ALCO RS-11 by Rapido Trains

[Schraddel]

Hello,

in the spring of this year i was able to pick up my long ago pre-ordered Rapido Trains ALCO RS-11 on my favorite dealer. This was contained in the very last shipment across the big pond my dealer received, before Covid-19 lockdown and the following drying-out of air traffic.
For me it was the first model from Rapido Trains und my first ALCO RS-11. As far as i am knewing, the RS-11 never before was done in a high end design.
To avoid hassle with ESU and their politics, i ordered the DC - DCC ready version. Too i have my own view of sound in H0 locos. Here in this thread i will describe what in have done with a brand new loco until it meets my utter satisfaction. Allowedly I have rather sophisticated standards concerning reliable running of H0 rolling stock.


First read the manual which is in the package. Do it!
For mounting a decoder and sound the shell has to be taken off the running gear. Begin with loosening the handrails on the cab as described in the manual. Then prying (and praying) until the cab can be lifted off.






This should be visible when the cab is lifted off. I presume the cab floor is in the right height, so here no personnel with amputated legs is necessary. The inner front and rear panels are mounted onto the inner cab walls.





Next task is to remove the short hood. The photo shows were the snap-fits are placed. You have to pry the sides outward to release the rear snap-fits. There is a further one on the middle of the front of the hood which can be freed by tilting the short hood.





Then you are able of loosening further snap-fits which were hidden under the short hood. Here also tilting of the long hood will free more snap-fits.





A closer look onto the running gear. In front there is the clavilux, fully acessible only with "their" special decoders. But fortunately not so devout as Scale Trains used to be with their "Special-Scaletrains-ESU-Loksound-Decoder".
So here it is possible to remove the analog buddy and plug in a decoder of your own choice.
A original i-phone speaker is already mounted. It was said to me these are very excellent outstanding speakers, so why not give this speaker a try?





So i simply plugged in my favorite decoder. Then testing with still not mounted shell. The decoder is readable, there are no shorts and I remounted the shell parts. Taking the loco to my programming track, started the laptop and the SPROG3 and then started Decoder Pro.
The next hours i was busy with decoder adjustments until the sound sounds right for me.

The thread could be finished here now, but I discovered some bugs.


Lutz