Amtrak LCE set

ntpntpntp

ntpntpntp

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Although one of these hasn't been high on my want-list (I know it's rather toy-ish with printed windows etc.), If I were to get one it would have to be the Amtrak version as my line is "mostly" US outline.

I was quite surprised to pick up this set recently on eBay on an opening bid. Very pleased that it turns out to be as near as dammit mint condition.

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It'll have to be chipped for my purposes which will of course detract from it's "mint-ness", but I buy stuff to play with! I'll probably add pickups to the trailing car, and directional lights. Might as well fit full length through wiring and plugs to maximise the pickups and avoid the need for a second decoder.

Now, has anyone got any sightings of a couple of add-on coaches 91953 and maybe a 91954 diner in suitably matching condition?
 
It is indeed unfortunate that LGB chose to model the Amtrak set as silver and not white. A check of You-tube will show that the original test units ran in the States in white (same as the type 1 LCE), but had 'Amtrak' painted across the front. As stated in your other thread, I really like thse variants and wish you well in your quest (however, I am keeping mine and am always on the look out for more).

Several years ago I found a bargain on eBay. A seller listed an eight car Amtrak set still in original boxes and all unused, plus the add-on drive truck for $295 USD. I fell off my chair in the rush to purchase the set. Shipping was a little high but only as actually charged by USPS, but still a bargain. I was able to onsell the six car train and came out two coaches in front for no additional cost to me.
Just a thought, but I add additional power pickups to improve the stock running qualities of the set. If you install metal wheelsets then no need for a sound system as the wheels make the boxy carriages 'sing'.

Follow the link to one of my LCE's running on my railroad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gDhPL4fUB0
 
Here's a question of indeterminable smartness or dumbness. What does the "L" stand for in "LCE"?
 
Well... I said I'd chip it and add head/tail lights, and so I have!

I referred to the instructions for the LCE motor block upgrade kit for guidance (don't have the upgrade kit, but found the instructions on Champex Linden's web site as usual). The instructions show separating the cab and nose from the rest of the bodyshell, but that would have required splitting the stuck-on lining so I simply unscrewed and removed the entire bodyshell - just as easy. The worst part for me was the worrying amount of force required to unclip the securing plate which retains the motor block in the bogie.

No real need to go into detail of fitting the chip, it's just a case of removing two bridging wires from the pins on the motor block and wiring in your decoder of choice, fitting it into the power car body and passing the wires through the provided hole in the chassis. I used a Digitrax DG583S which has screw terminals and happened to be on my shelf. Overkill in terms of power but it's a decent decoder. I might downgrade it to something less powerful at a later date if I really need a 5 amp decoder for something else. Remember to secure the decoder to the chassis to prevent damage. A sticky pad is good for this.

Now to the lights. I wanted to try and fit these in as "non-destructive" a way as possible, but in the end I decided that the fitted plastic light guide component in the nose was a hindrance, so I cut the actual "glazing" for the lights away from the rest of the light guide. The cut marks were polished out with increasingly fine grades of wet/dry sanding papers down to 1500-grit and a final rub with an old cotton handkerchief (well, it's old now!!)

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The glazings were then glued back into place in the nose.
 
Next job was to construct a suitable unit to hold the LEDs and resistors. The bright white LEDs for the headlights were salvaged from a dead mini-torch thingy (battery had leaked), whilst the red LEDs were from my bits box. 1k resistors were used to limit the current, arranged so that only a single resistor was required for each pair of left and right white and red LED (only one of the pair will be lit at any given time of course). The components were mounted on a suitable strip of copper-clad stripboard, and the stripboard was then hot-glued into a slot cut in the original mounting braket for the light-guide. The top centre white LED and resistor have their own small stripboard unit hot-glued directly into place in the nose.

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The wires were then run back the the decoder. In order to power the lights in the trailer car from the decoder in the powered car, wiring was run all the way through and fitted with plugs and sockets. This required a couple of small holes to be drilled in the cylindrical pivot unit at the end of two of the cars. Another departure from my desire to be "non-destructive", but they're small and unobtrusive.

I used 4-way mini-DIN line plugs and sockets. These are perhaps a bit more bulky than some other alternatives that are available, but they were in my bits box and there's loads of room within the bodyshells to accommodate them! If ever I manage to track down some matching add-on cars it'll be easy to add through-wiring to these also.

At a later date I may want to run additional wiring to the trailer car and add more pickups, so I may upgrade to 8-way mini-DIN plugs.

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And that's about it, really. It works nicely. Obviously the wiring is arranged so that the headlights at one end and the tail lights at the other will swap over when the unit changes direction.

Funny how it's not until I took these close-ups of the two noses that I noticed the lining doesn't quite run true at one end!

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That is really clever ...
Many thanks for the very detailed information and especially the pic's - good stuff!
 
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