New pics of an as-yet-undocumented 1990 Trainwreck Express!

[hairyandy]

Hey all,

I posted a link to some internal and external pics that I took of an as-yet-undocumented 1990 Trainwreck Express in the Trainwreck Files section here.

The owner of this pristine Express asked to remain unnamed. The amp itself, ironically, is unnamed as well. Evidently it was sold by Ken to a friend who was on the waiting list for an Express at that time. The story I was told was that the amp suffered from parasitic oscillation when Ken first fired it up and that he was going to scrap it and start over. His friend, supposedly a respected amp technician as well, persuaded Ken to let him have it and solve the issue himself rather than keep waiting on his rapidly lengthening list. Supposedly an out-of-spec resistor was the culprit and that was the only change made which fixed it. This is all that I was told about this amp by the owner who had made contact with Ken who had confirmed this supposedly. Regardless of it's history, we've got another great example of Ken's genius to learn from.

As I said before, the owner of this amp has asked to remain anonymous but he was gracious enough to let me take it apart and take pictures of it for our edification. He does lurk here on the forum occasionally so maybe he'll pop in and add any info that I forgot or got wrong.

This amp sounds amazing! I was mainly curious at first as to how close my Paul Ruby Express clone sounds to an original and now I know. When I first fired up this 1990 Express through his early-70's Marshall 4x12 it was just like plugging into my Paul Ruby-made clone. I was extremely happy as this was the first real Express that I have ever seen, let alone played through and my amp nails it to a T. Thanks again Paul!

I hope you all dig these pictures and I hope that they continue to shed some light on these amazing amps that Ken blessed us with. The ZIP file containing the pics is about 103MB. It took me a little bit of tinkering to find the best setting on my camera so I had lots of duplicate shots, but I included them all in an effort to be as complete as possible.

Thanks guys,

Andy Harrison

[img:600:450]http://www.andyharrison.net/files/1990trainwreck.jpg[/img]

[smokin' tone]

Hi Andy. Thanks for sharing. This one is very interesting to see. Seems there are quite a few differences when comparing to the Francesca pics. I noticed the grid stopper on the second stage. I wonder if that was also added afterwards to help cure the oscillation.

[HiGain]

Thank you for sharing!!!

Very interesting pics. Slightly different layout on the PS, and lead dress.

Good to hear about Paul's amp too!

Jake

[lastwinj]

saw the pics. oooks like a heyboer power tranny. notice the varnish glob. classic heyboer.

germ

[doctord02]

Nice pics Andy, thanks for posting. I could swear I've seen pics of the faceplate engraving on this one several times... Wonder if those Pacific OT numbers match up with what Two-Rock was putting in their Ruby's? Does anyone have that info offhand?

[HiGain]

Nice pics Andy, thanks for posting. I could swear I've seen pics of the faceplate engraving on this one several times... Wonder if those Pacific OT numbers match up with what Two-Rock was putting in their Ruby's? Does anyone have that info offhand?

The Two Rock trannies are: PT 25475 and OT 25525.

BTW, last I checked, you could still get these from Pacific.

Jake

[pbrommer]

Like everyone else: Thanks for all the pictures. Super nice of you to share with all here.

Patrick

[Jackie Treehorn]

Interesting. The 2 Heyboer 5.2k output transformers I have are both labeled 11415...

[Omar]

Thanks for the pics, Andy. I wonder if this is a David Funk built amp? It has the same type of board material as the picture on the ThunderFunk website.

Omar

PS - Go Bucks!

[hairyandy]

Thanks for the pics, Andy. I wonder if this is a David Funk built amp? It has the same type of board material as the picture on the ThunderFunk website.

Omar

PS - Go Bucks!

Omar,

Anything is possible but I'm pretty sure that this amp was built by Ken. The owner had made contact with Ken who, he said, confirmed the circumstances that I related in my post about it's conception.

I'm glad that you guys dig the pics and I'm glad that I could finally contribute something to the forum! I plan on diving in the TW-building waters this spring so I'm sure I'll wear you all out with my questions then.

Rock on and definitely GO BUCKS!!!

Andy