EFE London Underground - dual-end sound with twin speakers, stay-alive and populated

Kit: MX645PluX22; SugarCube24X15X09; 3x 470uF Tall Tantalums; Passengers, Drivers (all x2)

Bachmann's EFE recreation of the 1938 London Underground stock is something a little different from the norm. Detailing is great - especially inside - there are even Tube maps and adverts printed on the underside of the roof, just like the real thing!

The model comes with a PluX22 socket at each motor end, with electrical couplings from that end to the next car, then an insulated coupling to join the 2 centre coaches. Bachmann's PluX22 PCB socket board is excellent, with solder pads for everything you're likely to want, so you can add more lighting features if you fancy that. However, there is only interior lighting fitted to this model from the factory.

A well for a 15x11mm Sticky Gasket speaker is provided, so if you don't care about having much volume, this offers a simple solution for sound fitting.

However, we found this speaker far too quiet to be worthwhile, so we go on the hunt for other options... there is precious little space under the seating mould, so cannot put anything hidden in there.

Instead, we hatch a plan to sink a decent 9mm dual SugarCube24X15 into the floor, so cut out a rectangular aperture for it.

To avoid the speaker fouling on the drive shaft, we make shims for feet on either side - little bits of plastic with some double-sided tape.

Some neat filing and this fits a treat.

That's the sound sorted (at both ends), but we found the model to be disappointingly light-weight, so a little stay-alive is needed to help with this. We connect 3 of our 470uF Tall Tantalums in parallel, pop them into the original speaker well, and connect directly to the MX645PluX22 decoder's stay-alive pads. Just enough stay-alive to make a difference.

Young Tom gets to be driver, though his legs get chopped off (not shown) otherwise the body won't go back on!

Exactly the same treatment at the other end...

Passengers added throughout...

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