I'm really surprised no one posted anything on this thread?

But I did find the problem with my new Hudson. It appears that the manufacture (China) does a poor job putting the shrink wrap on the stream engines draw bar. When the sound stopped I looked up what supported the sound. Then looked the engine over. I even removed the engines casting. That's when I saw a black wire that was under the back end of the engine near the draw bar. I'm a wizard with the soldering iron and sense we are talking about one wire how could I go wrong. I removed the lose shrink wrap and to my surprise there where three wires lose? Wonder what wire goes where. Looked at the drawing on the Lionel home page and saw that the replacement part is unavailable? Only $ 6.50 but not available! Could not get anyone on Lionel's support line. Thought I'd try the next day.

I'm all ways a mess when one of my toys is broken.  I could not stop think about the problem all night. About 2 AM I got up and removed the casting from the tender. Then the light bulb came on. The tender has both orange wires soldered to the outside on the tenders draw bar. Then the two black wires are soldered on the two inside on the draw bar. The orange wires go to the speaker and the black wires go to the coupler on the tender. One orange wire was still attached on the engines draw bar. So I soldered the orange lose wire on the outside and two black wires on the inside of the engines draw bar. There are only four places to solder the wires. I placed some electrical  on top of the engines draw bar so it would not short out on the engines frame. Went to the garage for the test. The sound works and the coupler works. I went back in the house to apply some shrink wrap so I would not have another failure. I'm so proud of me.

I have my new LionChief Plus Hudson back in order again and ready for another early morning run?

jack