Thanks for the responses .. particularly the link with photos of a similar install.
I need to be careful. This is obviously a rabbit hole. If I do one, what do I do about the rest ?
It’s a rabbit hole I have dived down into. Yes, it gets expensive.
Here is a resume of my experience which you may find useful to consider.
I started with making a few n scale sound cars, in 50’ boxcars and a Kato baggage car using econami 100 decoders and consisted these to non sound dcc locos. It is a less expensive solution than putting sound in every loco and they sound really good too as you can get a pretty big 14x26mm speaker in the boxcars and baggage car. The econamis also have several different prime mover sound files on them, so you can change from a GE FDL to an EMD for example. I still have them and use them regularly with my non sound locos. Streamline back shops has a instruction on how to make them and the bits and pieces you will need. This maybe something for you to consider if you want sound on a budget and run only a few locos at a time. I made a sound car out of a sound only decoder, the digitrax sfx006. I still have this too but the digitrax sound is inferior to the econami’s and the loksound. I then ventured further with MRC drop in sound decoders, on an atlas gp35, kato E8/9 and Kato F7A. I was initially happy with these but after a while I changed out the crappy speakers, costs about $10 each. I was then happy a little while longer bit then got my first loksound. In short I have slowly loksounded most of my locos now but I still use the econami sound cars with my non sound locos. I sold all my MRC drop in sound decoder locos due to inferior sound and really crappy speed control.
Having too many different brand decoders can be a bit of a PITA too, with trying to remember each makers various differences and speed matching etc.
Hope this experience may help you
