The Soundtraxx DSX sound only decoder is ideal to fit in the tender of almost all Hornby steam loco’s. The Decoder I chose was the L1 British tank with the round 3/4“ speaker and speaker box. Leaving the Hornby tender coupling in place, the fitment of the decoder only requires a couple of simple soldered joints. The quality of sound is superb and can easily customised to the loco concerned. There is only one permutation of whistle, but in the majority of loco’s it’s adequate. This is the sequence involved in installation.

Above left the components 3/4“ speaker and box which needs to be assembled. With some locos there is limited space in the tender, in the West country a slot needs to be cut 10 mm wide to fit the decoder into the tender.

Saw the chain drilling to create the slot for the sound decoder, the picture on the left show the decoder slid home into the slot.

The R/H picture shows the speaker assembly note there is a capacitor fitted to one speaker pole. The red and black wires are soldered to the tender pickup’s.

Above Right, the speaker is epoxyed into the housing. Left the general assembly,

Using the above method its quite feasible to fit sound in the Q1 which has a restricted tender. This works very well as I now have one running. I think its possible to fit a small speaker in the Fowler tank.