I have a Lionel GP9. Decided to take it apart. Maybe a mistake. But I got it back together. Here are some photos. The drive is one motor per truck as you can see. There is a gear on the end of the motor that drives a gear on the axle of the inner axle. on each truck. That same axle also has a pulley as well as the other axle has a pulley and a heavy rubber belt runs to the other axle to transfer power to make the truck powered on all wheels. as you can see there is a speaker and there is diesel sound although nothing spectacular. The couplers are truck mounted as are the end platforms. There is a lot of wiring and electronics. Some must be for the sound. What the rest is I don't now. I disconnected the motor and removed it and it is a 18 volt dc motor. I don't see why all the electronics couldn't be removed and run it straight from track power to the motors. There is a big ole weight in there. It has a lot of pulling power.
All the ones I have had apart (older) were 4 motors. each ran one axle only. Power board is completely different, too. Guess it depends on when it was made. With the 4 motors standing up, and those circuit board (one power board, one sound board) and at about 1:32, not much room for anything else. All axles powered? Rubber belt? Not the way they used to be. Worm and worm gear to each axle. Pull one motor per truck for space and power saving, they wouldn't pull very well at all. Dave
Regulated power for the sound system, and probably proper voltage for the lights. LGB had boards like that early on....5 volt regulators and dropping circuits. Lights (5V) came on before you moved...later on, sounds came on... The early Lionel ones drew so much power...especially with 4 motors...that some power pack manufacturers had specific warnings NOT to use them with Lionel. Cutting into those sound boards to allow "real time" control of horn and bell was...fun. But, we did it. I have the drawings saved somewhere in a file cabinet. Dave
