DCC and "Seasoned" Brass Locomotives

[P5se Camelback]

... biggest challenge ... is the size of them. Camelback locomotives have very little room to work with. Most sound decoder installs ... puts the decoder , speaker and other electronics into the tender.

I have thought about the whole "shoehorning" issue, believe me. It's pretty obvious that with the weight (what there is of it) in the smokebox, the motor/gearbox in the cab area, about the only area left is in the firebox and in the tender. And the tender could be getting pretty crowded! The litte 0-4-0's and 0-6-0's have some pretty small tenders ... but I think there's room in the firebbox for a very small ("N" scale size) decoder and then, with an abundance of "water lines" to the tender, a speaker of an inch or less could probably fit in there, and if needed the decoder might fit in there, too. It'd be very tight ... so tight there would be no need for a "speaker box" - the crammed-in electronics wouldn't let the sound come out any other way but through the front!

The larger 4-6-0's, 2-8-0's and 4-4-2's have a lot more room in the fireboxes and the tenders are considerably larger. I don't think I should have any trouble with space with them. Also, from what I've seen, a lot of these newer can motors are smaller than the big square clunkers of open-frame motors mounted vertically in the cab area and driving a gear on the main drive wheel axle.

As for how it will all really work, we'll just have to wait and see. The first candidate for remotoring and decoder/speaker installation will be one of the two the Gem (Olympia) Reading I5c Consolidations. If I can carry that one off, it'll give my heart wings! I had lusted for that locomotive since I first saw it (with the rare tender canopy) back in 1958! To hear it as it moves along the tracks will give me a "Cheshire Cat Grin!"