Most of the recent additions to the layout have been of an aural rather than visual nature - I've been bitten by the sound bug!

While living in the UK I attended many model railway exhibitions. At one of these was a small layout - probably not much more than six feet long - of a seaside quay scene with a little narrow gauge train running back and forth. What set it apart to me was not the modeling (which was superb in its own right) but rather the sound effects of the harbor complete with buoys, seagulls, even a couple of the lads arguing outside the pub. Ever since, I have tried - with various levels of success to incorporate sound effects into my layouts. Most of these attempts have involved some sort of background sound effects tape playing on the stereo. this was certainly less han ideal, but it was better than nothing. Recently however I have been able to include much more intricate sound effects to background sound generators and on-board sound decoders.

While searching for sound effects on line I stumbled onto Vectormdedia's "Atmosphere" programs (http://www.relaxingsoftware.com). They offer two programs - Atmosphere light and Atmosphere Deluxe. Designed to generate soothing sound effects for work PC's (if working in a thunderstorm is your cup of tea) these programs are installed on your PC and come with different sound effects that you can turn on and adjust the volume and frequency of each. They also include pre-set scenarios like "Riverbank", "Deep Forest", "Night Pond" and others. They have the added benefit that the sounds generated can be recorded onto your PC, then to a CD making the installation of a computer in the layout room unnecessary. Atmosphere Light (download at http://www.snapfiles.com/get/atmoslite.html) is available as a freeware product. Atmosphere Deluxe (which include more sounds and controls) is a purchase program at about $35.00 for a single license last I checked. They work great! I installed a couple old computer speakers under the upper level of the layout - one under the bridge south of Roscoe another just below the Junction Pool scene. A random combination of various stream and bird sounds adds just the right background noises. One word of cauion though - continous running water soudns can lead to additional un-scheduled "potty breaks" for your operators!

With natural sounds now covered, I've moved on to train sounds. Some of the biggest advancements in the last several years have been in the electronics that allow on-board sound systems on lcoomotives. Originally a "quiet" layout locomotive-wise, the peace was shattered one night when Ted Culotta brought over his sound-equiped Life Like 0-8-0 and asked of he could run it on the local. I should have said no. Once I'd experienced all the bells and whistles there was no going back.

Being on a limited budget as always I decided to play with a couple different sound decoders before converting the whole fleet. As a result, I purchased two different decoders to explore the possibilities of each. At the low end of the cost spectrum I picked up a couple Soundtraxx "Generic diesel" decoder. At the higher end I bought an MRC "Sheer Brilliance" decoder. All are now in units and happily running around the layout, making all the other non-sound units seem lacking. In addition, I've had the chance to play around with a number of factory sound-equiped locos on my layout and others. This admittedly limited experience has lead me to a couple of conclusions.

First and foremost (for me) - keep the volume low! In a space as small as my layout it is a short jump from neat sound effects to an incessant din. By playing with the settings in the Atmosphere program I keep the volume on the scenic sounds down enough that you need to be within a couple feet of the speakers to hear the water sounds. The bird, cicada (it is summer on my layout) and wind noises are all muted enough to be noticeable if you listen for them, but not overpowering. The same holds true for the locomotive sounds. I have found a volume setting on the Soundtraxx units that allows you to hear the locomotive clearly when its near to you, but allow it to fade into the distance when its on the "far" side of the layout (only a few feet in reality), which is as it should be. In fact, the only complaint I have with the MRC decoders is the fact that the lowest volume setting is still too loud for where I would like it. I'm still working on that. If you happen to buy a Broadway Limited or Life-Like engine with factory sound, make reducing the volume setting your first move when you put it on the layout!

Second - Realize the limitations of small scale sound. No sound decoder playing through a one inch speaker is going to be able to reproduce the booming rumble you feel standing next to a prototype diesel. Nor - in my opinion anyway - would you want it to (see comment #1). What sound effects do best on my layout is add another layer of detail and believability to the scene, they are not meant to stand on their own. Along these lines - while I can notice the difference between an Alco and EMD sound decoder and can tell the difference between a single chime and a five-chime horn, once the loco is on the layout and the volume at a comfortable setting the rest of the sounds can tend to get lost. Also, having now run a few sessions with sound locos I've noticed that the operators tend to use only the horn and bell switches and not the coupler clank, blow off, or other neat effects in some of the decoders. For this reason I question whether for my requirements I need all the additional features of some of the high-end (and expensive) sound decoders or whether the less expensive fleet decoders will work just as well. Time will tell....