For sound enthusiasts of the railways of Victoria, Australia...

In the damp drizzle of an almost winter's day, I ventured to the town of Emerald and into the State Forest near Cockatoo to capture the last remnants we have of an operating VR A2 steam locomotive whistle. The Victorian Railways 5 chime whistle from A2 986 (the last to be retired) was removed from said loco and fitted to one of the narrow gauge locomotives of the Puffing Billy Railway fleet. Out in the forest, it's all very quiet, no trucks, no construction, no voices, and therefore an ideal spot to record the beautiful sounds of an approaching steam whistle. Short, medium and long whistles produced from today's recordings will be integrated into a future sound project for the A2, with cross-compound air pumps as fitted to goods hauling VR steam locomotives.

Mike

A video of the NR project has been posted on Youtube, see it under the 'Sound samples' page.

The newly released LokSound V4.0 decoders will be received this week, and all projects will be remastered to suit the new decoders over the coming months. Existing projects for V3.5 decoders will be supported into the future of course. 

Mike will be helping out Bruce on the Trainbuilder stand at the Hobsons Bay Model Railway Exhibition, Saturday April 23, so please drop in for a chat.

For those who visited the Sandown model railway exhbiition over the March long weekend, you would have seen Auscision's long awaited 280HP Walker pilot model on display. DCCSound will be offering the correct sounds, recorded from RM 91 when the model is launched in 2012. The pilot model features twin speaker enclosures in the passenger cars with room for a decoder in the power trailer.

Other collaborative projects are being worked on, including a surprise announcement at the Hobsons Bay Model Railway exhibition over Easter that modellers of Victorian motive power will be delighted with. Further information on the project will be announced in due course.

Regarding LokSound V4.0 decoders, LokSound will have the decoders available around late April. However our V4.0 projects will be available a little later as they need to be remastered to suit the new decoder hardware.

Mike

Two recent releases have been the standard gauge Pacific National NR class loco, and the broad gauge V/Line N class. Auscision is due to release their N class locomotive during November. While Austrains' NR loco has been available for many years now, the latest release is easier to fit a sound speaker to.

We also have recordings of the Australian National AN class and the V/Line P class. These will be released once Auscision and Austrains release their models in due course.

In the meantime we will work on capturing the sounds of some other locomotives as well as look forward to meeting enthusiasts at the up and coming VMRS Modellers Convention in late October.

Mike:) 

The NR sound project has had some serious hours put into it. Even though the 7FDL-16 prime mover is muffled for noise ebatement, we've found our initial recording of the GE prime mover was just too quiet, so we've taken another recording of an NR loco (NR40) and are working on the project for release in late July or early August. So in the meantime drop a decoder into your favourite NR and send it our way, alternatively just send us the decoder and we can flash the memory with the new project.

Further recordings of the RVB Hurricane 3 chime airhorn have been added to the plethora of airhorns available.

Mike:)

Recently we conducted recordings of the V/Line "passnger series", including A62, N471 "City of Benalla" and P12. Sound files will be available for Auscision's A & N class in the coming months. Austrains' P class is due around 2012, along with the flat -cab T.

Mike:)

G'day folks,

Last night we recorded the sounds of NR92 in Melbourne. The 7FDL-16 prime mover was recorded along with auxillary items including the start-up bell, horn, dynamic brake fans, shunting bell, air spitter, air driers and compressor. The project will be available in the coming months for fitment to the Austrains NR, which accommodates twin 16 x 25mm oval speakers.

Mike

The flat cab T project is now available... though we expect demand to be a very modest trickle until Austrains release their flat cab T in a couple of years. So go bang on their door and tell 'em to hurry it up - we want the model!

The Walker 153 project is going through final beta testing and will be available in the following weeks, though as per the flat cab T, there are few models out there, and cetrainly no plastic RTR models. PSM will release their 102 & 153HP Walkers in 2011, so with fingers crossed, a small speaker with enclosure and decoder can be positioned in the guard's compartment. The model will come with a decoder, presumably a plug in 8 pin socket, so a LokSound v3.5 with 8 pin plug should fit right in.

Over the coming months we will be searching for some higher horsepower locos to record, more of the modern 645, 710 & FDL16 stuff.

Mike

A Youtube video of the DERM has been added, along with installation tips for a LokSound decoder in the DERM.

Phil has finalised the series 1 T class project and it will be available soon. Mike is hanging out for the Austrains' release so he can listen to the project (the best sounding yet!) in the flat-cab T. In the meantime Phil has created a video with the T320 files, and demonstrates the unique features of LokSound decoders and how they replicate the prototype above and beyond other decoders currently on the market.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UBIMLpdCw8

The Walker sound files are being worked through currently, and Mike is searching out some 645 prime movers to record.

Mike  

Walker 153HP railcar RM22 was recorded today at Healesville, where it took its first 'inaugural' revenue trip from Healesville with a packed patronage, care of the YVTR. It would be great to see a RTR version of the Walker released down the track. In the meantime, the Weico or Alco Walker 153HP models could be fitted with sound. We hope to have the sound files engineered and available by September 2010.

Mike