Need help understanding what I have

[gwill65074]

I recently bought a 2-8-2 at a garage sale thinking about getting started in HO. The loco runs, but a little spotty, so I decided to figure out how to open it and try cleaning and oiling it. After I figured that out I saw three electrical connections on the back where the engineer would be. My son said maybe it's dcc ready, whatever that is. He looked at the bottom of the tender and found it had hole in it for speakers but he can't figure out how to open it. Can someone look at the pictures and tell me what I have and what the electrical connections are for? I tried looking at the pictures of 2-8-2's in the parts and diagram sections and don't see anything that helps. The last train I had was 67 years ago.
I've tried for over an hour to post pictures without any luck,I don't understand the process here I guess.
What I have is a 2-8-2 that has 3 electrical prongs coming out of the back of the loco, the are not round, they are flat. Any ideas?

[Quentin]

Ok, so what brand is the loco? Bachmann, Walthers, Rivarossi, Athearn, etc?

Pictures can be interesting to post here. I still haven't figured it out and I've been here since 2020.

It doesn't sound like a Bachmann, with the speaker holes in the tender. Maybe if you DM me, I can give you my email and you can email me the pictures. Whatever you want. I have a 2-8-2 here at home, so maybe I can help.

Quentin

[trainman203]

Bachmann steam engine tenders have had holes in the tender floor, and other provisions for sound, for quite a long time now.  There are lots of older ones that pre-date the on board sound installation period, before the mid 2000s, they do not have such holes in the tender floor. These engines are seen all the time on eBay, some sellers have enough understanding to photograph the bottom of the tender clearly enough that you can see the holes if they are there. Engines that have the floor holes are referred to as "DCC ready," meaning that the decoder and speaker will largely be a drop-in process.

I always tell people.  Beware of used model locomotives.  You don't know what kinds of abuse they may have suffered. Being run at 150 scale miles per hour for years, being used to brain the little sister, there's just no telling what they've been through. Most people also don't understand that repair parts for these engines are almost always not available. Bachmann is a real exception to this, but few others, good luck, they won't be there.

[Terry Toenges]

You have to post your pictures on another site that accepts pictures. Then you have to copy that link.  Then open the blue picture box above and past the link in there. I use Facebook to post my pics there first. There are other sites where you can pics.