Problems With Some New Scale Trains GP40s With ESU Factory Sound

On the LokSoundUsers group of the groups.io forum user verberkmoesk reported a problem has come up with some of these locomotives. He said:

This topic has been covered before, however this is a slightly different issue I think.  I recently purchased a scale trains GP40 with factory sound. Now I have learned from experience and this forum that the power pack can cause problems with programing.  I first encountered this with my rapido GP38's. I use the lok-programmer.  My practice has been to start by making sure the capacitors have had time to fully discharge.  I then put the locomotive on the programming track.  I make all the changes I want and then hit the program button.  If I need to make more changes I make sure the capacitors are discharged before doing anything further.(usually necessary after I test the changes made).

 

In this case, when I first tried the locomotive on the layout, I didn't have my laptop handy and made a few changes by programming on the main.  Mostly just selecting a horn and adjusting some of the volume settings.  Usually, single CV programming hasn't caused issues.

 

Later, I put the locomotive on the programmer to set it up how I like it and immediately noticed an issue as it took an excessively long time to read the CV's.  it finally did, however, when I made my setting changes and tried to program I got an error message.  I forget the exact message but something along the lines of unable to program.  

The weird thing is the locomotive runs fine on the layout and still lets me make individual CV changes like selecting a different horn.  But I can't seem to use the programmer.  

Has anyone else had this issue specifically?  Any suggestions?

Another user, William Warren, replied with the following information:

Hi, I received 4 ST GP40’s that had the same issue that you are having. 

I called ST and talked to Josh in customer service. The solution is a simple fix.

Remove the couplers and lift the shell off the chassis and look for the dip switch’s next to the decoder. Remove the kapton tape and pull the switch’s down. 

Put the shell back on and the couplers on and you should be good to go.

Josh told me that a number of GP40’s shipped from the factory with the dip switch’s in the wrong position. One extra note. If one of your units is a BN unit be careful. It has 2 wires for the gyro light and the red flashing beacon attached to the M\B (a short leash).

Hope this helps.

William 

So if anyone reading this has had similar problems (it is isolated to ESU decoders only), try this fix first.

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LokProgrammer v 5.2.17 Released By ESU 2026-02-05

A little late with this one but this appears to be solely a bug fix update.

Version 5.2.17:

==============

- Bugfix:

  * ESU digital interior light 2.0

    - new firmware version 5.1.8 -> buffer time was too low when PowerPack capacitor was installed. 

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Woodland Scenics New Just Plug Sound System

This author hates to bring this to the forefront of model railroading this soon but the implications are excellent! Woodland Scenics has just mentioned that they are bringing a sound system to the model railroad layout world for background sounds based on the Just Plug system they have for layout lighting. This is just about all they have said.

There is a short (36 sec) YouTube video that they call a teaser (and it is) located here.

If this system turns out to be as good as their JustPlug lighting system, this author IS IN! His entire layout utilizes the JustPlug lighting system and it only took two days to wire the complete thing!

He knows he's getting ahead of himself but the only thing he is curious about is whether or not the system will have a control unit of some sort to turn sound on or off. With their lighing system you control everything by on/off switches.

Time will tell and he will update this article as things progress.

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LokProgrammer v 5.2.16 Released By ESU 2025-12-22

 LokProgrammer v5.2.16 has been released:

Version 5.2.16:
____________
Bugfix

•  LokPilot 5 Basic -> Write CV
•  LokSound 5 XL  -> Output mode (effect) - External controlled smoke unit - ESU Smoke Unit (Gauge 0, G)

Soundeditor

•  Sound schedule -> containers can only be deleted if all associated container tabs are closed

Tools

•  New menu item - Show project differences -> window for project differences

LokSound 5 family / LokPilot 5 family / Essential Sound Unit

•   new firmware version 5.13
  

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Atlas' eBay Store

The Atlas Model Railroad Company has an eBay sight located here. It is full of parts, listed by part number and name, along with various new old rolling stock. If you need a part, enter the part number in the search box and if it is available it will immediately appear. 

The rolling stock consists of new old stock items that were previously for sale. The author purchased a 33,000 gal. tank car from this eBay site (see figure 1).

Figure 1 The 33,000 gallon tank car

He also looked up this car on the Atlas Archive site by first searching for 33,000 and then the car road number 34237. There is a blog article concerning this site located here. The search showed that this car was produced in April of 2012 and the original price was $34.95. Since he paid $25.00 for the car it was a decent deal. One thing though, the author has purchased several pieces of their rolling stock and none of them came in the original box. They arrived in the original interior packaging only as shown in figure 1.

So if you are at a train show and see a model railroader running an older Atlas car you would like to have, look it up on their eBay web site. You never know, they may have one.

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