Long Island G-5 loco


Dang LOUIS .. That looks almost as nice as the model!

Diane, a friend of mine in Kansas City is an expert at this sort of stuff.
Keith Robinson
klrwhizkid2003@yahoo.com

He is an avid supporter on the Frisco.org website, and you can find numerous examples of his work there.
If you want, I can dig up his address and phone-- I don't have all that info in my iPad.
 
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Thanks guys. I e-mailed both those people and am waiting response. Does anyone else have suggestions about where else to send a loco for a quick reliable Tsunami installation?
 
I don't know who to trust, but I would be confident to trust both Alan and Sirfoldsalot.

Is it DCC or DC

It has sounds already? If so why change it?

I am sorry if my questions are redundant.
 
The G-5 is just a bare loco electronically. Has no DCC installed. I want to go with the Tsunami decoder which has both DCC and sound functions.
 
Diane: don't forget about your local hobby store. It would save time as you wouldn't have shipping. I assume you would want a certified installer to do the work. Brian
 
Thanks guys. I e-mailed both those people and am waiting response. Does anyone else have suggestions about where else to send a loco for a quick reliable Tsunami installation?

Diane, just a suggestion but you might get a faster response if you called Tony's. They are a brick & mortar shop.
 
The G-5 is just a bare loco electronically. Has no DCC installed. I want to go with the Tsunami decoder which has both DCC and sound functions.

Alan are you familiar with this locomotive?

What is the complexity of this job on a scale of 1 to 10?

Is this something local shop could do?

bwells made a good point about shipping and maybe turn around time.
 
I have done Pennsy models before, as well as Alco imports. This one already has a can motor so no re-motor (a huge plus), and a headlight so no drilling of the headlight casting. If she wants the backup light for the tender that one would have to be drilled. The tender chassis is drilled for a speaker, so that's a plus. The modifications necessary would be:

A hole cut or drilled in the rear of the loco chassis, probably under that folding deck plate that spans between the loco and tender, and a hole in the tender front. These holes are for the wiring harnesses, there would be two if I did it, a three connector for the loco chassis and the two motor leads, and a two connector for the headlight. The harnesses could have plugs so the loco & tender could be separated or you could hard wire them and have the tender permanently attached which would rule out using the original box. I generally use harnesses by Miniatronics unless the customer requests hard wiring. I'd say five out of ten for complexity. Probably a new light bulb and new lenses too.

If she has a local shop that is capable, the modifications are pretty basic. The questions are, is there a local shop and is it capable?

One caveat: I am not familiar with this particular model and would have to have it in hand to be sure of the above. Most installers charge by the hour and usually qualify their estimates with a plus or minus 20% statement. Brass models can be full of surprises!
 
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>...is there a local shop and is it capable?"

Therin lies the problem. The only LHS is primarily an r/c airplane place, with only the smallest amount of any HO stuff. Nice folks, but they don't know a decoder from a propeller.

I have the basic skills; I can solder, I can read instructions, I probably could do it myself. But I just don't want to run the risk of messing up hubby's birthday surprise.

Hugs,
Diane
 
I understand completely. if you haven't done one of these before it's better not to. Some metal working skills are necessary and the tools required are specialized. See what Tony's has to say. They know what they're doing. If you use someone else get references!
 
Thanks for the referrals. Tony didn't get back to me yet, but Keith got back to me, and the loco is going out to him in this morning's mail. Curiously, out of eight or ten inquiries I sent to people who advertise decoder installations, Keith is the only one who is able (or willing) to take me in on an immediate birthday-surprise hurry. Much gratitude, Keith!
Hugs,
Diane
 
Just communicated with Keith ... You will not be disappointed!
He really is a genius at this stuff. He and another colleague just returned a few weeks ago from a Soundtraxx workshop in Durango, CO.
If you go to the DCC forum under Electronics on the Frisco.org site .. You can see how deep he is into DCC and its workings.
 
Although I have eight installations in my queue currently, I took on Diane's project precisely due to her circumstances. The others that are in the queue are understood as "as you can get to it" jobs because I am also trying to get my model railroad to the point of laying track. The decoder installation part of my hobby just sort of happened because my college education was centered on Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and I was totally drawn in by what Soundtraxx Tsunami Sound does for helping create near reality. So far, the installations I have done have been done for modeler friends, not the general public, it is not a business.

As Sherrel indicates I am a Soundtraxx Trained and Authorized Installer, having attended their Dealer Seminar the first week of August.
 
Thought these may interest you .... image.jpg
image.jpg

Courtesy of FaceBook page: Old Images Of The American Railroad

There are 20-30 photos of this class there.
 
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Nice pics of the G-5. Thanks Sherrel. :eek:

I found this website has photos of allegedly all 90 LIRR G-5s. This must have been a long and tedious labor of love for someone to collect all this info and pictures and post it.

I have a theory. I had originally understood from my hubby, who is older than I, that the steam locomotives he routinely saw during his youthful days on Long Island were some obscure type. But I have come to understand that the LIRR G-5s, while perhaps with only 90 of them not numerically common, were the main motive power on the LIRRs commuter passenger service and are anything but an obscure type. Because the New York area is so heavily populated that meant that many thousands of people saw them in daily service. Consequently many of those New York folks remember the G-5, a far larger number of folks because of the population density than the small number of small town folks (like me) would have recognized a loco from some rural setting.

It's a frustration to me that I wasn't around in the steam era!

Diane
 
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Diane, have you received the g-5 back from the DCC installer and is it in time for the surprise? Brian

No, not yet. The big surprise comes next Monday the 27th. I'm sure it will be back by then. I've got four more passenger cars to weather. Now I've got to figure out how to give him something as physically large as an eight car train! I think maybe I'll get up while he's still sleeping and have the train just chuffing quietly around the little test oval when he gets up.
Diane
 



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