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How to Build Your Own Model Railroad Sound Effects

A model railroad can be as realistic or as imaginary as the builder would like it to appear. Some model railroads are so realistic they contain sound effects that even make it sound as if the railroad is real. However, these sound systems can be expensive to purchase and implement into your model railroad. If you want to implement railroad sounds into your model railroad, create your own sound recordings and pipe them into your model railroad to create a more realistic display.

Things You'll Need

Digital recorder
CD-burner
Audio editing software
CD players
2-watt to 5-watt speakers

Instructions

- 1
  Record sounds you want to use with your layout onto a digital recorder. If you have access to a train yard or train museum that runs trains, ask someone to run some trains so you can capture real train sounds. Record the sounds of safety gates, bells, whistles and track noises. If you want other sounds, such as birds, airplanes, cars or people, record those as well.
- 2
  Transfer your sounds onto your computer so you can create CDs of the sounds.
- 3
  Use audio editing software to cut and paste your sounds into sections. For instance, keep the railroad crossing sounds together and general operating sounds together.
- 4
  Burn the sounds onto one or more CDs depending on how you plan to set up your sound system. For instance, if you only want certain sounds to play in specific locations, burn them onto separate CDs.
- 5
  Place one or more CD players underneath your train layout near the location where you want the sound to occur. Run small speakers from the headphone jack on the CD players and hide them on your layout so no one can see them.
- 6
  Play the CDs on a loop so the sounds repeat themselves. The longer the loops are, the less obvious it is that you are playing a loop and the more natural the sounds seem.

Model Railroads