d like to add it. As far as I know nobody is producing a sound decoder for it, I could quite willingly fit another one that would sound similar, but what on earth did it sound like? I assume it would be quite different from any other steam loco.

[SteveM6]

Unlikely to be any one around to say what the ‘right’ sound should be so it’s open to lots of speculation.

Non Hornby sound files are available but at a price.

To choose one from the TTS range of decoders, you would need to get as close as possible to the mechanical makeup of the prototype by selecting a similar configuration.

For example the W1 was a compound 4 cylinder, so a 3 cylinder A4 won’t cut it. Looking at TTS for 4 cylinder locos, I considered the GWR King but the whistle would be wrong.

As the chuffs on a TTS never match, you could look at a 2 cylinder to masquerade as a 4, again taking care to match the whistle.

Clearly that rules out Southern or Western locos.

I ended up choosing the Britannia decoder as it’s a ‘soft’ 2 cylinder with a chimelike whistle.

The rebuilt W1 was a 3 cylinder with a modified P2 boiler so I put the P2 decoder in mine.

Neither are perfect but they sound convincing to me.

[ColinB]

I put the TTS P2 into my original one and then found it was only really applicable to the rebuilt one. YouChoos do one but I have yet to find out if it is for the original one or the rebuilt one. As there is probably nobody around to tell you what it actually sounded like I suppose the only important bit is the whistle.

[thirdline]

Thanks guys,

I wasn’t sure if there was any old film footage that may have given some idea of what it sounded like. The Brit TTS sounds like a workable option.

I can’t remember where but I have read somewhere that there is a cv that can be programmed to sync the wheels with the chuff, not sure if TTS supports that.

[96RAF]

The current range of TTS decoders do not as you say support chuff synchronisation.

[ColinB]

@thirdline, I think you are getting mixed up with LokSound decoders.