I run a freelanced railroad, the Virginia & Alleghenny (reportign marks V&AL). It is a combination of the PRR, VGN, and WWII era Pittsburgh regional coal hauler. I wanted to add commuter service, so I came up with PACE. I’m workign on a paint scheme using Big Sky Blue and Cascade Green. My equipment includes an Athearn FP-45 and 5 Walthers double deck commuter cars (1 is a cab car). I want to wire up both the loco and cab car with appropriate lighting for push-pull service: Headlights, ditch lights, and beacon on the lead unit, and red lights on the trailing unit. My layout is Standard DC, I plan to upgrade to DCC… eventually. My local club layout is standard DC as well. I occasionally run with the PaperValley RR club in Appleton, WI. They use DCC. What would y’all suggest I do? seperate decoders for both the loco and cab car? an analog system that uses a switch of some sort? a single decoder wired through the entire train? can an DCC lighting system be made to work on a analog layout? what’s my msot cost effective option?
I also was wondering how to light a cab car. I would use a Decoder appropriate for your engine, and put a function only decoder in the cab car. You have to program them to the same address, never program them when they are both on the track though if you use this idea. Program the engines decoder for ditch ligths when going forward and any other things you want. Take the engine off the track and put the cab car on the track. Program the cab car to have ditch lights and other fx in REVERSE ONLY. Then put the engine and cab car on the track and test run it. if you have to make a change make sure only one of the decoders is on the track at the same time.
Use 2 decoders. One in the engine, and one in the cab car to control the headlight/ditch lights/beacons. The wiring through the train will be a nightmare. As far as car lighting, you can use a constant lighting circuit for the car lights. Just be aware that DCC puts a higher voltage on the rails that DC. If your constant lighting circuit will handle that, you are OK. The Walthers Bilevel Car Lighting Kit (#933-1058) should work on both DCC and DC.